Run: 2026-02-19-01KHV72HMZ8ATRVVB4HX0X85EM

The Raven's Nest was quiet on Tuesday evenings. Not dead — it never quite managed dead — but quiet enough that the jukebox in the corner was audible, some old Fleetwood Mac record that Silas kept in rotation because he claimed it was good for business and refused to elaborate on what that meant. A couple of regulars occupied the far end of the bar, their shoulders curved inward over their pints in that way people held themselves when they weren't looking for company. Rory had taken up her usual spot on the stool nearest the door. Not out of habit, exactly, but because she liked the draught that crept in whenever someone entered, cool against her neck after an evening of deliveries. Her jacket was still on. Her helmet sat on the bar beside her half-eaten bowl of chips, and Silas had stopped giving her grief about the helmet weeks ago, which she took as a sign that they'd reached a comfortable arrangement. She was picking at a particularly stubborn chip when the door opened. The draught came in, as expected. What she didn't expect was the woman who came with it. Rory recognised her in the way you recognise a word you've forgotten how to pronounce — the shape of it familiar, the sound just slightly wrong. Tall. Natural hair pulled back now, where it used to float loose around her shoulders. A coat that cost more than Rory's monthly rent, cut clean at the knee. The posture was different too. Something deliberate about the way she carried herself, like she'd learned to take up exactly the amount of space she intended and not an inch more. It took a full three seconds before the name arrived. "Priya." The woman's eyes tracked across the bar with the automatic assessment of someone who'd trained herself to clock exits before she clocked faces. Then she landed on Rory, and whatever calculation she'd been running visibly paused. "Rory Carter." Not a question. Not quite a greeting either. Something in between. Silas appeared from the back with a glass in hand, read the room the way he always did, and set the glass down without comment. He moved toward the regulars at the far end with the unhurried authority of a man who understood when not to be present. Priya crossed the bar. She didn't rush it. She stopped just short of the stool beside Rory's helmet and looked at it pointedly. "Sorry." Rory moved it to the floor. "Sit down." "You still ride?" "Deliver, technically." She gestured vaguely at herself — the jacket, the courier bag slouched against the bar leg. "Golden Empress. Yu-Fei's place." Something crossed Priya's face. Not pity exactly, but its more careful cousin. "Right." "Don't." "I didn't say anything." "You were going to." Priya sat. She flagged Silas with a small lift of her hand, and he came back without being called twice, which meant he'd been watching. He was always watching. "What can I get you?" "Hendrick's, if you have it. Tonic. Cucumber if it's fresh." "It's fresh." She nodded once, like this was satisfactory, and Silas went to pour it. Rory watched her profile. The angles were the same. The jaw, the way her brow sat low when she was thinking. But there was a flatness behind it now that Rory couldn't quite name. "You look different," Rory said. "Seven years." "That's not what I mean." Priya turned to look at her then, fully. Her eyes hadn't changed — dark, steady, the kind that made you feel like you were being read rather than seen. "I know what you mean." Silas set the gin down. Priya wrapped both hands around it, didn't drink yet. "You're still in London," she said. "I thought you'd have gone back to Cardiff by now. After —" She stopped. "After Evan?" "I wasn't going to say his name." "Apparently no one wants to." Rory pulled a chip from the bowl and didn't eat it. "No, I didn't go back. Eva talked me into staying. I stayed." "How is Eva?" "Married. Sutton. Two kids. She sends voice messages that are eight minutes long and always start with 'quick one'." The corner of Priya's mouth moved. Almost a smile. "And you?" Rory asked. "Where did you end up?" "Brussels, mainly. Some time in Singapore. I'm back now. Indefinitely, they tell me." "They." "The firm." Rory looked at her. Priya had always been vague about the firm, back in Cardiff. International consultancy, she'd say, with a smile that acknowledged the vagueness without apologising for it. Rory had stopped asking after the third time. "You like Brussels?" "It's efficient." "Right." Rory finally ate the chip. It had gone cold. "That sounds like you." "What does that mean?" "It means Brussels is efficient and so are you. I'm not having a go." Priya took a slow sip of the gin. Set it down. Her thumbnail traced a small arc on the condensation. "I sent you a message," she said. "After the thing with Evan. When Eva told me what happened. I sent you a message and you didn't reply." "I know." "I'm not — I'm not bringing it up to make you feel guilty." "I know that too." Rory turned the helmet on the floor with the toe of her boot, a slow rotation. "I was in a strange place. I wasn't replying to much." "I just wanted you to know someone was —" Priya stopped again. She had a habit of that now, Rory noticed. Starting sentences and then deciding against them. "It doesn't matter." "It does, though." Rory looked at her properly. "I'm sorry I didn't write back. I'm not saying that because it's the right thing to say. I'm genuinely sorry." Priya held her gaze for a moment, then looked back at her drink. Fleetwood Mac drifted over the low murmur of the bar. One of the regulars at the far end laughed at something, a brief rough sound, and then it was quiet again. "This place is strange," Priya said. She turned on her stool to take in the maps on the walls, the photographs in their mismatched frames. "It feels like someone who's been a lot of places trying to forget all of them." "That's the owner, actually." "You know him?" "I live upstairs." Priya looked at her. Then at the ceiling. Then back. "Of course you do."