Run: 2026-02-20-01KHXQBSEG7MNE01YT8J5ZFBVP

The Raven’s Nest smelled of aged whiskey and polished wood, the kind of scent that clung to the walls like a second skin. Rory had been coming here for months, ever since she’d fled Cardiff, but tonight the bar felt different—smaller, somehow, as if the years had pressed in around her. She sat at her usual corner table, nursing a gin and tonic, the ice long melted into something watery and weak. The green neon sign outside cast a sickly glow through the rain-streaked windows, painting the room in shifting shades of emerald. She hadn’t expected to see him. The door swung open, and the bell above it chimed, a sound so familiar it barely registered. But then the air shifted, thickened, and Rory looked up from her drink just as Silas Blackwood stepped inside. He moved with the same deliberate grace she remembered, though his limp was more pronounced now, his auburn hair streaked with silver where it had once been rich and dark. He paused just inside the threshold, shaking the rain from his coat, and for a heartbeat, neither of them spoke. Then his hazel eyes found hers. Rory’s fingers tightened around her glass. She hadn’t seen him in—what? Five years? Six? The last time had been at her father’s funeral, when Silas had shown up unannounced, his presence a quiet weight in the back of the church. He’d left before the wake, slipping out like a shadow, and she’d told herself it was for the best. Some doors were better left closed. But now he was here. Silas crossed the room in slow, measured steps, his signet ring glinting under the dim light. He stopped at her table, his expression unreadable. “Rory,” he said, and the sound of her name in his voice sent a jolt through her, sharp and unexpected. “Silas.” She managed a smile, though it felt brittle. “I didn’t know you still came here.” “I own the place.” His mouth quirked, just slightly. “Or did you forget?” She had, actually. Or maybe she’d just chosen to. The Raven’s Nest had always been *his*—a place of secrets and half-truths, where men in tailored suits drank whiskey like it was water and women with sharp eyes traded information like currency. She’d spent her teenage years sneaking in here, back when Silas was still active, back when she’d thought the world was something she could outsmart. “Right,” she said. “I forgot.” Silas pulled out the chair across from her and sat, his movements careful, as if he were afraid the wood might splinter under him. “You look well,” he said. Rory laughed, a short, humorless sound. “Do I?” He studied her, his gaze lingering on the crescent-shaped scar on her wrist, the one she’d gotten falling out of a tree when she was twelve. She resisted the urge to cover it with her other hand. “Better than the last time I saw you,” he said quietly. The funeral. Of course. She swallowed. “I was a mess then.” “You were grieving.” “And now?” Silas leaned back in his chair, his fingers tapping once against the tabletop. “Now you’re something else.” She wanted to ask what, exactly, but the words stuck in her throat. The silence between them stretched, thick with everything they weren’t saying. The last time they’d spoken properly, she’d been eighteen, fresh out of school, full of plans that didn’t include law or Cardiff or the life her parents had mapped out for her. She’d wanted to travel, to see the world, to do something that mattered. Silas had been the one to tell her that the world wasn’t kind to people who chased meaning. “It’ll eat you alive,” he’d said. “Better to pick a path and walk it steady.” She’d ignored him, of course. And look where that had gotten her. “You’re still delivering for Yu-Fei?” Silas asked, breaking the silence. Rory nodded. “Part-time. Pays the bills.” “And the rest of the time?” She hesitated. “I’m working on something.” “Something legal?” She almost laughed. “Mostly.” Silas exhaled through his nose, a sound that might have been amusement or frustration—she couldn’t tell. “You always did have a talent for finding trouble.” “And you always had a talent for pretending you didn’t care.” His expression darkened, just for a second. “I cared.” The words hung between them, heavy with implication. Rory looked down at her drink, swirling the watered-down gin in slow circles. “I know.” Silas was quiet for a long moment. Then, softly: “I heard about Evan.” Rory’s fingers stilled. The glass was cold against her skin, almost painfully so. “Did you?” “Word gets around.” “Of course it does.” She set the glass down, too hard. The ice clinked against the sides. “What did you hear?” “That he put you in the hospital.” She flinched. It had only been two nights, really—two nights of blurred lights and antiseptic smells, of her mother crying in the hallway and her father pretending not to. But it had been enough. Enough to make her realize that Cardiff wasn’t safe, that Evan wasn’t safe, that the life she’d been trying to build there was a house of cards waiting to collapse. “It wasn’t that bad,” she said. Silas’s jaw tightened. “Rory.” “What do you want me to say, Silas? That I was stupid? That I should’ve seen it coming? I *know* that.” Her voice cracked, just a little. She hated it. Hated that after all this time, after all the distance she’d put between herself and that version of her life, it still had the power to unravel her. Silas reached across the table, his fingers brushing against hers—just for a second, just enough to make her breath catch. “I should’ve been there,” he said. Rory pulled her hand back. “You weren’t my keeper.” “No,” he agreed. “But I was your friend.” The past tense of it stung. She looked away, her gaze landing on the old photographs lining the walls—the black-and-white images of men in trench coats, of women with cigarettes dangling from their fingers, of a London that no longer existed. “Are we still?” Silas didn’t answer right away. When she finally looked back at him, his expression was unreadable. “I don’t know,” he said at last. “Are we?” The question settled over her like a weight. Rory thought of all the times she’d walked past this bar, all the times she’d considered coming inside, all the times she’d told herself it was better this way—cleaner, safer. But the truth was, she’d missed him. Missed the way he saw through her bullshit, missed the way he never treated her like she was fragile, even when she was. “I don’t know either,” she admitted. Silas nodded, as if he’d expected that answer. He pushed his chair back, the legs scraping against the floor. “I should get back to work.” Rory watched him stand, his movements slower than they used to be, his body carrying the weight of years she hadn’t been there to see. “Silas,” she said, before she could stop herself. He turned. “Do you ever think about leaving?” she asked. “Just… packing up and going somewhere else?” Something flickered in his eyes—something sad, something resigned. “Every damn day,” he said. Then he smiled, just a little. “But some of us aren’t as good at running as you are.” Rory opened her mouth to argue, but the words died on her lips. Because he was right. She *had* run. From Cardiff, from Evan, from the life she’d thought she wanted. And now here she was, in a bar she’d once loved, sitting across from a man she’d once trusted, and she didn’t know how to stop. Silas limped toward the back of the room, disappearing behind the bar. Rory stayed where she was, her fingers tracing the rim of her glass. Outside, the rain had picked up, drumming against the windows like a warning. She should go. She should finish her drink, settle her tab, and walk out into the night. But for the first time in a long time, she didn’t want to run. Not yet.