AI Rain lashed the narrow front window of The Raven's Nest, distorting the frantic Soho traffic into smeared streaks of yellow and red. The bar was dimly lit and smelled of stale beer, damp wool, and the faint, citrusy tang of floor wax. Above the entrance, a distinctive green neon sign shaped like a bird in flight buzzed with a weak, erratic rhythm. Every few seconds, it cast a sickly emerald pallor across the varnished mahogany counter.
Aurora Carter sat on a corner stool, staring into a half-empty glass of soda water. Her straight, shoulder-length black hair was still damp from the evening downpour. She rolled the chilled glass between her palms, welcoming the bite of the cold glass against her skin. She had just finished a brutal eight-hour shift navigating the slick, treacherous London streets on a battered bicycle, ferrying insulated bags of dumplings and roast duck for Yu-Fei Cheung's Golden Empress. Her calves ached, and her shoulders carried the heavy, settled fatigue of manual labor. It was a far cry from the life of a respectable barrister her Irish father had expected her to lead, but the exhaustion was honest. It kept her mind quiet.
Behind the bar, Silas Blackwood moved with measured purpose. At fifty-eight, he possessed a quiet, unyielding authority that required no demand for attention. His hazel eyes cataloged every patron, every shadow, every shift in the room's atmosphere. He favored his left leg as he walked, leaning slightly to accommodate an old knee injury from a botched intelligence operation in Prague. With a damp linen cloth, he wiped down the counter near Aurora. As his hand moved in smooth, rhythmic circles, the heavy silver signet ring he always wore on his right hand clinked softly against the wood. It was a comforting sound. She lived in the tiny flat just above the bar, and Silas was the closest thing she had to a guardian in this sprawling, indifferent city.
The heavy wooden front door groaned open, letting in a sudden gust of wet wind and the roar of the street.
Aurora did not immediately look up. She kept her bright blue eyes fixed on the lime wedge bobbing in her glass. But Silas paused his wiping. He straightened his six-foot-one frame, his posture shifting into something subtly defensive. His grey-streaked auburn hair and matching, neatly trimmed beard caught the neon light as he looked toward the entrance.
Footsteps approached the bar. They were sharp, staccato clicks of expensive heels against the floorboards, a sound that entirely belonged to the corporate districts of the city and not to this haven of old maps and black-and-white photographs that lined the shadow-drenched walls.
"A gin and tonic, please," a woman said. "Hendrick's, if you have it."
The voice struck the base of Aurora's spine like a physical blow. It was a voice from another lifetime, stripped of its formerly thick Welsh lilt , polished into something smooth and anonymous, but entirely recognizable.
Aurora turned her head.
The woman standing a few feet away was brushing rainwater from the shoulders of a pristine , camel-colored trench coat. She wore a tailored charcoal pantsuit that draped flawlessly, speaking of heavy paychecks and billable hours. Her hair was pulled back into a severe, elegant knot. But the face beneath the harsh green glow of the neon sign belonged to Eva.
For a long moment, neither spoke. The background noise of the bar faded into a dull, rushing static. Aurora felt a sudden, irrational urge to bolt, her eyes darting briefly toward the antique bookshelf against the far wall. She knew the secret hidden room behind it, knew the lever concealed in the woodwork. She could disappear in an instant, just as she had out of Cardiff.
Eva stopped brushing her coat. Her hands froze mid-air. She looked at Aurora, her eyes widening in a slow, fragmented shock.
"Rory?" Eva whispered.
Aurora swallowed the dryness in her throat. She offered a small, rigid nod. "Hello, Eva."
Eva took a step closer, leaving her expensive leather handbag softly upon the next barstool. The childhood friend who had stood roaring drunk on a tabletop in a Cardiff pub, the girl who had fiercely packed Aurora's bags and shoved her toward the train station, was gone . In her place stood a stranger armored in corporate steel. Yet, beneath the immaculate makeup, Eva looked utterly hollowed out. There were tight, exhausted lines bracketing her mouth.
Silas returned, placing a highball glass full of ice and gin in front of Eva. He did not ask for payment. He cast a long, calculated glance at Aurora, reading the profound tension in her shoulders. With a slight tilt of his head, a silent offer of intervention, he waited. Aurora gave him a microscopic shake of the head. Silas nodded once, wiped down an already clean spot on the bar, and slowly limped away toward the far end to give them privacy.
Eva sat down. She did not touch her drink. "I thought I was hallucinating," she said, her voice unsteady . "I come up to London for a massive merger dispute, walk into the first quiet pub I can find to escape my partners, and here you are. Half a decade later."
"It's a small island," Aurora said softly .
"You cut your hair," Eva noted, her gaze tracing the straight black lines bordering Aurora's face . "And you look... you look so tired."
"I deliver food. For a Chinese restaurant down in Chinatown," Aurora said, presenting the fact bluntly, waiting for the judgment. "It pays the rent."
Eva flinched. She looked down at her own immaculate, manicured hands. "You were top of our Pre-Law cohort, Rory. You had a mind like a steel trap. Out-of-the-box, the professors said. You could run circles around the rest of us."
"I didn't want to run circles around anyone anymore. I just wanted to stop running." Aurora's right hand moved automatically to her left wrist. Her thumb found the small, crescent-shaped scar there, the phantom of a childhood accident where she had slipped on wet rocks by a river. She pressed her thumb into the old tissue, grounding herself in the physical sensation.
"We thought you were dead, you know," Eva said. Her voice dropped to a near whisper , lacking any anger, carrying only the heavy, suffocating weight of grief. "For the first six months. You threw away your phone. You didn't write. I went to your mother. Jennifer was out of her mind. Even Brendan stopped caring about your grades and just wanted to know if they had to dredge the Thames."
Aurora looked away, fixing her bright blue eyes on a framed black-and-white photograph of London during the Blitz hanging on the opposite wall. The smoke, the rubble, the survival. "You knew why I had to go. You were the one who told me to run."
"I told you to get away from Evan," Eva corrected, her tone breaking slightly . "I didn't tell you to erase yourself from the earth."
"Evan had a long reach. And his family had money." Aurora kept rubbing the crescent scar. "If I had stayed in touch with you, he would have found you to get to me. I severed the limb to save the body, Eva. It was the only way."
"Evan got drunk and wrapped his father's sports car around a lamppost three years ago," Eva said flatly. "He's paralyzed from the waist down. He can't reach anyone anymore."
The words hit Aurora squarely in the chest. A ghost she had been outrunning for five years, suddenly rendered powerless by wet tarmac and a streetlight. She exhaled, a long, shaky breath, letting her hands fall flat onto the mahogany counter. All the nights she had spent checking the locks, watching the shadows outside The Raven's Nest, scanning the faces of strangers while making deliveries. Five years of hyper-vigilance, and the monster had been declawed three years ago.
"You should have called," Eva whispered. "You should have come home."
"I have a home," Aurora said, though her voice lacked its usual cool-headed certainty .
Eva looked around the dimly lit bar, observing the scuffed floors, the flickering neon sign, the quiet man with the limp wiping glasses at the far end. Then she looked at Aurora's clothes, the worn denim and the faded waterproof jacket smelling faintly of peanut oil and rain.
"I finished the degree," Eva said, staring into her untouched gin. "I passed the bar. I joined a firm. I wear these awful suits and I argue over contract loopholes for people who destroy the environment for a living. I do exactly what Brendan Carter would have wanted you to do."
"Do you hate it?"
"I despise it," Eva said, a grim, brittle smile touching her lips. "I thought if I pushed myself hard enough, I could make up for the fact that my best friend disappeared. I thought I had to succeed for both of us."
The unspoken regret pooled between them, thick and cold. Aurora realized the tragic irony. She had fled to escape a cage, only to build a smaller one out of anonymity and paranoia. Eva had stayed in the light, only to build a cage out of obligation and guilt. The wild, brilliant girls who had shared cheap cider and grand dreams in Cardiff were completely gone, replaced by these two guarded, exhausted women.
"I am sorry," Aurora said finally. The apology tasted sharp, drawn from deep within her ribs. "I really am, Eva. I thought I was protecting you."
Eva slowly reached out and covered Aurora's hand with her own. Eva's hand was freezing.
"I know," Eva said. "You were always too clever for your own good. Always thinking ten steps ahead." She pulled her hand back, picking up her leather bag and slipping the strap over her shoulder. She did not touch the drink.
"You're leaving?" Aurora asked.
"My colleagues are waiting for me at a hotel. We have to prepare briefs for the morning." Eva stood, pulling her trench coat tighter around herself. She looked down at Aurora, her expression softening into something devastatingly sad. "It was good to see you, Rory. I am glad you are alive."
Eva did not ask for a phone number. She did not ask where exactly Aurora lived or how to reach her again. They both knew the bridge between them had burned down a long time ago, and the river of time had washed away the ashes.
"Goodbye, Eva," Aurora murmured.
Eva turned and walked toward the entrance. The heavy wooden door opened, admitting another roar of Soho traffic and a blast of wet wind, and then shut with a dull thud.
Aurora sat perfectly still in the quiet that followed. She stared at the full glass of gin left on the counter. The ice shifted, making a quiet, cracking sound.
From the shadows at the end of the bar, Silas slowly made his way back over. The faint, uneven scuff of his left shoe accompanied the steady rhythm of his stride. He stopped in front of her, his hazel eyes resting gently on her face. He did not ask who the woman was. He did not offer empty platitudes. In a life built around secrets, Silas understood the anatomy of ghosts.
He reached out, his silver signet ring flashing under the green neon glare, and pulled Eva's untouched glass of gin across the wood.
"Let it go, kid," Silas said quietly, his deep voice rolling like thunder in the distance . "You're here now."
Aurora looked at the old MI6 operator, feeling the deep ache in her bones from the bicycle, from the cold, and from the past. She nodded slowly , letting go of the crescent scar on her wrist. She picked up her soda water, took a long, slow drink, and listened to the steady drumming of the rain against the glass.