AI Rory’s fingers were sticky with soy sauce, smudged across the iron latch of the third deadbolt. She’d just finished unlocking the three locks—per Eva’s non-negotiable rule, scrawled in neon pink marker on the fridge door—when she heard the knock. Three soft raps, the exact rhythm Eva used when she came home from her shift at the bookstore. She squinted through the peephole, glad she’d grabbed her glasses from the coffee table earlier, even if they perched lopsided on her nose. The view through the tiny glass circle was blurry, but she caught a flash of platinum hair and a tailored suit, and her chest tightened to the point of ache. She twisted the latch one last time and pulled the door wide.
His charcoal suit was pressed so sharp the lapels cut through the streetlamp glow, platinum hair slicked back so tight it looked like he’d run a comb through it while the gel was still wet, ivory cane propped against his thigh. The faint scratch along the ivory handle caught her eye first—she’d made that mark last summer, on a hike in the Brecon Beacons, when she’d tripped over a root and grabbed onto his cane to keep from falling. He’d wiped the mud off it later, laughing as he’d said it adds character. “Lucien.” It came out smaller than she intended, and she shifted her grip on the delivery bags, one slipping a little, the vegetable spring rolls inside clinking against the foil.
He nodded, his mouth set in a thin line, like he’d rehearsed this a hundred times but none of it felt right. “Rory.” His voice carried the soft lilt of Marseille, the same tone that had whispered sweet nothins on his balcony last summer, when they’d watched the sun set over the port.
Brick Lane hummed around them. The fryers at the curry house below hissed shut for the night, a group of teen skateboarders shouted as they ollied over a curb, a vegan donut truck fired up its fryer. Ptolemy, Eva’s tabby, yowled from the windowsill inside, and Rory jumped a little, breaking the spell between them. She stepped back, holding the door open wider, unsure if she should invite him in or shut it in his face. The last time she’d seen him, she’d packed her backpack in the middle of the night, left a crumpled note on his kitchen counter that said I’m sorry, I can’t do this, and caught the first train to London. She’d blocked his number, deleted every text, changed her phone number, and spent six months replaying their last fight in her head, the way he’d grabbed her arm and said I can help you, and she’d screamed I don’t need your help, before running out of his apartment and never looking back. She’d thought he’d hate her for it, for bailing on him when he was in the middle of a high-stakes job for a coven of river vampires, for leaving him holding the bag.
He crossed the threshold, his cane tapping once on the warped wooden entryway floor. The smell of old paper and cardamom incense wrapped around him, and Rory remembered the way Eva burned that incense when she stayed up all night researching faerie lore, scrolling through stolen British Library scrolls on her dining room table. He stopped just inside the door, looking around at the stacks of books on every surface, the scrolls taped to the walls, the cat curling around his leather dress shoe and rubbing against the ankle. “Eva’s still hoarding grimoires like they’re going out of style.”
Rory set the delivery bags on the kitchen counter, next to a half-empty mug of chamomile tea Eva had left out, and wiped her sticky fingers on her jeans. “She found a new 17th-century one last week. Says it’s got secrets about faerie portals in the Thames. She’s been begging for a hardcover copy for months.” She was deflecting, she knew it, but she couldn’t think of anything else to say. She’d spent months trying to forget the way he’d looked at her when she left, like she’d stabbed him in the heart, like she didn’t care about the years they’d spent together, the plans they’d made to move to Marseille together, to open a tiny bookstore and a bar on the port. She’d thought he’d forgotten all about that, too.
Lucien leaned against the kitchen counter, his cane tapping once, twice on the tile floor. “I sent her a hardcover copy last week. Thought she’d prefer it over a digitized PDF.”
Rory’s head snapped up, and for a second she forgot how to breathe. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“I wanted to.” He stepped closer, and she could smell sea salt on his skin, mixed with the faint cigar smoke from his hidden Shoreditch office, the same scent he’d worn the night they’d first kissed, on the Brecon Beacons, after they’d finished hiking and sat by a campfire drinking spiked hot chocolate. “I’ve been looking for you, Rory. For six months.”
She sank onto the arm of Eva’s scuffed couch, where a stack of research notes was piled high, and ran a hand through her shoulder-length black hair, mussing it up. “Why?” She whispered it, like saying it too loud would break the fragile moment between them.
“Because I love you. Or I did, before you ran off in the middle of the night and vanished without a word.” His voice was quiet, raw, nothing like the polished fixer she’d known for the last two years. He’d never sounded like that before, not even when his father’s coven had threatened to disown him for dating a human, not even when he’d had to take down a rogue demon terrorizing a small village in the south of France.
Rory’s throat tightened, and she wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand, laughing a little at the absurdity of it all. The crescent scar on her left wrist throbbed , like it was remembering the last time Evan had grabbed her, six months before she’d fled to London. Evan, who’d followed her to Cardiff, who’d broken into her apartment and smashed all her mother’s old teacups, who’d screamed that she couldn’t leave him, that he owned her. She’d called Lucien that night, sobbing, and he’d come over and held her while she cried, and she’d promised herself she’d never let him get hurt again. “I didn’t run off because I didn’t love you.” The words tumbled out, the ones she’d been holding in for six months. “I ran off because I didn’t want to drag you into it. Evan was sick, Lucien. He’d find out about you, about your father, about all of this supernatural crap, and he’d use it against you. He’d hurt you, just like he hurt me, and I couldn’t let that happen.”
He crossed the rest of the distance between them, and reached out, his fingers brushing the scar on her wrist, light enough that she could pull away if she wanted. Rory didn’t pull away. He ran a single finger along the crescent mark, and a shiver snaked down her spine . “This scar. Evan did this to you.” It was a statement, not a question, and she nodded, her eyes stinging .
“I should have told you sooner. About my father, about the demon stuff. I should have trusted you enough to let you choose, instead of keeping it from you until it was too late.” His amber eye softened, his black pupil dilated, and his thumb brushed over the scar again. “I never stopped loving you, either. I just thought you’d never want to see me again. I thought you hated me for not dropping my job to come with you to London.”
Rory leaned forward, her hands cupping his face, her thumbs brushing the corners of his eyes, and she kissed him. It started soft, like they were both afraid to break the fragile moment, but then it deepened, his hands wrapping around her waist, pulling her closer, and she could forget about Evan, about the three deadbolts, about the stacks of grimoires scattered across Eva’s flat. She could just feel the warmth of his body, the taste of mint on his tongue, the way his fingers dug gently into her hips, like he was afraid she’d vanish again.
Ptolemy jumped onto the couch, rubbing between their legs, and they pulled apart, laughing, a little breathless. Rory rested her head on Lucien’s shoulder, and he wrapped his arm around her, setting his cane down next to the couch. “I’m not going anywhere this time.” He murmured it into her hair, and she nodded, her eyes closing, listening to the steady thud of his heartbeat against her cheek.
“I know.” She whispered it, and for the first time in six months, she felt safe. The hum of Brick Lane filtered through the windows, the smell of cardamom and old paper wrapped around them, and for a second, the world felt exactly like it should.