Run: 2026-02-25-01KJ9543KW6EYPQNQ0KX5XHSQS

The green neon sign outside the Raven’s Nest hummed with a low-frequency buzz that Aurora could feel in the marrow of her teeth. It was a rhythmic, electric pulse that competed with the drizzle slicking the Soho pavement. She pushed through the heavy oak door, the bells chiming a muted greeting, and let the familiar scent of the bar wash over her: floor wax, stale hops, and the faint, sharp tang of Silas’s expensive gin. Silas Blackwood moved behind the mahogany bar with the practiced grace of a man who had spent decades learning how to disappear in plain sight. Even with the slight hitch in his stride—that lingering souvenir from a Prague winter he never spoke about—he looked as if he were part of the furniture, anchored to the room by the weight of his hazel eyes and the silver signet ring that caught the amber light of the back-shelf lanterns. “Long shift, Rory?” Silas asked, his voice a gravelly baritone. He didn't look up from the glass he was buffing with a white linen cloth. “The Golden Empress had a run on Peking duck,” Aurora said, sliding onto her usual stool at the far end of the bar, nearest the bookshelf that masked the entrance to Silas’s private office. She ran a hand through her shoulder-length black hair, tucked a stray lock behind her ear, and caught sight of the small crescent-shaped scar on her left wrist. It was a pale, jagged reminder of a childhood tumble in Cardiff, a ghost of a girl who had once believed she would spend her life in a courtroom rather than on a delivery bike. “Mrs. Cheung was in a state. I think I’ve got plum sauce in my pores.” Silas poured a measure of whiskey without being asked. He slid it across the polished wood, his movements economical. “The life of the law was too quiet for you, remember?” “Quiet isn’t the word I’d use for my father’s house,” she muttered, lifting the glass. The door chimed again. A man stepped in, shaking a dark umbrella and shedding a tailored charcoal overcoat. He was Rory’s age, twenty-five or so, but he carried himself with the heavy, curated importance of someone who had already decided his place in the world. His hair was perfectly swept, his shoes expensive enough to make Rory instinctively tuck her own scuffed boots under the bar’s brass rail. Rory froze, the whiskey halfway to her lips. The man turned, scanning the dim interior with a look of mild condescension that dissolved into raw shock the moment his eyes landed on her. “Aurora?” The name hit her like a physical blow. Nobody in London called her Aurora. Here, she was Rory, or Carter, or occasionally a ghost. “Julian,” she said, her voice steadier than she felt. Julian Vance took three steps toward her, his face a map of disbelief. He was a piece of her Cardiff life—a fellow Pre-Law student, the man her parents had once hoped she might marry, the one who had stayed behind to collect the degrees and the accolades she had abandoned in the middle of a Tuesday night three years ago. “My God, it is you,” Julian said. He stopped a respectful distance away, his eyes roaming over her utilitarian jacket and the weary set of her shoulders. “I heard… well, no one knew what to think. Your mother said you were traveling. Your father wouldn’t speak your name at the firm’s dinner last spring.” Rory felt Silas’s presence sharpen behind the bar. He wasn't looking at them, but she knew he was listening, his internal radar calibrated for the sudden shift in atmospheric pressure. “I’m not traveling, Julian,” Rory said. “I live here.” “In Soho?” Julian looked around the Raven’s Nest as if he expected a Victorian ghost to manifest from the shadows of the old maps on the walls. “Brendan said you’d had some kind of… breakdown. After the thing with Evan. He said you’d just snapped.” The mention of Evan made the scar on her wrist itch. She squeezed the glass harder. “I didn’t snap. I woke up. There’s a difference.” Julian signaled Silas for a drink, his hand fluttering with a nervousness he couldn't quite mask. Silas served him a Scotch, his hazel eyes lingering on Julian’s face for a heartbeat too long, a silent assessment that Julian was too distracted to notice. “You look different,” Julian whispered, leaning against the bar. “Harder. Not in a bad way, just… you used to be so bright, Aurora. Everyone at Cardiff University thought you’d be the one to break all the records. Then you just vanished into London. No forwarding address, no phone calls. Eva wouldn't tell us anything.” “Eva did what I asked her to do,” Rory said. She took a slow sip of the whiskey, letting the burn settle the tremors in her chest. “I didn't want to be found by anyone who knew the girl I was supposed to be.” “And who are you now?” Julian asked. He looked at her with a mix of pity and a strange, hungry curiosity. “I’m an associate at Miller and Thorne now. I’m doing intellectual property. It’s… it’s what we talked about, remember? The internships, the long nights in the library?” “I remember the nights,” Rory said, her gaze drifting to a black-and-white photograph on the wall—a grainy shot of a rainy street in a city she didn't recognize. “I just don't remember wanting them. I think I was just mimicking the people around me. Like a bird imitating a song it doesn't actually like.” Julian blinked, clearly uncomfortable with the metaphor. “Your father is devastated, you know. He thinks he failed you. He thinks Evan… well, he thinks he should have seen what was happening.” “He saw,” Rory said sharply. “He just thought a Welsh teacher’s daughter and a barrister’s son should be able to work through a few ‘disagreements.’ He called it character building. He didn't realize the building was collapsing.” Silas limped over to their end of the bar, picking up an empty bowl of olives. He caught Rory’s eye, a silent question in the tilt of his head. *Do you want him gone?* Rory gave a nearly imperceptible shake of her head. She wanted to feel this. She wanted to see the life she had amputated, if only to confirm the wound had healed. “I’m sorry,” Julian said, and for a moment, he actually sounded like the boy she had once shared coffee with in the student union. “I didn't see it either. None of us did. But Aurora… look at this place. Look at you. You’re working for a takeaway? Living above a pub? You were meant for more than this.” “More than what, Julian?” She stood up, her height of five-foot-six suddenly feeling like six feet. “More than being happy? More than being safe? I don't wake up wondering if I’m going to be hit because I didn't iron a shirt correctly. I don't spend my days reading contracts for people who only care about how much they can squeeze out of a competitor. I deliver food to people who are hungry, and I come home to a place where I don’t have to pretend.” Julian looked down at his Scotch. The silence between them stretched, filled with the hum of the neon sign and the distant siren of a police car threading through Soho’s narrow veins. The weight of the years they hadn't shared sat on the bar like an unpayable tab. “He’s married now,” Julian said softly. “Evan. To a girl from Swansea. She looks a bit like you used to.” Rory felt a cold shiver trace the line of her spine. She looked at Julian—the expensive suit, the groomed hair, the life of spreadsheets and billable hours—and saw a man who was still living in the dream she had escaped. He was a ghost of a future she hadn't wanted, and he was mourning a version of her that had never truly existed. “I hope she’s faster than I was,” Rory said. She reached into her pocket, pulled out a few crumpled notes, and slapped them onto the bar. “It was good to see you, Julian. Really.” “You’re leaving?” “I have an early start,” she lied. She looked at Silas. “See you tomorrow, Si.” “Tomorrow, Rory,” Silas replied, his voice a steady anchor in the sudden storm of her past. He watched Julian with a predator’s patience, the silver signet ring gleaming as he went back to his glass. Rory turned and walked toward the door. She didn't look back at the bar, or the maps, or the man who represented everything she had been groomed to be. As she stepped out into the London rain, the green neon light washed over her, turning her skin a strange, alien hue. She felt the weight of Julian’s pity behind her, but as she started the climb to her flat above the Nest, all she felt was the lightness of being a stranger in her own life. The rain was cold, but it was clean, and for the first time in years, the silence of the night didn't feel like a threat. It felt like an answer. For Julian, time was a ladder he was still desperately climbing. For Rory, it was a river—and she was finally content to let it carry her away from the shore.