AI The bell above the bar jingles as Rory pushes through it, the door creaking like an old ship’s plank. She pauses, palm to the frame, and squints. The Raven’s Nest is supposed to be dead this late—drawstring bags of spent coffee grounds sit by the trash, and the green neon sign flickers, half-burned out. But there’s a glow behind the bar , faint, like a single candle in a well.
Her boots scuff the linoleum. Delivery past eight means Yu-Fei’s fresh garlic chicken is likely cold, but the tip was a tenner, so she’d bitten off the protest. Now, she sets the carrier down, notices the whiskey decanter is gone from the shelf—*he always keeps it *—and her throat tightens. Silas doesn’t close early unless…
“Evening, Rory .”
The voice is lower, rumbly, like gravel in a tin cup.
She spins.
Silas is behind the bar , not his usual stool, but perched on a crate, his back to the mirror . His auburn hair is flatter than she remembers, the grey streaks more pronounced, but his posture—*that * doesn’t change. Shoulders back, jaw set, like he’s still waiting for a comms beep in his ear. He’s got his coat off, revealing a white shirt rolled to his elbows, and his signet ring glints on his right hand, gold light catching the stone.
“Jesus,” she says, and her voice cracks. She swallows, wipes her palm on her cargo pants. “Thought you were in bed. Knee’s been acting up.”
“Knees hate saints,” he says, and it’s the same joke he told when she was sixteen, sneaking into the hidden room after curfew, covered in ash from a witness interview gone wrong. “You’re late.”
“Yu-Fei’s kitchen’s a maze. She thinks ‘quick’ is a swear word.” She nods at the carrier . “Garlic chicken. Tenner tip. You want some?”
He shakes his head. “Aurora .”
The first name. Not *Rory *, not *Carter *. *Aurora *. Like he’s about to ask her to name the stars.
She freezes. “What? Did I mess up the delivery? The order was for Mr. Hale on Charing Cross—”
“Eva got married last week.”
Her chest constricts. She can’t breathe. Eva. Her best friend, the one who’d driven her to London at three a.m. with a duffel and a thermos of tea, screaming about Evan’s knuckles on her door. *“He’s not worth it, Rory . You’re smarter than this.”*
“You heard from her ?”
Silas shifts, the crate groaning. “A mutual friend. Bit of a fuss. She’s in Dublin now. Runs a yoga studio. Says she still keeps the photo of us at the pier—” He stops, and she sees it: the way his fingers tap the bar , fast, like he’s counting seconds. “You never wrote.”
“I wrote letters,” she says, sharp . “Addressed to you, to *the bar *. They came back stamped ‘return to sender.’”
He flinches. “I didn’t get them. A year after you left, the flat… it sold. I thought—”
“You thought I didn’t want to be found.”
“I thought you’d burned every bridge.”
*Burned.* The word tastes like ash. She runs a hand over her wrist, the crescent scar catching the light. Evan’s knife, slipped. Eva’s tears, the way she’d held her , saying, *“He’ll kill you. You have to go.”*
“I did burn,” she says, quiet now . “Evan. For a while, I thought… burning bridges was the only way to stay alive .”
Silas is on his feet before she realizes he’s moving, his left leg dragging. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Diminish it.” He stops in front of her , too close, and she smells sandalwood and motor oil, the scent of his cologne from when he’d taught her to pick locks at twenty-one. “You think I don’t know what it’s like to burn? Prague. Fire. A man with a gun in my face, a child in the crossfire—” He cuts himself off, jaw tight. “You were *fifteen *. Stumbling into my life, bleeding from a broken wrist, saying you wanted to ‘fix the world, one lie at a time.’ That’s not someone who burns bridges. That’s someone who *needs * a bridge.”
She steps back. “You didn’t fight for me.”
“I didn’t *know * how.” His voice cracks, and she sees it then—*the regret *, raw and ugly, in his hazel eyes. “You kept saying Evan would ‘take care of you.’ I thought… I thought you could handle it. That you didn’t need me.”
“I needed you,” she whispers. “I needed *anyone *. But you were too busy being the spymaster, saving the world. I was just… Rory Carter , with a broken wrist and a dream that got burned.”
He reaches out, hesitates, then rests a hand on her arm. His skin is warm, calloused—she remembers how he’d taught her to shoot a revolver, how his hands had covered hers, steadying her as she pulled the trigger. “You’re not Rory Carter anymore. You’re *Aurora *. And Aurora doesn’t need a lie.”
The bell jingles again, and a gust of wind slams the door. Rory jumps, her hand flying to the knife in her boot—*old habit, from Evan *—but the person on the threshold is a regular, a skinny bloke with a lisp, and she lets it fall.
Silas follows her gaze, sighs. “Ian’s lost his key again. Should’ve fixed that lock years ago.”
“You should’ve retired,” she says, before she can stop herself.
He stiffens. “And let you burn out alone? I tried, you know . To find you. To send money. You sent it back. Said you ‘didn’t want charity.’”
“I wanted *help *. Not charity.” She crosses her arms, but the tension in her shoulders eases, just a little. “What are you doing here, anyway? It’s after midnight.”
“Waiting for you.”
The words hang. She blinks. “For me? Why?”
“Because you’re not the only one who burns bridges. Some of us like to build them back up. Slowly.” He nods at the carrier. “Garlic chicken’s going cold, by the way. Yu-Fei’s gonna skin you.”
She manages a smile. “Good. Let her . I’m too tired to argue.”
Silas unlocks a drawer, pulls out two glasses and the last of the whiskey. “Tea?” he offers.
“Tea’s for mornings. Save the whiskey.”
He pours, the liquid gold sloshing into the glasses. They clink.
Outside, a car backfires. She tenses, then relaxes, her thumb brushing the scar on her wrist.
“Evan’s dead,” she says, quiet .
Silas stills. His glass hovers halfway to his mouth. “I heard. A usefully timed ‘accident.’”
“Yu-Fei delivered his takeaway the night he died. Said he was drunk, muttering about a girl with blue eyes.” She looks at Silas, at the way his fingers clamp around the glass, at the way his jaw tightens. “You knew, didn’t you?”
“Evan was a liability .”
“A *liability *? He hit me, Silas. He *broke * my wrist. You could’ve… you could’ve had him arrested.”
“You were in love with him.” It’s not a question.
“I was *scared *,” she says, and it’s the first time she’s said it out loud, the words hot and thick. “He made me feel small. Like I was nothing without him. And you… you never saw me as anything but a project. A kid with a grudge.”
“Then why did you come back?”
“Because the bar ’s here. Because Eva’s here. Because… I don’t know . I thought maybe you could still fix me.”
He sets his glass down. “I can’t fix you, Aurora . But I can *watch * you. If you’ll let me.”
A car door slams in the street. Somewhere, a radio plays a song from 2012—*Rory ’s* year, before Evan. She closes her eyes, remembers the way she’d felt, back then: *alive *, even with a broken wrist.
Silas stands, his limp worse now, but he doesn’t rush. He waits.
A car horn blares. Farther down the street, a police siren wails.
“Tonight,” she says, finally, “I’ll let you watch . Tomorrow… tomorrow, you can help me burn something that *needs * burning.”
He smiles, and it’s the first time she’s seen it since she left—close-lipped, but real. “Agreed. But no more whiskey before noon. You know Yu-Fei’s rules about hangovers.”
She rolls her eyes, but she’s smiling now. She grabs the carrier, starts to walk toward the kitchen, then pauses. “Oh. Silas?”
He looks up. “Yeah?”
“Thanks.”
“Told you I didn’t come here to watch .” He leans back on the bar , opens a drawer, and pulls out a pack of cigarettes—*her * cigarettes, the ones she’d left behind five years ago. “Light me up, will you? Before Ian breaks his neck trying to climb the doorframe.”
She grins, fumbles in her pocket for a lighter. The flame catches, and the room is suddenly warm, the neon sign flickering to life, green light washing over them.
Somewhere, a clock chimes midnight.
And for the first time in years, Aurora Carter doesn’t feel like she’s burning.
She feels like she’s *starting * again.
The bell jingles once more, and Rory ’s head snaps up. Eva’s face is in the window, lit by the streetlamp, her yoga pants loose, her hair braided, a bouquet of daisies in her hand.
“*Send help *,” Rory mouths, grinning.
Eva winks, turns, and disappears into the night.
Silas follows her gaze, smirks. “Told you bridges are for rebuilding.”
Rory doesn’t argue. She grabs her keys, tucks the lighter into her pocket, and heads for the door.
“Tea first,” she says. “Then we talk about bridges.”
“Deal.”
And as she slips outside, the neon sign blinks, casting green shadows over the scar on her wrist—fainter now, but still there, a reminder of where she came from, and where she’s going.
The world outside is cold, but warm air leaks from the open door of the bar , and for the first time in years, Aurora Carter doesn’t feel alone.
The chapter ends with Rory stepping into the night, the bar ’s light bleeding behind her , and Silas watching until she’s out of sight—his signet ring catching the moonlight, a promise, quiet and unspoken , that no bridge is ever truly burned.