Run: 2026-02-20-01KHY9Y3006R3GB16KMBQBN5DS

The insistent rapping vibrated through the floorboards, a dull thrum that made Rory shift on the worn armchair. It wasn’t a polite tap, more a declaration. She’d been meticulously organizing her collection of outdated maps – a habit born of boredom and a need for order in a chaotic life – and the sound had startled her. She glanced at the peephole, then back at the door. It was ridiculous. She hadn’t told anyone she was expecting company. “Who is it?” she called out, her voice deliberately flat, betraying none of the sudden, prickly awareness that was tightening her chest. “It’s Lucien Moreau,” a voice replied, smooth and accented, laced with a hint of amusement. “I trust you’re busy cataloging cartographical relics.” Rory hesitated. Lucien Moreau. The name felt like a shard of ice against her skin. Five years. Five years since they’d last exchanged more than a cursory word, five years since the sudden, brutal severing of their connection. She hadn’t spoken to him since… since leaving Evan. It was a strange, illogical compulsion, really, to feel this surge of something akin to alarm. She fumbled with the deadbolts, the familiar click of the locks strangely loud in the small space. Pulling the door open a crack, she peered out. He was standing on her doorstep, a silhouette against the dim light of the Brick Lane night. He was impeccably Lucien, as always. Charcoal suit, slicked-back platinum hair gleaming under the streetlights, and his cane resting casually against the doorframe. His heterochromatic eyes – amber and black – assessed her with an unnerving precision. “Rory,” he said, his voice devoid of any pretense of pleasantry. “I trust your life above Silas’ is proving… stimulating.” She pulled the door wider, stepping back to allow him entry. The flat smelled faintly of curry and old paper, a comforting, if slightly overwhelming, combination. Ptolemy, her tabby cat, emerged from beneath a stack of books, regarding Lucien with cautious suspicion. “It’s… productive,” Rory managed, adjusting the strap of her messenger bag. She busied herself straightening a pile of maps, a futile attempt to regain control of the situation. “What do you want, Lucien?” He moved with a fluid grace that was both elegant and subtly predatory, stepping inside without invitation. He didn’t offer a greeting, didn’t comment on the state of the flat, didn’t acknowledge Ptolemy’s presence. He simply surveyed the room as if it were a particularly tedious piece of evidence. “Information,” he stated, his gaze sweeping over the walls crammed with books and scrolls. "Specifically, information regarding a certain Mr. Evan Davies.” Rory’s hand tightened on the map she’d been smoothing. The air in the room thickened, charged with the unspoken history between them. “I’m not sure what you’re implying.” Lucien’s lips curved into a ghost of a smile – a flicker of something sharp and knowing. “Don’t insult my intelligence, Rory. You left London precisely because of him. And I’ve been… tracking your movements ever since.” “You’ve been spying on me?” The words came out sharper than she intended. She hated feeling vulnerable, hated letting him see this flicker of defensiveness. “Let’s call it a strategic observation,” he corrected, his tone neutral. “I require a certain… assessment of Davies’ current activities. He’s been exhibiting behavior inconsistent with his established patterns.” “And you think I know something?” Rory challenged, turning her back to him and resuming her meticulous arrangement of the maps. It was a shield, a way to avoid his eyes, his unnerving ability to dissect a person with a single glance. “You were his… partner,” he said, the word hanging in the air like a fragile accusation. She didn’t turn around. “That’s not relevant.” “Everything is relevant, Rory,” Lucien replied, stepping closer. She could feel the subtle scent of sandalwood and something indefinably… demon-like clinging to his clothes. "Especially when it involves a dangerous individual with a predilection for exploiting those he deems beneath him.” The proximity was suffocating. He stopped just a few feet away, close enough that she could feel the warmth radiating from his body. She risked a glance at him. His amber eye seemed to bore into her, assessing, weighing. “You’re still clinging to this self-imposed exile,” he observed, his voice softer now, almost gentle. “It’s a remarkably inefficient use of your considerable talents.” Rory swallowed, the familiar sting of his words. He'd always been able to cut to the core of things, to dismantle her carefully constructed defenses with a single, well-placed observation. “I’m… comfortable.” A lie, a pathetic, brittle lie. She hadn’t been comfortable in years. Lucien tilted his head, considering her. “Comfort is stagnation, Rory. It’s the breeding ground of regret.” He gestured towards the maps. “You have a knack for uncovering secrets. A gift for connecting the dots. I need that gift.” “And what’s in it for me?” she asked, her voice flat. She refused to give him anything, not even an opening. He paused, a subtle calculation playing out in his eyes. Then, he reached into his coat and produced a small, intricately carved wooden box. He placed it on the table between them. "A debt, of sorts. A reminder of a promise made long ago." Rory recognized it instantly - a miniature replica of the silver locket her mother had given her before she died. She hadn’t seen it since she’d been a child. Her mother had given it to her and Lucien to share, a symbol of their friendship. She had been so young and foolish back then, so convinced that it would last forever. "You kept this?" The words were barely a whisper. “Sentimentality is a dangerous weakness,” Lucien replied, his expression unreadable. “I simply preserved it. For the right circumstances.” He straightened, his gaze sweeping across the room once more. “Now, about Mr. Davies…” As he began to outline his questions, detailing Davies' recent movements and contacts, Rory found herself listening, not with annoyance or resentment, but with a strange, unsettling curiosity. The air in the flat shifted again, not with tension this time, but with a nascent awareness – a recognition of the complicated, tangled threads that bound them together, a thread she thought had been irrevocably severed, but which, it seemed, was stubbornly refusing to break. The scent of sandalwood was stronger now, and she realized, with a jolt, that she wasn't entirely averse to it. Her hand brushed against the small crescent-shaped scar on her wrist, a phantom ache reminding her of a childhood accident, a reminder of a life before Evan, before London, before Lucien. And for the first time in a long time, Rory felt a flicker of something other than guardedness, something akin to… anticipation.