Run: 2026-02-20-01KHY7TV6F6PDX2PDC5HENE302

The green neon sign bleeds into the Soho rain, blurring the letters into a slurred Raven’s Nest that makes Rory’s throat tight. She’s been avoiding this block for three years—avoided the creak of the flat’s fire escape, the smell of Silas’ burnt coffee drifting through her former window, the way his slight left limp would tap against the floorboards when he checked on her after Evan’s first threatening letter. Today, though, the Golden Empress’ delivery app glitched, sending her to a non-existent address two doors down, and the rain has soaked through her delivery bag’s lining, turning the kung pao chicken containers into sodden lumps. She yanks the bar’s door open, the brass handle sticking under her wet fingers, and steps into the dimness where old maps cling to the walls like faded secrets. The air reeks of bourbon and burnt cedar, and a black-and-white photo of a Prague street corner hangs above the whiskey bottles—its cobblestones cracked, a shadowed figure darting into an alley. Rory’s straight shoulder-length black hair drips onto her delivery uniform’s collar, and she rubs her left wrist without thinking, the crescent scar from her childhood bike crash throbbing like a memory. She’s halfway to the door again when a voice stops her. “Rory.” His voice is deeper than she remembers, roughened by three more years of cigarette smoke and silence. Silas is leaning against the bar’s oak counter, his grey-streaked auburn beard neatly trimmed, hazel eyes fixed on her. His right hand rests on the counter, the silver signet ring catching the flicker of a tiki torch in the corner, and when he shifts his weight, his left leg gives a barely perceptible hitch—his Prague limp, the one he never talked about but Rory researched after he’d passed out on the bar one night, muttering about a botched extraction. She freezes, bright blue eyes darting to the bookshelf in the back—the one that swings open to the secret room Silas showed her once, when she’d caught him hiding a coded letter in a copy of Ulysses. “I’m just looking for directions,” she says, her cool-headed tone thinner than she intends. “Wrong delivery address.” Silas turns then, his hazel eyes scanning her—her sodden uniform, the delivery bag slung over her shoulder, the way she’s shifted her weight to keep the door within reach. “You left without a note,” he says, and there’s no anger in it, just a quiet weight that makes Rory’s chest ache. He leans on the bar to hide his limp, his signet ring glinting as he wipes a water ring from a tumbler. Rory’s throat tightens. She’d planned to leave a note—scrawled one on a napkin, telling him she was moving to a friend’s flat in Hackney, that she couldn’t risk staying after Evan’s text about finding her in London—but she’d heard a car door slam outside her window and fled before she could tape it to his bar’s door. “I didn’t have time,” she says, lying through her teeth. Silas nods, but his fingers curl around the signet ring—a tell she’d learned when he was lying or nervous. “I found his car parked outside the flat three days before you left,” he says, his voice dropping. “Told the boys to slash his tires, but he had a backup. I tried to leave a note under your door—explained I didn’t give him anything, that I’d tracked his phone to a motel in Bethnal Green—but you were gone by dawn. Your coffee mug was still on the windowsill, half-full. Burnt, just how you liked it.” Rory’s breath catches. She’d seen the note, crumpled under her door, but she’d been so scared that Evan had found her that she’d grabbed her bag and run, not stopping to read it. She’d thought Silas had betrayed her—his spy connections making him careless, his quiet authority a mask for indifference. She’d hated him for three years, hated the way his name would make her rub her left wrist, hated that she’d lost the only person who’d ever stood up for her after her parents disowned her for leaving pre-law. “I didn’t read the note,” she admits, rubbing her wrist harder. “I thought… I thought you’d traded my location for a contact. That your network was more important than me.” Silas’ jaw tightens. He gestures to the Prague map on the wall, the one with a smudge on the Vltava River. “That’s where I messed up,” he says, pointing to the smudge. “Left a contact behind. Couldn’t run fast enough because of this leg.” He taps his left knee, his limp more obvious now that he’s not leaning on the bar. “My network’s for keeping people safe, Rory. You were the only one who ever called me Si. The only one who didn’t see the Spymaster, just the old man who burned his toast every morning.” Rory stares at the map, suddenly aware of the black-and-white photos framed above the whiskey bottles—photos of men and women in trench coats, of a woman with a scar across her cheek who Silas had once called his partner in Prague. She’d thought they were just old friends, but now she sees the code names scrawled on the back of one photo, visible through the glass. “I didn’t know,” she says, her voice softening. Silas follows her gaze. “I never told you,” he says. “Didn’t want you tangled up in my mess. You were a pre-law student running from an ex, not a spy’s protégé.” He pauses, then adds, “I taught you how to pick a lock once, remember? You’d locked yourself out of the flat, and I showed you how to use a bobby pin. You picked it in two minutes—said it was just like drafting a legal argument, finding the right loophole.” Rory smiles, a faint, tight thing. She’d used that skill last month, when she’d locked herself out of her Hackney flat. “I still have that bobby pin,” she says. “Taped to my mirror.” Silas’ lips twitch into a smile, the first she’s seen in three years. He limps to the back of the bar, pulls a napkin from a dispenser, and writes a phone number on it. “That’s my contact in the Met,” he says, sliding it across the bar. “He’s been tracking Evan’s movements. He’s in a halfway house in Kent now, but he’s still sending threats.” Rory stares at the napkin. She’d spent three years avoiding conflict, taking delivery shifts in quiet neighborhoods, but Silas’ quiet authority makes her want to fight back—makes her remember the cool-headed, quick-thinking girl she was before Evan broke her down. “Why are you helping me?” she asks. Silas leans against the bar again, his signet ring glinting. “You were the only friend I had,” he says. “I regret not being clearer. Regret not telling you about Evan sooner. Regret letting you leave without knowing I was on your side.” Rory’s eyes fill with tears, but she blinks them back—cool-headed, always cool-headed. She picks up the napkin, tucks it into her delivery bag’s dry pocket, and glances at the bookshelf in the back. “Is the secret room still there?” she asks. Silas nods. “Still have the Ulysses with the coded letter slot,” he says. “I’ve been keeping your old coffee mug there. Burnt stains and all.” The rain taps against the window, matching the rhythm of Silas’ limp as he shifts his weight. Rory looks at him—grey-streaked auburn hair and beard, hazel eyes tired but kind, signet ring catching the light—and realizes he’s older, lonelier, his network shrinking as his contacts retire or die. She’s older too—no longer a pre-law student running from her past, but a delivery person who’s learned to survive, who still carries the crescent scar on her left wrist like a reminder of all she’s lost. “I should go,” she says, grabbing her delivery bag. “The kung pao chicken’s probably cold.” Silas nods, but he says, “The flat’s still yours. If you ever need a place to stay. No questions asked.” Rory pauses at the door, the green neon sign bleeding into the rain behind her. She doesn’t answer, but she doesn’t close the door all the way—leaving a crack, a hint of hope that maybe, after three years of silence and regret, they can find their way back to the friend they once were. She rubs her left wrist, the crescent scar throbbing like a promise, and steps into the rain, the napkin with Silas’ contact number burning a hole in her pocket.