AI The first knock was tentative, a soft rap against the reinforced wood. Rory looked up from the grimoire spread across Eva’s kitchen table, her fingers stilling on the page. Ptolemy, the tabby, lifted his head from a nest of scrolls on the sofa, his ears twitching. The curry-scented air from the restaurant below seemed to thicken.
The second knock came, firmer this time. Three precise beats.
No one visited Eva unannounced. Eva was in Edinburgh for a symposium, and Rory had the flat to herself for the week. She’d promised to water the plants and feed the cat, and to use the quiet to finally make sense of the coded ledgers she’d lifted from Silas’s safe. The knock didn’t fit into the plan.
She stood, the wooden chair scraping against the linoleum. She padded to the door, the floorboards cool under her socks. Through the peephole, the world distorted into a fish-eye lens of the dim landing. A figure in a charcoal suit filled the view, his posture erect, one hand resting on the head of an ivory-handled cane.
Her breath caught. It couldn’t be.
The crescent scar on her left wrist throbbed , a phantom pulse . She hadn’t seen him in eight months, not since the night in the rain-slicked alley behind the Midnight Market, when words had been thrown like knives and the space between them had turned into a chasm.
The third series of knocks was impatient, authoritative. *Rap-rap-rap-rap.*
Her hand went to the three deadbolts. Her mind raced through the possibilities. He was a fixer. He dealt in information. He wasn’t here for a social call. This was business. It had to be business. She turned the locks, the heavy mechanisms clunking in succession.
She opened the door just enough to see him fully, the chain still engaged.
Lucien Moreau stood on the other side, his heterochromatic eyes—one amber, one black as pitch—meeting hers through the gap. The platinum blond hair was slicked back as perfectly as ever, not a strand out of place despite the damp London chill clinging to his shoulders. His charcoal suit was tailored to within an inch of its life, the fabric looking more like liquid shadow than wool. He leaned slightly on his cane, the ivory handle gleaming under the weak hallway bulb.
“Aurora.” His voice was exactly as she remembered—a low, smooth baritone that carried the faintest trace of Marseille, a sound that had once murmured against her skin in the dark.
“Lucien.” She kept her own voice flat, cool. “You’re lost. The demonic auction house is three blocks west.”
A ghost of a smile touched his lips, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “My geography is, as ever, impeccable. I am precisely where I intend to be. May I come in? It’s rather drafty out here, and the scent of vindaloo is… pervasive.”
“Eva’s not here.”
“I am aware. I am here to see you.”
“How did you know I was here?”
“I make it my business to know where you are, *chérie *. It is a professional habit. And a personal one.” He shifted his weight, the cane tapping once on the floorboards. “The chain is… charmingly mortal. It wouldn’t stop me if I wished to enter.”
“But you won’t,” she said, the challenge clear . “Because you’re a gentleman. Allegedly.”
His amber eye seemed to glow for a second. “Allegedly.” He waited. The silence stretched, filled only by the distant hum of Brick Lane traffic and Ptolemy’s curious meow from inside.
Rory let out a slow breath. The smart move was to shut the door, to slide the bolts home and pretend he’d never come. But the smart move had never applied where Lucien was concerned . Her curiosity, that damned, insatiable thing, was already piqued. And beneath it, a colder, sharper emotion—the hurt she’d buried under months of delivery runs and late-night research.
She closed the door enough to disengage the chain, then opened it fully.
He stepped across the threshold, bringing with him the scent of cold air, expensive sandalwood cologne, and something else—the faint, ozone-tinged aroma of the spaces between worlds. He filled the cramped entryway, his presence making the stacks of books seem to shrink back.
She shut the door behind him, engaging the top deadbolt out of habit. When she turned, he was surveying the chaos of the living area, his gaze missing nothing: the open grimoire, the coded ledgers, the half-empty mug of tea.
“Cosy,” he remarked, his tone dry .
“What do you want, Lucien?”
He turned to face her, leaning both hands on the cane. “Straight to business. You always did prefer to skip the pleasantries.”
“We’re past pleasantries.”
“Are we?” He took a slow step forward. She held her ground, but her heart kicked against her ribs. “I recall a time when our conversations involved considerably more than transactions.”
“That was before you decided my trust was a currency to be traded.”
His expression tightened. “Is that what you believe happened?”
“I believe you had information. Information that could have kept people safe. You held onto it until the price was right. People got hurt because of it.”
“People are always getting hurt, Rory. It is the nature of the world we inhabit. I offered you a solution. You chose to interpret it as extortion.”
“You offered me a solution wrapped in a favour. A favour with strings so long they could lasso the moon. I don’t dance on your strings, Luc. Not anymore.”
He was close enough now that she could see the fine lines at the corners of his eyes, the slight tension in his jaw. The black of his left eye seemed to swallow the light. “You left in the middle of the night. You didn’t say goodbye.”
“You were asleep. Or pretending to be. I didn’t think a note was necessary. The message was pretty clear when you sold the location of the safehouse to the Hounds of Avaros.”
“I sold them a decoy location. A warehouse on the docks that was empty. They spent three nights watching rats. The real safehouse was never compromised.”
She blinked. That wasn’t in any of the reports she’d later scavenged. “You… what?”
“I am many things, Aurora. A broker. A half-breed. A pragmatist. But I am not a monster. I would not have let them harm those children.” His voice dropped, softened. “You should have stayed. You should have asked me.”
The anger that had sustained her for months began to crack, letting in a rush of confusion . “You let me believe you’d betrayed them. You let me walk away thinking you were…”
“What? The villain? It is a role I am often cast in. It is convenient for people to believe the worst. It simplifies their moral arithmetic.” He looked away, towards the window overlooking the street. “It was easier to let you hate me than to explain the complexities of the deal. The Hounds paid handsomely for false information. That money funded the relocation of every person in that safehouse to a new city, with new identities. They are safe, Rory. Because of the deal you so despise.”
The floor felt unsteady under her feet. She backed up until her legs hit the edge of the kitchen table. “You didn’t tell me.”
“You didn’t give me the chance. You saw the transaction and you… you looked at me with such disgust. As if I were something you’d found on your shoe.” He turned his gaze back to her, and for the first time, she saw something raw in his expression—not anger, but a profound weariness . “I thought you, of all people, understood the games we have to play.”
“I thought I did too.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “But then I realised I was just another piece on your board. Was us… was that part of the game?”
He moved then, closing the distance between them in two swift strides. He didn’t touch her, but his presence was overwhelming. The sandalwood and ozone filled her senses. “Look at me,” he commanded, his voice rough . “Look into my eyes and tell me you believe that.”
She forced herself to meet his mismatched gaze. The amber one burned with intensity ; the black one was a void, but in its depths , she saw a reflection of her own face, pale and uncertain.
“Every moment with you was the only thing that felt real in a world of shadows and lies,” he said, each word deliberate, as if carved from stone. “You were the exception. You have always been the exception.”
Her throat tightened. “Then why didn’t you stop me from leaving?”
“Because you wanted to go. You needed to believe the worst of me. It was the only way you could justify walking away from something that frightened you.”
“It didn’t frighten me.”
“Liar.” The word was soft, almost a caress. “It terrified you. The depth of it. The fact that I am not human, that my world is one of perpetual twilight and compromise. You are a creature of light and clear lines, Rory. I am a creature of the grey. You looked into that grey and you flinched.”
She had no retort. He was right. The intensity of what she’d felt for him had been a riptide, pulling her under. She’d fought it, clawed her way back to the surface, and called it survival.
Ptolemy wound himself around Lucien’s legs, purring loudly, breaking the tension . Lucien glanced down, a genuine smile—small, surprised—touching his lips. He bent, with a slight wince she’d never seen before, and scratched the cat behind the ears. “You have a friend, I see.”
“He’s Eva’s. He usually hates strangers.”
“Perhaps I am not a stranger to all creatures.” He straightened, the movement fluid but with a hint of stiffness. She noticed the way his hand gripped the cane a little tighter.
“Are you hurt?”
“An old injury. The damp aggravates it.” He dismissed it with a wave. “I did not come here to discuss my ailments.”
“Why did you come here?”
He was silent for a long moment, his eyes tracing the lines of her face as if memorising them anew . “Because I am tired, Aurora. I am tired of the games, and the lies, and the endless grey. And because a source I trust told me that the Hounds have a new target. They are hunting for the person who leaked the decoy location to them. They have put a considerable bounty on that person’s head.”
A cold knot formed in her stomach . “You.”
“Me. And by association, anyone close to me. They have been making inquiries in Cardiff. About a barrister named Brendan Carter.”
Her blood ran cold . “My father.”
“He is well-guarded. Your mother is with her sister in Swansea. They are safe for now. But the Hounds are persistent. And they have… expanded their search parameters to London.”
“They’re looking for me.”
“They are looking for any leverage against me. You are the most obvious candidate.” He took a step closer. “I have safe houses. Places not even the Hounds can penetrate. I can protect you.”
“I can protect myself.”
“Can you?” His gaze swept over the coded ledgers. “By hiding in your friend’s flat, deciphering Silas’s bookkeeping? Silas is a petty warlock with delusions of grandeur. His troubles are a splinter compared to the spear aimed at us.”
“So this is a rescue mission? After eight months of silence , you show up to save the damsel in distress?”
“This is a warning. And an offer. You can hate me until the stars burn out. You can curse my name and everything I represent. But let me do this one thing. Let me keep you safe.”
“And then what? I go into hiding forever? I change my name, disappear?”
“If necessary.”
She shook her head. “No. I’m done running. From my ex, from my past, from you. I’m not running anymore.”
“Then what do you propose?”
“I propose we use the bait.” The idea formed as she spoke it, cool and clear in her mind. “They’re looking for leverage. Let’s give them a target. But not a hiding one. A hunting one.”
His amber eye narrowed. “Explain.”
“You said it yourself. I’m a creature of clear lines. So let’s draw a line. We let them think they’ve found me. We set a trap. Instead of me being the prize, we turn the hunt around.”
A slow, genuine smile spread across Lucien’s face, one that lit up both his eyes, even the dark one. It was the smile she remembered from before everything went wrong—sharp, appreciative, and dangerously attractive. “You always did have a gift for the audacious.”
“Is it audacious, or is it stupid?”
“The two are often synonymous. And frequently glorious.” He leaned his cane against the table. “You would work with me? After everything?”
She looked at him, really looked at him. At the man who had lied to save lives, who had let her believe the worst to protect his operations, who stood in a cluttered flat offering her safety even as she threw it back in his face. The hurt was still there, a dull ache. But beneath it, the attraction she’d tried to bury was a live wire, humming back to life.
“I don’t trust you,” she said honestly.
“I don’t expect you to. Not yet.”
“But I trust that you want the Hounds gone as much as I do. And that you’re the best person to make that happen.”
“A pragmatic alliance.”
“For now.”
He nodded. “For now.”
The space between them crackled with unspoken history and the dangerous new plan taking shape. Ptolemy jumped onto the table, nosing at the grimoire. Outside, a siren wailed in the distance, a reminder of the city sprawling around them, full of shadows and threats.
Lucien didn’t move away. “We will need to start immediately. The Hounds move quickly once they have a scent.”
“I need to finish here first.” She gestured to the ledgers. “Silas has been skimming from the wrong people. If I can prove it, I can get him off my back for good. One less problem.”
“Very well. I will assist.” He rolled up the sleeves of his impeccably tailored shirt, revealing forearms corded with muscle and old, silvery scars. “Where shall we begin?”