AI The bell above the varnished door chimed a late night welcome for Rory. Rain slicked the pavement outside, reflecting the green neon glow of ‘The Raven’s Nest’ sign back at the street. She peeled off her soaked delivery jacket, shaking it once before hanging it on a peg near the entrance. The chilled air from outside clung to her, a sharp contrast to the bar’s dense warmth . Old maps covered the walls, their faded colours bleeding into the dim light. Black-and-white photographs of forgotten faces stared from ornate frames. The scent of spilled beer and polished wood hung heavy, a familiar comfort.
Silas stood behind the bar, a rag in hand, wiping down the polished mahogany. His grey-streaked auburn hair, neatly trimmed along with his beard, caught the amber light from a low-hanging lamp. He looked up, his hazel eyes meeting hers. A small, almost imperceptible shift crossed his face, a flicker of something Rory could not name, then it vanished. He usually offered a nod, a quiet acknowledgement. Tonight, he paused.
Rory walked to her usual stool, perching herself there. Her shoulder-length black hair dripped small beads of water onto the stool’s leather seat. She pushed a stray strand behind her ear, revealing the small crescent-shaped scar on her left wrist, a pale mark against her skin.
“Rough shift,” Rory said, her voice a little raw from the cold.
Silas reached for a clean glass, his movements practiced and slow. He set it down, the clink a sharp sound in the quiet bar. He did not immediately reach for the bottle. Instead, his gaze lingered on her, his head tilted.
“Cardiff treating you well these days?” he asked, his voice a low rumble.
Rory’s hand, resting on the bar, froze. Her bright blue eyes widened , a sudden, fierce flicker in their depths . The casual question struck her with the force of a physical blow. She swallowed, her throat suddenly dry. The familiar space around her twisted, warbled at the edges. Not a single person in London, not a single soul here knew that part of her. She fled Cardiff, left it behind with every painful memory, every shattered piece of herself.
“What a question,” she replied, her voice a flat, dead thing. She turned away, staring at a cluster of faded photographs on the wall, images of sepia-toned strangers. “You know I’m not in Cardiff.”
“No,” Silas agreed, the word drawn out . “But I remember you were, once. A long time ago.” He leaned forward slightly, his silver signet ring flashing on his right hand. “You have your mother’s eyes. And your father’s stubbornness. It’s hard to miss, even at a distance.”
Rory’s chest hitched. Her breath caught somewhere deep in her lungs. She spun back around, her gaze locking onto his. Recognition, cold and disbelieving, bled into her features. His height, the grey-streaked auburn hair, the quiet authority in his stance – all these elements, once just the defining characteristics of her landlord, of ‘Silas’, now coalesced into a ghost from her past. A connection she had never consciously made, never dared to make.
“Silas?” she breathed, the name a question, a plea for him to deny it. Not him. Not here.
He gave a small, almost sorrowful nod. “It’s been a long time, Aurora. Or do you still prefer Rory?”
Her given name, so rarely used, hung heavy in the air between them. Her shoulders slumped, the tension draining out of her, leaving her suddenly exhausted. The energy she spent every single day maintaining her new identity, her new life, crumbled. The chill from outside seemed to seep deeper, settling in her bones.
“Aurora,” she repeated, the word tasting foreign on her tongue . “Just Aurora, now.”
Silas uncorked a bottle of Irish whiskey he kept specifically for her, the smooth clink of the glass against the counter loud in the sudden quiet. He poured a measure. The amber liquid shimmered . He pushed the glass across to her.
“Last I saw you, you were barely sixteen,” Silas said, his voice softer now, edged with something that sounded like regret . “Little Laila, running around your father’s study, trying to read his law books upside down.”
Laila. Her childhood nickname, utterly discarded, long forgotten. Hearing it now, in this dim bar, from this man, tore a jagged line through her carefully constructed present. She picked up the glass, her fingers trembling slightly . The whiskey burned a path down her throat, warming the sudden cold inside her.
“Funny,” Rory managed, her voice emerging as a brittle laugh . “I never thought I’d run into anyone from… from that life. Especially not you, Silas.”
“Life has a way of twisting back on itself,” he replied, his gaze distant, as if looking through the smoky past . “Your father… he spoke of you often. Always so proud, so certain you’d follow in his footsteps .”
A bitter laugh escaped her lips. “He was. Until I didn’t. Things… changed.” She stared into the dark liquid, watching the reflections of the bar lights dance . “A lot of things changed.”
“I see that,” Silas said quietly, his eyes sketching the sharp lines of her face, the way her shoulders held a perpetual tension . “The spark’s still there, Aurora. But it’s banked. Guarded.” He tapped the bar softly , his limp leg a steady weight against the floor. “The world can do that to a person. Life hardens us, or it breaks us.”
“Or both,” she countered, her voice tight . “I didn’t break. I just… snapped. Left a lot of things behind.”
Silence stretched, thick and uncomfortable, between them. The clatter of an ice bucket from the other end of the bar, where another bartender was cleaning up, was the only sound.
“You left Cardiff,” Silas observed, a statement, not a question. “And your father. Your mother.”
“They had their lives,” Rory said, her fingers tightening around the glass . “I had to find mine.”
“Or escape it?” Silas asked, his voice gentle . “I heard… whispers. A young man. Problems.”
Her head snapped up. Her eyes, usually so cool and composed, flashed with a raw vulnerability, a sudden defensive fire. “Whispers travel, even across a country,” she said, her tone sharp . “Some whispers are best left unrepeated.”
“Some whispers, if ignored, can become screams,” Silas replied, his gaze steady . “I lost touch with your father after I retired. But I kept an ear to the ground. Heard enough to know you weren’t the same girl. Heard enough to know you needed a fresh start.” He gestured around the bar. “And then one day, there you were. Asking about a flat above a bar in Soho. It was… quite the coincidence, Aurora.”
Rory stared at him, the pieces clicking into place. The way Silas had taken her on, so quickly , so easily. The inexplicable sense of safety she felt in his presence, a lingering echo she never understood. He knew. He had known all along.
“You… you knew,” she breathed, the accusation heavy in her voice. “You let me rent the flat. You offered me a job. You pretended not to know.”
“I recognized the flicker ,” Silas explained, his voice even, devoid of defensiveness. “The way you moved. The intelligence in your eyes, trying to hide behind a veil of exhaustion. But you were changed. Harder. Warier. So I waited. Offered what I could. A quiet place. A fresh start. A mentor, if you needed one.” He paused. “I didn’t want to push. Some wounds don’t heal well when exposed too soon.”
“My wounds are fine,” Rory snapped, though the tremor in her hand betrayed the lie. She took another long swallow of whiskey. “I healed. Or I learned to live with the scars. Like this one.” She lightly touched the crescent mark on her wrist. “The ones you can’t see are deeper.”
Silas’s hazel eyes softened slightly . “You were a bright child, Aurora. Full of fire and endless questions. Always challenging, even then.” He ran a hand over his trimmed beard. “I remember your father telling me you once argued a point with a visiting judge, when you were nine, about the merits of fictional characters facing due process.” A faint smile touched his lips, then faded. “He thought you’d be the pride of the Welsh bar.”
“The Welsh bar and I had a falling out,” Rory said, a bitter note in her voice. “Turns out law wasn’t my calling. Running away from things has gotten me further.” She put the glass down with a slight thud. “You said Laila. What did you call me when I was little?”
“Laila,” Silas repeated. “From a book your mother read you. A strong queen, fierce and just. It suited you.” He looked at her, truly looked at her. “And it still does. Even if you don’t see it.”
Rory scoffed, a dry, humorless sound. “Fierce and just? I’m a delivery girl. Delivering curry. That’s my grand destiny.”
“You survive,” Silas countered, his voice firm . “You adapt. You keep moving. That takes its own kind of strength. Your mother always said you had grit. More than anyone she knew.”
“My mother,” Rory repeated, the name a painful echo . “We don’t talk much anymore. Not since I left.”
“Families fracture,” Silas said, his gaze settling on his silver signet ring, rotating it slowly around his finger. There was a quiet weight to his words, a hidden story in his own past. “Sometimes, it’s for the best. Sometimes, it’s the only way to find your own peace.”
“So you’re saying leaving everything behind, everyone, was peace?” Rory challenged, her voice rising slightly . “Because it doesn’t feel like peace. It feels like… like I’m always looking over my shoulder. Always waiting for something to catch up.”
“The past always catches up,” Silas said, his gaze meeting hers, clear and unwavering . “But perhaps not in the way you expect. Sometimes, it’s a quiet hand on your shoulder, reminding you of who you were, before you became who you needed to be.”
Rory looked down at her hands, turning them over, inspecting the calluses, the small nicks from her work. They were not the soft hands of a Pre-Law student, of the girl who once dreamed of justice. They were the hands of someone who worked, who fought, who survived.
“I don’t know who that girl was anymore,” she admitted, her voice barely a whisper . “She feels like a stranger. Someone I barely remember.”
“She’s still in there,” Silas assured her. “Maybe buried under layers of… experience. But she’s there. And she’s part of who you are now. The two Auroras. The one you were, and the one you’ve become.” He sighed, a soft, weary sound. “Time has a way of leaving its mark on us all. We carry it. We carry the silence , the choices we made, the ones we didn’t.”