Run: 2026-02-24-01KJ8VKD4JDNH8703RFESS63SH

The third deadbolt gave the most resistance, always had, and Rory had to lean her weight into the door before it swung open. She'd been expecting Eva back from the corner shop. Crisps, maybe a bottle of wine, the familiar smell of curry drifting up from the restaurant below. Lucien Moreau stood in the hallway instead. He wore the charcoal suit — of course he did, he always wore the charcoal suit — though the collar of his shirt was open at the throat tonight, which was new. His ivory-handled cane rested against his right hand more out of habit than necessity. His amber eye caught the light from the flat. The black one gave nothing away, same as always. "Bonsoir." The word landed easy, unhurried, like he'd run into her in a lift rather than appearing unannounced on the doorstep of a flat he had no business knowing the address of. Rory's hand stayed on the doorframe. "How did you find this place?" "Eva listed it in a registry I have access to. Supernatural properties. She filed the wards with the Meridian Council in February." He tilted his head slightly. "May I come in?" "No." Ptolemy squeezed past her ankles and sniffed at Lucien's polished Oxford shoes. "Your cat disagrees." "Ptolemy has terrible judgement." She didn't move. "Whatever you need, Lucien, you can say it from there." Something shifted in his expression — not quite a smile, not quite hurt, something that lived in the narrow space between. He reached into his jacket and produced an envelope, thick cream paper, sealed with red wax. "It concerns you directly. I was asked to deliver it in person." "You could have posted it." "I could have." He held it out. "I chose not to." The admission sat between them. Rory pulled in a slow breath through her nose, caught the faint trace of cedar and something warmer underneath, and hated that she still recognised it. She took the envelope. Their fingers didn't touch. She stepped back from the door. Not quite an invitation, but he crossed the threshold anyway. Eva's flat closed around them both, books stacked on every surface, a half-unrolled scroll pinned flat under a mug on the kitchen table, strings of dried herbs hanging from the curtain rail. The single lamp in the corner threw everything amber. Ptolemy jumped onto the back of the sofa and watched Lucien with the focused, unblinking attention of a creature completely unbothered by the supernatural. Rory turned the envelope over. The seal bore a crest she didn't recognise. "Who sent this?" "The Avaric Consulate." He moved further into the room, pausing to scan the spines on the nearest bookshelf, though she doubted he was actually reading them. "There's a hearing. Three weeks from Thursday. Your name came up in connection with the Aldgate incident." "I wasn't involved in the Aldgate incident." "You were adjacent to it." "I delivered food to a man who happened to be involved in it. That's not the same thing." "They don't distinguish." He turned from the shelf. "Which is why you need to read the letter, Rory." The name — her name, not a formal address, not Ms Carter — came out without ceremony, like he'd forgotten for a second to be careful with it. The muscle in his jaw moved after he said it, barely perceptible. She broke the seal and read. It was worse than adjacent. The Consulate had her listed as a person of interest in an ongoing inquiry, tied not just to Aldgate but to two other incidents she'd been nowhere near. Someone had done deliberate work to put her in the frame. "This is fabricated." "Substantially, yes." She looked up. "You knew before you came here." "I suspected." He crossed to the kitchen table and moved the scroll aside to sit on the edge of it, setting his cane down. It was a strangely casual gesture from a man who rarely let his guard drop below architectural. "I have contacts at the Consulate. When your name surfaced I made enquiries." "Why?" The question came out shorter than she'd meant it to. More raw. Lucien looked at her for a moment. The lamp caught the planes of his face, the slight tension around the amber eye. "Because the last time I didn't act quickly enough, you disappeared for four months." The flat went very quiet. Outside, a motorbike passed on Brick Lane, and the bass from the restaurant below shifted through the floorboards. "That wasn't your fault." She folded the letter along its original creases. "I left. That was my decision." "I know." He picked a loose thread from his jacket cuff. "I'm not assigning blame. I'm explaining why I came in person rather than posting an envelope." Rory set the letter on the table beside him and crossed her arms, not defensively but because she needed something to do with her hands. She stood close enough that she could see the faint, almost imperceptible lines at the corners of his eyes that hadn't been there nine months ago. "You look tired," she said. "You look well." "That's not what I said." The corner of his mouth moved. "No. It isn't." Ptolemy dropped off the sofa and wound between their legs with complete indifference to the atmosphere. Rory watched the cat, because it was easier than watching Lucien. "There are things we didn't finish saying," he said, quietly. "I'm aware this isn't the moment for them. But I wanted you to know I'm aware." "Lucien —" "The letter takes precedence. I have a contact who can challenge the documentation, but they'll need a statement from you within the week." He picked the cane back up. All the businesslike certainty returned to his posture, a coat he'd slipped briefly off and now had back on. "I can arrange a meeting tomorrow evening, if you're willing." Rory watched him reconstruct himself and felt something she couldn't name settle in her chest — not quite grief, not quite relief. "Fine," she said. "Tomorrow evening." He nodded once. He was already moving toward the door when she spoke again. "I didn't disappear because of you." She kept her eyes on Ptolemy. "I want you to know that too. Since we're being honest about what we're aware of." He stopped. For several seconds neither of them moved. "Thank you," he said.