AI The bell above the door jangled, sharp and insistent, cutting through the hum of the curry house kitchen below. Rory Carter froze, her pen hovering over the delivery log she’d been scribbling in. The weight of Ptolemy, her tabby cat, shifted on her lap—usually a signal of his contentment, but today his ears were pricked , his tail twitching like a loose end. *Stranger *, he’d told her once, when she’d asked if he could smell magic. *Human, but…* Unfamiliar. Rory slipped off her reading glasses, the lenses smudging from the steam of the tea she’d been sipping, and stood. Her bare feet hit the linoleum, cool against the creak of the floorboard near the door.
She crossed the room in two strides, pausing in front of the peephole. The landlady’s cat, Mags, had taken to napping on the windowsill, but the spot was empty now. Beyond the brick lane, the neon sign of the Golden Empress flickered —*CURRY: NOW SERVED *—casting a sickly orange glow over the street. At the bottom of the steps, under a streetlamp that sputtered, stood a man.
Rory’s breath hitched.
He was dressed in a tailored charcoal suit, the fabric so sharp it seemed to cut the light. His platinum hair was slicked back, no strand out of place, and his cane—ivory handle, carved with a looping pattern—rested against the step beside him. He was taller than she remembered, broad across the shoulders, and when he lifted his hand to knock again, she saw the gold band on his left pinky, that same band she’d once traced with her thumb while they’d sat by the fire, the flames casting shadows over his face. For a second, she forgot he had heterochromatic eyes—amber and black, like liquid sunlight and pitch—until they found hers through the peephole, steady as a metronome.
“Rory,” he said, when she opened the door a fraction. His voice was the same as it had been five years ago: low, accented, with a hum that made her teeth ache. “May I come in?”
The question hung between them, light as a moth, but Rory’s throat tightened. *No *, she wanted to say. *You left . You didn’t call. You didn’t—*
“Eva’s not here,” she said, the words coming out harsher than she meant. Her fingers dug into the doorframe, her thumbnail catching on a splinter. “She’s working the night shift at the clinic. You should… come back tomorrow.”
His gaze flickered down to her wrist, where the crescent scar glinted under the light. “I saw it,” he said. “The cat scratches. You still hate needles. Even when they stitch you up.”
Rory’s chest constricted. He’d seen it that night, too—the night he’d come crashing through her door, boots caked in mud, a gash on his side that had bled black, not red. *Avaros *, he’d panted, as she’d fumbled with a first-aid kit. *They found me.* And then he’d collapsed into her arms, and she’d held him, and kissed him, and it had been like setting a match to gasoline: wild, all-consuming, *alive *—until the morning, when she’d woken to find him gone, the sheets cool, a single white orchid pressed between the pages of the book she’d been reading.
“I said, may I come in?” His voice was gentler now, but the edge was still there—*irritation *, maybe? Or hurt?—that had always made their arguments feel like two matches struck in the dark.
Rory stepped back, fumbling with the chain lock. The door swung open, and the smell of her flat hit him first: jasmine tea, the mildewy spine of a 1920s edition of *Dracula * that she’d found in a thrift shop, and the faint, persistent scent of Ptolemy’s catnip toy. He stepped inside, his boots silent, and Rory shut the door behind him, the lock clicking into place. “What do you want, Lucien?” she said, keeping her distance—two steps, three, from the hallway to the kitchen. Ptolemy jumped down, padding toward him, rubbing his face against Lucien’s ankle. The half-demon knelt, scratching the cat behind the ears. “He likes you .”
“Cats have good taste,” Lucien said, straightening. His eyes went to the shelves crammed with books—occult texts, yellowed newspapers clippings about disappearances, a volume of Keats’s poetry with a pressed rose between the pages. “You still keep this .”
Rory followed his gaze. The rose was from Evan, of all people—petals brown, but still there, a permanent stain on the page. She’d meant to throw it away, but she never had. “It’s not *this *,” she said, voice tight . “It’s the *you * who burned it.”
He flinched, just once. “I was trying to protect you ,” he said. “Evan—”
“Stop,” Rory said. The word was a weapon, sharp enough to draw blood. “Don’t. You think I don’t know what he did ? You think I need you to ‘protect’ me? I’ve been *protecting * myself for five years, Lucien. I don’t need you to fix me.”
He stood, his cane thumping once against the floor. “I’m not here to fix you ,” he said. “I’m here because the tunnels are moving. The ones under the East End—they’re not just rats anymore. They’re *things *. Things that can smell when a half-demon strays too close to their lair. And you —” He paused, his amber eye flicking to hers . “You ’re the only one who can read them. The maps Eva’s been finding? They’re not just scribbles. They’re *tunnels *.”
Rory’s lips parted. She crossed to the kitchen table, where a stack of papers lay—Eva’s research, detailed sketches of underground passages, a xerox of a 19th-century map marked with symbols that looked like claws . “You should’ve come to me sooner,” she said, picking up a pencil. “Or… or called. Or sent a carrier pigeon.”
“Eva won’t speak to me,” Lucien said. “After the last time I left a message at her clinic.”
Rory’s jaw tightened. Five years ago, when she’d fled Cardiff, Evan had followed her, had shown up at Eva’s door, had threatened to hurt her if Rory didn’t come back. Lucien had found her then, too—crying in a alley, Evan’s boot print on her cheek—and had taken her to a safe house. But when Evan had shown up again, Lucien had… *disappeared *. Hadn’t answered her texts, her calls. Hadn’t even come to say goodbye. She’d found out later, from a bartender at a pub in Soho, that he’d fought Evan for an hour, broken his arm, and then left London. Vanished.
“You should’ve told me you were fighting him,” she said, the words quiet now. “You could’ve gotten hurt. *You * could’ve—”
“I did get hurt,” he said. “I always do, when I’m with you .”
The knife slipped out of her hand, clattering onto the floor. It had been a gift from Lucien, years ago—a small, silver blade shaped like a raven, the hilt wrapped in black leather. She’d kept it under her mattress, just in case. “You don’t get to say that,” she said, her voice cracking . “You left . You *left *. And now you show up, like nothing happened, like we’re not… like I’m not—”
“Like you ’re still mine,” he finished.
The kitchen fell silent. The curry house below clattered with dishes, a radio playing a French song Rory didn’t recognize. Ptolemy jumped onto the table, sniffing the papers, and Rory stared at him, willing herself to breathe. *Calm *, she told herself. *Cool-headed, remember?* She was a fixer, too—with a bike and a clipboard, but a fixer all the same. She could handle this . She could—
“You ’re not mine, Lucien,” she said. “You never were. You ’re a demon. A *half-demon *. You live in the shadows, and I… I live in the light. We can’t—”
“We can’t *what *?” He took a step closer, his cane thumping twice. “Because I’m half-demon ? Because I have a father in Avaros who’d eat me alive for sticking my nose where it doesn’t belong? Because I *love * you ? Is that it? Because that’s all the reason I need.”
The world narrowed to that. The scent of her tea, now cold. The sound of her heart, pounding in her ears. The way his black eye was just a little darker than his amber one, the way his suit was slightly askew, like he’d been in a hurry. *Love *, he’d said. Five years ago, she’d thought that’s what it was—love , fierce and messy and *real *. But then he’d left , and love hadn’t been enough to keep him. Hadn’t been enough to save her.
“I can’t,” she said, her voice barely a whisper . “I can’t do this . Not again.”
He stopped, just a foot away, and for a second, Rory saw it: the hurt, the loss, the man who’d once cried into her shoulder after a fight with his father. “I know,” he said. “I don’t expect you to. But stay. Stay for an hour. Listen to what I have to say. And if you still want me gone, I’ll leave. I won’t come back. I promise.”
Rory looked at the map, at the symbols that seemed to shift when she blinked . At the stack of clippings, at the xerox of Evan’s address, still tucked in the back. *Eva was right *, she thought. *You can’t run from your past. But you can face it.*
She sighed, then turned from the table, heading toward the hallway closet. “Ptolemy, you can stay,” she said, as the cat followed her. “But you ’re not allowed on the furniture. Lucien’s a suit, he’ll ruin the couch.”
Ptolemy meowed, as if in agreement.
Rory pulled a blanket from the closet, folding it over her arm. When she turned back, Lucien was leaning against the kitchen counter, his cane propped beside him. His amber eye was soft, now, the black one sharp. “Tea?” she said.
He nodded. “Jasmine,” he said. “And no sugar. You know I don’t like sugar.”
She looked away, hiding a smile. He *did * know. Five years ago, when they’d first met—at a bar in Soho, the smell of cigarettes and whiskey in the air—he’d ordered tea. Said it cut through the demon blood, made him feel human. She’d thought that was the most romantic thing she’d ever heard.
When she came back with two mugs, he was sitting on the couch, Ptolemy curled in his lap. The cat looked up at her, then back at Lucien, and purred. Rory set the mugs down on the coffee table, and sat on the edge of the couch, careful not to disturb the cat.
“I’ll start at the beginning,” Lucien said, after a long sip of tea. “The tunnels . They’ve always been there. But last month, the first body turned up. A prostitute, found in a sewer, her throat torn out. Not by rats. By something *bigger *.”
Rory’s fingers tightened around her mug. “Eva said the symbols—”
“—mean the tunnels are alive ,” he said. “That they’re feeding. That they’re *hunting *. And the only way to stop them is to find the heart of the lair, the thing that’s giving them power. A relic, maybe. Something old. Something… *demonic *.”
He reached into his coat, pulling out a small, leather-bound book. The cover was embossed with a symbol Rory recognized—the same one she’d seen in Evan’s cellar, the day she’d found the letters. *Malphora *, the codex had said, in a fragment of text she’d found while cleaning out his flat. *A witch, a century ago. Drowned in the Thames. Her bones were buried under the East End, where the soil is thick with magic.*
“Evan had this ,” she said, her voice steady .
Lucien nodded. “Evan was a conduit, Rory. A human who could open the tunnels , who could *feed * them. He was a puppet, really . Someone the tunnels were using.”
“Why did he do it?” she said. “Why help them?”
“Revenge,” Lucien said. “Against your father. Or at least, against the Carter name. He thought Brendan Carter had stolen something from his family, back in the 1920s. A relic. Malphora ’s bones.”
Rory felt the blood drain from her face. Her father had never spoken of his time in London, of his years as a barrister. He’d always called it “a mistake.” But now, she thought of the letters, the way Evan had taunted her: *Your father owed me. He stole everything.*
“Where is he?” she said.
“Dead,” Lucien said. “Evan was captured trying to dig up Malphora ’s grave . The tunnels … they didn’t take kindly to being stopped.”
Rory closed her eyes. She thought of Evan, of his smirk, his cruelty, and for a second, she felt nothing. Just *relief *.
“Malphora ’s heart isn’t in the tunnels ,” she said, opening her eyes. “It’s in Evan’s flat. I should’ve taken it when I left , but I… I couldn’t. It was too much.”
Lucien stood, his cane thumping once. “We can get it tonight,” he said. “Before the tunnels get it.”
Rory hesitated. The flat on Charlotte Street, Evan’s old apartment. She hadn’t been back since she’d run. The memory of his screams, the way he’d clawed at her face, stayed with her. But the tunnels were out there, hunting . *This is how you face it *, she thought. *Not running.*
“Okay,” she said. “But let’s do it fast. And Lucien—”
“—we take the cat,” he said, holding out his hand. Ptolemy jumped into his arms, purring. “He’s a good luck charm . Cats always know when things are off.”
Rory smiled, the first real smile she’d had in years. “He’s also a chaos agent. He’ll knock over everything.”
Lucien laughed, low and rich, and Rory’s heart ached. *This is it *, she thought. *This is the thing that’s been missing.*
She grabbed her coat, slinging it over her shoulders. Lucien followed, the cat still in his arms. As they walked to the door, Rory paused, glancing back at the books on the shelves, the rose in the poetry book, the raven’s knife under her mattress.
“Ready?” she said.
He nodded, his amber eye bright. “Ready.”
And for the first time in five years, Rory felt like she wouldn’t have to run .