Run: 2026-02-25-01KJ94JTBARHYETDDV2AFXVN2B

The green neon sign of The Raven’s Nest hummed against the Soho drizzle, casting an oily emerald sheen over the puddles. Aurora stepped out of the damp night, the bell above the door chiming a dull metallic note that the thick air swallowed. Inside, the scent of parched paper and expensive gin settled over her like a heavy blanket. Silas stood behind the bar, polishing a crystal tumbler with the methodical precision of a clockmaker. The silver signet ring on his right hand caught the dim light, reflecting the yellowed maps pinned to the walls. He didn't look up, but the rhythm of his cloth slowed. His left leg shifted, the floorboards creaking under the weight of his old injury. "Late for a shift, or early for a drink, Rory?" Aurora pulled the collar of her jacket tight, her black hair clinging to her cheeks in wet streaks. "The Golden Empress had a rush. Yu-Fei doesn't believe in breaks when the spring rolls are flying." Silas set the glass down, his hazel eyes drifting toward the door as it swung open again. A man stepped in, shedding a tan trench coat that looked like it cost more than Aurora’s flat. He stood with a rigid, practiced posture, his eyes scanning the room with a clinical detachment that didn't belong in a pub. Aurora froze. She reached for her left wrist, her fingers tracing the crescent-shaped scar beneath her sleeve. The man’s gaze snagged on her, and for a heartbeat, the Soho bar vanished, replaced by the grey stone corridors of Cardiff University. "Rory?" Leo Thorne didn't move. The boy who had once spent his afternoons sketching charcoal portraits in the back of lecture halls had been replaced by a man carved from flint. His jaw sat square, his hair cropped into a severe, corporate fade. He looked like the sort of barrister her father would have invited for Sunday lunch to discuss property law. "Leo. You’re a long way from the M4." He crossed the floor, his leather brogues clicking on the wood. He didn't offer a hug. He stopped just outside her personal space, the smell of sandalwood and rain clinging to him. "Work brings me to London. I heard you’d moved, but Eva wouldn't say where." Silas slid a glass of amber liquid toward Aurora without being asked. He lingered, his presence a quiet, towering shadow at the edge of the bar. Leo looked at Silas, then back at Aurora, his brow knitting together. "You’re working here?" "I live upstairs. I work for a restaurant down the street. It’s a life, Leo." Leo took a stool, his movements stiff. He didn't look at the maps or the black-and-white photographs of forgotten agents and jazz musicians. He looked at the scratches in the mahogany bar. "Your father still asks about you. He thinks you’re doing a Master’s at King’s. He tells people you’re specializing in international arbitration." Aurora gripped her glass, the ice clicking against the sides. "Let him think what helps him sleep. Better a scholar in his head than a delivery girl in Soho." "He’s old, Rory. He’s not the man who forced those textbooks down your throat anymore." "He hasn’t changed. He just ran out of people to bark at." Leo signaled Silas for a scotch. He didn't look at the menu. "I took the position at his firm. Three years ago. I’m a junior partner now." Aurora’s laugh was a sharp, jagged thing. "You hated the law, Leo. You wanted to move to Florence and paint until your fingers bled. You used to say the Bar was a cage for people who were afraid of the sun." Leo stared at his reflection in the dark wood of the bar. He didn't blink. "The sun doesn't pay the mortgage. And Florence is expensive. You grow up, you realize that the cage is actually quite comfortable if you have the right furniture." "You look like you're wearing a mask that’s two sizes too small." "And you look like you’re hiding, Rory. You were the smartest person in our year. You could have run circles around any of those professors. Now you’re pouring drinks and running errands for a noodle shop?" Aurora leaned in, her blue eyes flashing under the low lights. "I’m not hiding. I’m breathing. No one here cares about my LSAT scores or who my father is. I don't have to look over my shoulder for Evan every time a door opens." Leo’s expression flickered at the name. He reached out as if to touch her arm, then pulled back, his hand curling into a fist on the bar. "Evan is gone. He’s in Bristol now. He doesn't have any power over you." "Power isn't just about where someone stands. It’s about the space they take up in your head. I left that version of me in Wales. Why are you trying to drag her back?" Silas moved to the end of the bar, his limp more pronounced as he reached for a bottle on the top shelf. He didn't say a word, but his silence was a heavy, watchful thing. "I’m not dragging you back. I’m asking why you threw it all away. You had a future." "I had a script, Leo. There’s a difference." Leo took a long swallow of his drink. The harsh light of the bar highlighted the new lines around his mouth. He looked exhausted, the kind of soul-deep weariness that no amount of expensive tailoring could hide. "I remember you in the library. You used to highlight your notes in three different colors because you said the law was a puzzle you could solve if you looked at it from the right angle." "That girl was a fool. She thought if she followed all the rules, the world would be fair. Then she found out that the people who write the rules are the ones who break them the best." "Is that why you’re here? In a bar that looks like a museum for lost causes?" Leo gestured to the room, his hand sweeping past the bookshelf that concealed Silas’s private room. Aurora followed his gaze. She saw the maps of cities that no longer existed and the faces of people who had lived double lives. "It’s honest work, Leo. More honest than helping corporations find loopholes in environmental regulations." "I do more than that." "Do you? When was the last time you picked up a charcoal pencil?" Leo didn't answer. He stared at his signet ring, a gold band that mimicked the one on Silas’s hand but lacked the weight of history. "I sold my easels. There wasn't room in the new flat." "There’s always room for the things that matter. You just traded them for something that shines." "You judge me for staying, but you’re just as stuck. You’re frozen in the moment you ran away. You’re twenty-five, Rory. You can’t spend the rest of your life as a ghost in Soho." Aurora stood up, the legs of her stool scraping against the floor. "Watch me." Leo reached into his pocket and pulled out a leather wallet. He extracted a crisp fifty-pound note and laid it on the bar. "Your father is having heart surgery in three weeks. He won't call you. He’s too proud. But he’s scared." The air in the room seemed to thin. Aurora felt the crescent scar on her wrist throb, a phantom ache from a childhood fall. "Why are you telling me this?" "Because I’m the one who sits with him. Because I’m the one who became the son he wanted while his daughter disappeared into the London fog. I wanted you to know that the cage you fled is getting smaller." Silas picked up the fifty-pound note, his eyes never leaving Leo’s face. "We don't take bills this large at this hour. No change." Leo stood up and buttoned his trench coat. He looked at Aurora one last time, his eyes searching hers for a glimpse of the girl from Cardiff. He found only the cold, sharp blue of a woman who had learned how to survive. "Keep the change. For the ghosts." He turned and walked out into the Soho rain. The bell chimed again, a final, lonely sound. Aurora stood at the bar, her hand trembling as she reached for her drink. Silas moved toward her, his face a mask of practiced calm. He took the empty glass and replaced it with a fresh one, the ice clinking softly in the quiet bar. "You knew him well?" "I thought I did. A long time ago." Silas nodded, his gaze lingering on the door where the green neon light continued to pulse. "Time has a way of turning people into caricatures of themselves if they aren't careful." "He thinks I'm the one who's changed." "Everyone thinks they're the same person they were ten years ago, Rory. They just find better ways to lie to the mirror." Aurora looked at the maps on the wall, the intricate lines of forgotten borders and secret routes. She traced the scar on her wrist, the skin appearing pale and fragile under the emerald glow. "He said my father is sick." Silas didn't answer. He simply continued to polish the mahogany, the rhythmic movement of his hand the only sound in the room. "The rain's picking up," Silas whispered. Aurora looked toward the window. The Soho street was a blur of movement and light, a thousand lives crossing paths in the dark. She reached for her jacket, the damp fabric cold against her skin. "I should get back to the Empress. Yu-Fei will be wondering where I am." "Stay for one more. On the house." Aurora sat back down, the weight of the conversation pressing into her shoulders like lead. She watched the green light flicker against the glass, the emerald hue bleeding into the amber liquid. "He looks so much like them now, Silas. The lawyers. The men in suits. He sounds like them too." "Wealth is a very loud noise. It drowns out the person underneath." "He used to draw me. While we were studying. He’d hide the sketches in my textbooks so I’d find them during exams." Silas paused, his hand resting on the bar next to hers. "And now he's the one holding the textbook." Aurora closed her eyes, the memory of charcoal-stained fingers and Welsh rain blurring behind her lids. She could still hear Leo’s voice, the clinical edge of it cutting through her defenses. "He’s right about one thing. I am hiding." "Hiding is a form of preservation, Rory. Don't mistake it for weakness." The door opened again, a group of rowdy tourists spilling in from the street, their laughter breaking the silence like a hammer against glass. The tension in the room shattered, the heavy air of the past dissipating into the mundane noise of a Soho night. Aurora watched Silas shift back into his role as the barman, his limp less noticeable as he moved to serve the new arrivals. She looked at the spot where Leo had sat, the wood still holding a faint smudge of condensation from his glass. "I thought I'd forgotten how it felt," she murmured to the empty stool. She stood up and pulled her hood over her head, the black fabric obscuring her face. She didn't look back at the maps or the photographs. She walked toward the door, her boots echoing on the floorboards. As she pushed the door open, the Soho wind whipped the heat from the bar, replacing it with the sharp, metallic taste of the city. "Rory?" Silas called out over the noise of the tourists. She paused in the doorway, the green light framing her silhouette. "Be careful of the puddles. They’re deeper than they look tonight." Aurora stepped out into the rain, the neon sign humming above her as she disappeared into the crowd.