AI The rain hammered against the windows of The Raven’s Nest, a steady, insistent drumbeat mirroring the thrum in my chest. Steam curled from my pint of stout, blurring the already hazy faces in the room. Silas polished glasses behind the bar, his movements deliberate, economical. The air smelled of aged wood, spilled whiskey, and something faintly metallic—gun oil, maybe. He didn’t look up when I entered, simply continued his work, a quiet, familiar ritual.
“Rory?”
The voice cut through the ambient noise, sharp and unexpected. I turned, and the world tilted on its axis. He was taller, undeniably. The build beneath his worn tweed jacket was broader, the shoulders heavier. Hair, once a riot of unruly brown curls, was now cropped close, grey threading through the remaining strands. His eyes, a startling, almost unsettlingly bright blue, scanned me with a disconcerting intensity .
“Evan?” I asked, the word a rusty hinge, unused and protesting.
He didn’t smile. He didn’t offer any of the easy, comfortable warmth I remembered. “Not Evan. Not anymore.” He gestured to a stool beside me with a hand thick with veins. “Sit.”
The stool felt cold beneath my jeans. I obeyed, not wanting to initiate further scrutiny. The silence stretched, punctuated only by the rain and the clinking of glasses. He studied me, a slow, assessing appraisal.
“You look…good,” he finally said, the observation strangely awkward. “Not the wide-eyed student I recall.”
“Life happens,” I replied, taking a long swallow of stout. It burned going down. “London’s not exactly a breeding ground for youthful innocence.”
“It’s a crucible,” he corrected, his gaze drifting towards the shelves crammed with maps. “Shapes you. For better or worse.”
“You’ve changed,” I stated, stating the obvious . It felt necessary, like pulling a thread to unravel a tangled knot.
“So have you,” he acknowledged, a ghost of a flicker in his blue eyes. “The barrister’s daughter had ambitions beyond delivery routes and greasy takeout.”
I laughed, a short, brittle sound. “Yu-Fei’s a good cook. And the deliveries pay the rent.” There was a disconnect between the reality of my life - the early mornings, the constant hustle - and the theoretical aspirations of my past.
“I heard about the gallery,” he said, his voice low . “In Berlin.”
“It’s open for a few months,” I replied, avoiding his gaze . The gallery was a compromise, a sliver of the art world I’d briefly chased before the stability of greasy driveways and instant noodles became my reality. “Pays the bills.”
He leaned forward slightly , resting his elbows on the bar. “You still see the world in lines and angles, I suspect.”
“I try to,” I admitted. “It’s a useful skill when you’re navigating a city full of potholes.”
He remained silent for a moment, then asked, “What happened with him?” His voice was carefully neutral, devoid of judgment, but the question was a barbed hook, drawing blood.
“It ended,” I said, deliberately blunt. “A messy, unpleasant ending.” I refused to elaborate, to dredge up the details of his controlling behavior, his possessiveness, the suffocating feeling of being trapped. The rain intensified, drumming a frantic rhythm against the windows.
“He was…determined ,” he observed.
“That’s one word for it,” I replied, swirling the remaining stout in my glass. "He left a scar.” I instinctively touched the small crescent-shaped mark on my wrist, a reminder of a childhood accident, now a carefully hidden symbol of his control.
“Some scars are harder to erase,” he said quietly. “Some take a lifetime.” He paused, then added, “I saw a man fitting your description in Prague. About six months ago.”
My breath hitched. “Prague? What were you doing there?” The gravity of the question settled over us, thick and heavy.
“Old business,” he said, his jaw tightening . "Things I’d rather forget.” He signaled to a young man, a wiry, intense fellow with a perpetually shadowed face, who silently refilled my pint.
“You’ve gone back,” I stated, the realization dawning . The comfortable , somewhat disillusioned man I knew was buried beneath something colder, harder.
“Let’s just say I’m still…active,” he said, carefully . “Retired, but not idle.”
I studied his face, searching for clues, for any sign of the man I remembered—the quick wit, the dry humor, the genuine warmth . But all I saw was a guardedness, a permanent layer of something unreadable .
"You look like you haven’t slept in a decade," I said, gesturing to his face.
He nodded. "A few sleepless nights. A lot of bad coffee." He took a swig of whiskey from a tumbler on the bar. It didn't look like he was enjoying it. “The poppy fields aren’t as plentiful as they used to be.”
“What *are * you doing, Silas?” I demanded, the question laced with a sharp edge .
He met my gaze, unflinching. “Protecting things. Maintaining a semblance of order, you could say.” His voice was a carefully constructed facade of professional detachment. “Things you wouldn’t understand.”
“I understand people who disappear,” I countered, my voice rising slightly . "People who vanish without a trace. People who leave a trail of broken lives behind them."
He didn't flinch. "Some trails are best left untread."
"You're building a wall," I said, the words tasting like ash in my mouth. “A wall around yourself. A wall around everything.”
He pushed himself away from the bar, his limp evident as he moved towards the back room —the secret room. “Some walls are necessary, Rory,” he said, his back to me. “They keep the darkness out."
I followed him, pushing past the bookshelf that concealed the entrance. The air in the back room was thick with the smell of dust and old paper. A single bare bulb cast long, distorted shadows, illuminating a small, cluttered office filled with maps, files, and a vintage telephone.
"You used to tell me stories,” I said, studying the maps. “About faraway places. About impossible missions.”
He consulted a faded photograph pinned to the wall – a grainy image of a Prague street lined with shadowed buildings. “Those were simpler times,” he admitted. “Before the walls started closing in."
“Did you ever regret it?” I asked, my voice barely a whisper .
He turned around, his face etched with a profound sadness. "Regret is a luxury I can't afford," he said, looking at me with a softness that surprised me. “But I do wish...I'd told you sooner. About what really happened.”
“What *really * happened?” I repeated, the question hanging in the air, heavy with unspoken truths . "That you weren't truly retired?"
He didn’t answer immediately. He simply stared out at the rain, lost in thoughts I didn't want to confront. Finally, he spoke, his voice almost lost in the drumming of the rain. “I was trying to save you.” He paused, then added, with a weary resignation, “And in doing so, I broke you.”
The admission felt like a physical blow . The years melted away, and I saw him again—the young, idealistic agent, brimming with conviction, driven by a desperate need to protect the innocent. But that man was gone , replaced by this – a haunted, solitary figure consumed by regret .
“You didn’t protect anyone,” I said, my voice flat . “You just pushed me away.”
He didn’t argue. He simply turned back to the maps, his hands tracing the routes of forgotten missions, lost causes. The rain continued to fall, a lonely, mournful soundtrack to a conversation that could never truly be finished. I finished my stout. The taste was bitter , like the truth we both carried. I left the Raven’s Nest alone, the sound of Silas’s heavy footsteps echoing behind me—a reminder that some ghosts are best left undisturbed, some doors never reopened.