AI The green neon sign buzzed like a trapped insect, casting a sickly glow on the damp pavement. Inside The Raven’s Nest, the air was thick with the smell of old wood, spilled ale, and the faint, ever-present hint of Silas’s cigar smoke. Rory Carter sat on her usual stool at the end of the bar, her back to the wall, a half-finished pint of bitter turning warm in front of her. It was a Tuesday, slow and deep, the kind of night where the silence between the songs on the vintage jukebox felt heavier than the music itself.
She was tracing the crescent-shaped scar on her left wrist, a childhood relic from a fall off a garden wall in Cardiff, when the door opened. A wedge of light from the street cut across the worn floorboards, and a man stepped in, blinking against the gloom . He was tall, wearing a coat that cost more than her monthly rent, his hair perfectly styled against the London drizzle. For a second, he was just another city ghost, another suit seeking refuge. Then he turned his head, and the light from the green sign caught his profile.
Rory’s hand stilled on her wrist. Her breath hitched, a tiny, almost imperceptible catch in her throat. Leo. Leo Bennett.
Seven years. He’d filled out, lost the boyish softness around his jaw, replaced it with the clean, deliberate lines of a man who knew his worth. But the way he pushed his glasses up his nose with a knuckle—that was the same. A mannerism so familiar it felt like a punch to the gut .
He hadn’t seen her yet. He was surveying the room, his expression one of polite distaste, as if he’d wandered into the wrong chapter of a novel. His gaze swept past the maps of forgotten empires, the black-and-white photos of strangers, and landed on Silas, who was polishing a glass with a slow, methodical rhythm. Silas didn’t look up, but Rory knew he’d registered everything: the expensive coat, the hesitation, the scent of a world that didn’t belong here.
“Quiet place,” Leo said, his voice deeper than she remembered, polished with a confidence that hadn’t been there before. He approached the bar, leaving a careful distance between himself and the only other patron, a grizzled old man muttering into his stout.
“It suits its purpose,” Silas replied, his tone neutral . He set the glass down. His silver signet ring clicked against the wood. “What can I get you?”
“A gin and tonic. Something decent, if you have it.”
Silas gave a nearly imperceptible nod and turned to the bottles. It was then that Leo’s gaze, drifting, landed on her.
His eyes widened . He stared, his brain visibly working to reconcile the woman on the stool with the memory he held. The Rory he knew had worn cardigans and carried textbooks, her laughter quick and bright. This woman had straight, shoulder-length black hair that fell like a curtain, and eyes of a blue so bright they seemed to catch what little light there was and hold it. She wore a simple black jumper, jeans, and boots scuffed from delivery runs. She looked, she knew, like someone who had been carved down to her essentials.
“Rory?” The name was a question, soft with disbelief. “Aurora Carter?”
She offered a small, tight smile. “Leo. Fancy meeting you in a place like this.”
He moved toward her as if pulled by a string, leaving his ordered drink behind. “My God. I don’t believe it.” He stopped a few feet away, not sure whether to hug her or shake her hand. The hesitation spoke volumes. “What are you doing in London? Last I heard…” He trailed off, the unspoken words hanging between them: *Last I heard, you vanished.*
“I live here,” she said simply. She took a sip of her warm beer, needing the bitterness on her tongue. “What brings you to Soho? Slumming it?”
He had the decency to look slightly abashed. “Client meeting ran late. I was looking for a cab, saw the sign.” He gestured vaguely toward the door. “I thought it was a coffee shop. The ‘Nest’.” He finally closed the distance and slid onto the stool next to hers, his coat rustling. “You look… well.”
“You look successful,” she said, and it wasn’t entirely a compliment.
He shrugged, a practiced, modest motion. “Barrister’s chambers. It’s a grind, but it’s what we signed up for, right?” He looked at her, really looked, his eyes searching her face. “You never finished your degree.”
It wasn’t a question. She felt a familiar , cold knot form in her stomach . “No. I didn’t.”
“Why?” The question was blunt, lawyerly. The Leo she’d known at Cardiff University, the one who’d debated jurisprudence with her over cheap wine, would have hedged, would have approached it sideways. This Leo went straight for the throat.
“Things changed,” she said, her voice cool . She was aware of Silas setting the gin and tonic on the bar with a soft thud. Silas moved away, his slight limp more pronounced as he retreated to the other end, giving them the illusion of privacy. The spymaster, granting cover.
“Your father,” Leo said, lowering his voice. “He was devastated. He never said it, but everyone knew. His brilliant daughter, top of our class, just… gone. He thought you’d follow in his footsteps .”
The weight of it, the expectation she’d shed like a skin, settled back on her shoulders. Brendan Carter’s disappointment was a tangible thing, even across years and miles. “I found other footsteps to follow,” she said, her tone drier than she intended.
“Doing what?” Leo’s glance took in the bar again, the worn surroundings, her simple clothes. “Are you… working here?”
“I deliver food for a restaurant. Part-time.” She saw the confusion, the pity he tried to mask. It was there, in the slight tightening around his eyes. The Rory he knew was meant for oak-paneled courtrooms, not navigating London traffic with containers of chow mein. “It pays the bills. I live upstairs.”
“Upstairs.” He repeated the word as if it were in a foreign language. He took a long drink of his gin. “Jesus, Rory. What happened? Was it… was it Evan?”
The name, spoken aloud after so long, was like a key turning in a rusted lock. She felt her jaw tighten. Her cool-headedness, her intelligence—they were tools she’d honed for survival, and they snapped into place. “Evan is part of a story I don’t tell,” she said, her voice even. “Let’s just say Cardiff became… inhospitable.”
Leo was quiet for a moment, studying her. “You could have called. Any of us. Me. Eva said she’d heard from you, but she was cagey about details. We were friends, Rory.”
“Were,” she echoed . The past tense was a chasm. “People change, Leo. You have. I have.”
“Have I?” He sounded almost wounded. “I’m doing exactly what we talked about. What we stayed up all night planning. You’re the one who leapt off the map.”
“Maybe the map was wrong.” She turned her pint glass, watching the light catch the dregs. “Maybe I didn’t leap. Maybe I was pushed.”
He absorbed that, his lawyer’s mind parsing the subtext. The abusive ex, the frantic flight to London, the complete severing of her old life. He reached out, as if to touch her hand, but stopped short, his fingers hovering over her scarred wrist. “I’m sorry,” he said, and it sounded genuine, heavy with the regret of years of not knowing, of not being asked to help. “I wish you’d felt you could… I don’t know. Reach out.”
“It wasn’t about you,” she said, and it was the truth. Her departure had been a solitary , desperate thing. “It was about becoming someone else. Someone he wouldn’t think to look for. Someone my father wouldn’t recognize.” She gave a short, humorless laugh. “Turns out, I’m good at it.”
“And are you?” he asked softly . “Someone else?”
She met his gaze then, her bright blue eyes steady. “Aurora Carter was a girl with a plan. Rory delivers noodles and lives above a bar owned by a retired spy. She doesn’t have a plan. But she’s not afraid of the dark anymore.” She paused. “The girl you knew was afraid of everything, she just hid it better.”
Leo finished his drink, the ice cubes clinking like bones in the glass. “I miss her,” he said, so quietly she almost didn’t hear it over the jukebox switching to a mournful jazz standard .
“I don’t,” Rory said, and was surprised to find she meant it. The regret she felt wasn’t for the life she’d left, but for the friendships she’d incinerated in her escape. For the look in Leo’s eyes that said he’d lost something too, and only now understood its value.
He looked at his watch , a sleek, expensive thing that glinted in the low light. “I should… my wife is expecting me. We’re in town for the week.”
“Wife.” Rory nodded. “Congratulations.”
“Thank you.” He stood, pulling his coat back on. He hesitated, digging in his pocket. He pulled out a card, embossed with his name and chambers. “If you ever need anything. A reference. Legal advice. Anything.”
She took the card, the thick stock feeling alien in her fingers. “I’ll keep it in mind.”
He stood there for another moment, a man straddling two worlds, unsure how to leave. “It was really good to see you, Rory.”
“You too, Leo.”
He turned and walked out, the door swinging shut behind him, swallowing him back into the London night. The green neon buzz seemed louder in his absence .
Silas materialized beside her, picking up Leo’s empty glass. “Old friend?” he asked, his hazel eyes knowing.
“A relic,” Rory said, staring at the business card. Then, with a slow, deliberate motion, she tore it in half, and then in half again, letting the pieces fall onto the bar like confetti. “From a previous life.”
Silas made a noncommittal sound and resumed his polishing. Rory lifted her wrist, her thumb finding the ridge of the crescent scar. A relic from a previous life, too, but one she carried in her skin. Some changes were permanent. Some regrets were just the weight of time, settling into your bones, making a home there. She finished her beer, the warmth of it a small, defiant comfort in the dim and quiet nest.