Run: 2026-02-20-01KHY9TFPEDCS4JDJ82Q35X996

The bell above the door of The Raven’s Nest jingles, sharp as a bullet, and Rory Carter freezes. She’s standing in the back corner, scrubbing a chipped whiskey glass with a rag stiff from dish soap, and the sound cuts through the low hum of conversation like a knife through butter. Her first thought is *Evan*—not the name itself, but the way his voice used to twist that bell’s note into something predatory—but then she blinks, and the face that materializes in the doorway is too familiar, too *wrong*. Silas. It can’t be. Not him. Not after seven years. He’s older, of course. His auburn hair, once thick and sun-streaked, has silver threads that catch the neon green glow of the bar’s sign, and his beard, neatly trimmed as ever, frames a jawline that’s softened into something warmer, but the hazel eyes—those hazel eyes—are still sharp, like two wells of dark honey with a sharp stone at the bottom. He’s taller than she remembers, by an inch or two, and he walks with a slight limp, his left leg catching a fraction before the right, as if the knee injury from Prague still has a claim on him. A signet ring glints on his right hand, silver with a family crest Rory can’t quite place—she was never good with heraldry. “Rory,” he says, and his voice is lower, rougher, like sandpaper on wood, but the name falls off his tongue like a familiar song. “Bit of a shock, ain’t it?” She sets the glass down too hard. It clatters against the sink, and her rag falls to the floor. “Silas,” she says, but it comes out breathless, like she’s been running. Her hand flies to her left wrist, where the crescent scar rises pale against her skin—a reminder of the day she’d chased a stray tabby into the garden of her childhood home and crashed into a rusted garden rake. Silas had been there that day, too, kneeling beside her as her mother wrapped a towel around the wound, his own knee throbbing from a fall he’d taken years before. “How—how did you—” “Retirement’s not all sherry and shuffleboard, luv,” he says, pushing off the doorframe and stepping into the bar. His boots thud against the creaky wooden floor, and he pauses, scanning the room. When his gaze finds her, it lingers—assessing, the spymaster still in his bones. “I heard you were in London. Eva mentioned you’d moved back. Said you were… *busy*.” Eva. Rory’s chest tightens. She hasn’t spoken to her Irish friend in five years, not since she’d packed a suitcase and left Cardiff without a letter. Eva had called, once, after the first time Evan hit her—*“You can’t do this alone,”*—but Rory had hung up. Then she’d moved again, to London, because Evan had started following her, had spouted lies about her leaving him for a “bigger better man,” and she’d needed a place where he couldn’t find her. Eva had written, letters that stack in a box under her bed now, unopened, their edges frayed from where she’d traced the ink with her thumb until the paper tore. “Busy,” she repeats, and it sounds like a lie even to her. Delivering dim sum at 2 a.m., sleeping in a flat above a bar where the floors creak and the walls are thin, working so hard she forgets to eat—*busy* is what you call it when you don’t want to think about the woman you used to be, the one who’d worn leather jackets and stayed out late debating philosophy over chili dogs, who’d once told Silas, “The world’s not a puzzle to solve, it’s a song to sing.” Silas nods, like he knows. He slides into the empty stool at the end of the bar, and the bartender—some kid with a tattoo of a raven on his neck—leans over the counter, already pouring a glass of amber liquid. “Whiskey,” Silas says. “Neat.” “On the house,” the kid says, sliding it over. “Regulars.” “Regulars,” Silas echoes, sipping. His eyes never leave Rory. “You look… *good*.” It’s the last thing she expects. Not *different*, not *changed*, but *good*. As if the years have been kind to her, like she doesn’t carry the residue of more fights than she can count, like the fear in her chest doesn’t live there permanently, a shadow behind her ribs. “You look like you’ve been living,” she says, and it’s true. His face is lined, but in the way that comes from smiling, from feeling alive, not from surviving on adrenaline and regret. He grunts. “Surviving, more like. The bar keeps me busy. Contacts, meetings… the usual.” He taps the signet ring with his thumb. “Still a front, mind. Just a quieter one.” Rory’s throat feels tight. “I should… I should get back to work.” “Rory,” he says, and his tone is softer, and she stops, her hand on the door to the kitchen. “Give us five minutes. Just… catch up.” She hesitates. The kitchen is a warren of stainless steel and takeout containers, but Silas is right—Eva’s letter, the one she’s been avoiding, will still be there later. And besides, it’s not every day a ghost from your past walks back into your life. She pulls out a chair from the bar and sits, her knees bumping the wood. The neon sign flickers, casting green shadows over the walls—old maps, faded black-and-white photos of faces she doesn’t recognize. There’s a picture of a woman with auburn hair, younger than Silas, standing in front of a building in Prague, her arm slung around a man with a scar across his cheek. Rory looks closer, then looks away. Some things are better left in the past. “Evan’s dead,” Silas says, and Rory’s head snaps up. His voice is casual, like he’s talking about the weather, but his eyes are steady, unflinching. “Died in a motorcycle crash. Cardiff, about six months ago. His mother found his body.” She freezes. The scar on her wrist itches. She’d spent years waiting for the day she’d feel *nothing* when she heard his name, but now… now there’s a hollow space, like someone’s punched her in the gut. “Why are you telling me this?” “Because you deserve to know,” he says. “He was asking about you, you know. In the end. When it all fell apart. Said you owed him an apology.” “I don’t owe him anything,” she says, but her voice cracks. “He—he—” “He hit you,” Silas says, and it’s not a question. “I should have done more. Back then. When you came to me, crying, after he first pushed you. Told you you were being ‘dramatic,’ that you’d ‘find another reason to leave.’ Stupid. Obvious now.” Rory’s hand is shaking. She wraps it around her whiskey, the warmth seeping into her palm. “You didn’t know. No one knew.” “I should have,” he says, and the guilt in his voice is thick, palpable. “I saw him, you know. The night you left. Parked across the street from your flat. Wanted to go over, to tell him to stay away. But I was… scared. Scared he’d hurt you more. Scared *I’d* hurt him. Stupid.” “You were protecting me,” she says, and it’s not a defense. It’s the truth. Silas has always been a guardian, even when he didn’t know it. He’d taught her how to pick a lock when she was sixteen, how to spot a lie in three seconds flat, how to trust her instincts even when the world told her they were wrong. He’d been the one to buy her coffee when she’d pulled all-nighters in Cardiff University, the one to sit with her when she’d failed her first law exam, the one to say, “You’re better than this, Rory,” when she’d started talking about marrying Evan, about settling down, about becoming the woman her parents expected her to be. He looks away. “I never stopped being a fool, you know. Even now.” The silence stretches, heavy with the weight of years. Rory thinks of all the nights she’d stood at her bedroom window, looking out at the street, waiting for Silas to come home from his “military training” or his “consulting gigs.” She’d thought he was unapproachable, untouchable, the kind of man who worked in shadows and never let anyone in. But he’d let her in, once, and she’d thrown his kindness back in his face. “Why did you stay?” she asks, eventually. “Why did you keep the bar open? Why did you never leave?” He finishes his whiskey, sets the glass down with a clink. “Because the world’s still a dangerous place. And people need someone to watch their backs. Especially the ones who can’t watch their own.” He nods at her scar. “You learned that, didn’t you? Learned to run, to hide, to survive. But survival ain’t living, luv. You used to *burn*. Now… you’re just glowing.” She laughs, a dry, bitter sound. “Burning gets you hurt. Glowing keeps you alive.” “Not if you glow too bright,” he says, “you catch fire. But not if you glow steady. Like a candle. Not a torch.” He reaches into his pocket, pulls out a crumpled piece of paper. “Eva sent this. Last month. She said you’d moved to London, but she didn’t know where. Told me to ‘find her, will you, Silas?’” He slides the paper across the bar. It’s a restaurant receipt, scrawled on the back in Eva’s looping handwriting: *Rory works for Yu-Fei Cheung at the Golden Empress. Lives above Silas’ bar. Don’t be a stranger.* Rory’s fingers brush the paper, as if touching it will make it real. “I should call her. I really should.” “Then call her,” Silas says. “But not tonight. Tonight… let’s just… be us, for a while.” She looks at him, and for the first time in years, she doesn’t see the mentor, or the spymaster, or the man who used to tuck her into bed when she’d had a nightmare. She sees the boy who’d broken his arm climbing a tree in his backyard, who’d cried when his dog died, who’d once shared his last slice of birthday cake with her because she’d forgotten hers at home. “Us,” she says, and it’s a whisper, but it’s true. He smiles, and it’s a rare thing, a flash of the boy she knew, before the war stories and the secrets hardened his edges. “Us.” The bell jingles again, and a group of customers files in, laughing and clinking their glasses. Silas stands, adjusting the sleeve of his button-down shirt, the limp in his step more pronounced now. “I should go. Got a meeting in the back later. Clandestine. Military-grade coffee, I might add.” Rory stands, too, her chair scraping against the floor. “When will I see you again?” “Whenever you want,” he says. “The Nest’s always open. And Eva’s letter… well. Let her wait a little longer. She can afford it.” He pauses, then adds, quieter, “You can, too.” She nods, and they walk toward the door together, the neon sign casting their shadows long and thin on the wall. At the threshold, Silas turns, his hazel eyes soft. “You’re happy here, Rory. Even if you don’t know it yet.” “Maybe,” she says. He grins, a wolfish thing, and taps the signet ring. “Good. The world needs more happy Rories. Fewer angry ones.” With that, he slips out into the night, and Rory stands in the doorway, watching his silhouette fade into the crowd, until he’s just a memory, a ghost, a boy from a summer long ago. She turns back to the bar, the receipt still in her hand. The kid with the raven tattoo slides her a glass of water. “Soda?” “Water’s fine,” she says, and she sits, and for the first time in years, she doesn’t think about Evan, or the past, or the woman she’s supposed to be. She just thinks about the scar on her wrist, and the way Silas had said *us*, and she smiles. The world, she realizes, is still a song. And maybe, just maybe, she’s finally ready to sing it.