AI The third deadbolt snicks home last, Rory wiping her palms on the frayed cuff of her hoodie before twisting the doorknob. She’d been expecting the 16-year-old delivery runner from Yu-Fei’s, the kid who always forgets extra chili oil and slams the door before she can hand him the change, but the figure filling her doorway is not him. It’s Lucien. For half a heartbeat, she blinks so hard her bright blue eyes water, like she’s still standing in her Marseille studio apartment six months prior, watching him laugh over a bottle of rosé, his amber and black eyes crinkling at the corners. Then the streetlamp outside bleeds gold over his slicked-back platinum bangs, and the tailored charcoal suit fits so tight across his shoulders it’s obscene, and she remembers exactly how it felt to have his hands on her hips, to hear him murmur in that smooth, accented French that made her forget all about her pre-law essays and Evan’s yelling through the apartment walls. Her left wrist tugs, involuntary, the faint crescent scar there thrumming like a memory she’d tried to bury under months of delivery routes and stolen nights at Eva’s. Ptolemy, Eva’s tabby cat, launched from the stack of astrophysics scrolls on the couch, his tail puffed straight up, and darted under the coffee table, where a half-eaten scone goes cold from his snooting at it.
“Rory,” he says, and his voice is lower than she remembers, rougher around the edges, like he’s been shouting over static for hours. He slips his ivory-handled cane into the gap between the door and the frame, the polished ivory catching the lamp light, and stops her from closing it. “Please. I don’t want to fight.”
She freezes, her hand still clamped around the doorknob, her shoulder-length black hair falling over one eye. “What are you doing here?” She hates how her voice cracks, hates that she sounds small, the way she did when she was huddled in her Cardiff flat, packing a duffel while Evan slept on the couch after a night of yelling.
“I tracked you from the restaurant. Golden Empress. Yu-Fei didn’t ask many questions when I asked after you.” He nods at the faded golden apron slung over the back of the kitchen chair, the dragon emblem embroidered on its pocket frayed at the edges, and she feels her face warm—she’d forgotten she’d left it there after her 9 PM delivery run to the Brick Lane bookstore.
“I don’t need your services, Lucien,” she says, shifting her weight to lean against the doorframe, like that will make her look less small, less like she’s been running for months. “I told you I was done with the underworld. I’m not looking for fixes or information or whatever you deal in.”
He huffs a laugh, dry and sharp, and pushes the door open a little farther, so he can step into the cramped flat. The smell of chicken tikka masala drifts up from the curry shop below, sharp and spicy, and he wrinkles his nose, like he’s not used to human food smells, but then his glance sweeps the stacks of books and scrolls covering every surface—chalkboard covered in scribbled ley line coordinates on the wall, dog-eared grimoires balanced on the kitchen counter, a half-finished crossword puzzle scattered across the dining table—and his expression softens, just a little. “I didn’t come for a job. I came for you.”
Her heart stops. She’d spent six months telling herself that she’d made the right choice, that leaving without a word was better than letting him see her messy, broken self, that he’d just see her as another client, another person to drag into his supernatural messes. But now he’s here, standing in Eva’s one-bedroom flat, his heterochromatic eyes fixed on hers, and she can’t look away, can’t pretend that the pull between them isn’t still there, sharp and bright as a blade.
“Why?” she asks, her voice barely a whisper . She steps back, away from him, until her calves hit the edge of the couch, and Ptolemy peeks out from under the coffee table, his head tilted like he’s trying to figure out what’s going on.
He shifts his weight, leaning more heavily on his cane, and she notices the faint smudge of ash on his suit lapel, the kind left over from a ritual or a fight, and her chest tightens. She’d always known that his world was dangerous, that he dealt with things most people would never even imagine, but she’d never thought she’d be caught up in it. “Because I haven’t stopped thinking about you since you left. Because when you vanished off the face of the Marseille docks, I didn’t just lose a contact— I lost something that mattered.”
She flinches, and her wrist twists again, the crescent scar peeking out from her hoodie sleeve. “You wouldn’t have understood. I was running from someone. Someone who didn’t care about any of that. Who just wanted to control me.” She trails off, not wanting to say Evan’s name out loud, not wanting to admit that the man who’d grabbed her wrist that night, leaving that tiny childhood scar, had also been the man who’d shoved her against a wall three weeks prior, who’d yelled at her for forgetting to pick up his dry cleaning.
“You didn’t have to carry it alone,” he says, his voice gentle, and he reaches out, slow, like he’s calming a skittish animal, and brushes a strand of her black hair behind her ear. His fingers are warm, calloused from holding his cane for years, and she leans into the touch before she can stop herself, the smell of sandalwood cologne and faint briny Avaros tang wrapping around her, a smell she’d forgotten she’d missed until now. “I would have come with you. I would have kept you safe.”
She starts to cry then, silent, hot tears spilling over her bright blue eyes, and she wipes at her face with her wrist, her scar flashing in the warm lamp light. He pulls her into a hug then, his suit fabric rough against her hoodie, and she buries her face in his chest, listening to the steady thump of his heartbeat, and she realizes that she’d been waiting for this, for him, all along. She’d been hiding in Eva’s flat, delivering dumplings around East London, pretending that she didn’t miss the way he’d made her feel smart, and seen, and like she didn’t have to be scared all the time.
“I didn’t want you to get hurt,” she mumbles into his chest, her voice muffled. “He was violent, Lucien. I didn’t want you to end up with a blade in your back because you tried to protect me.”
He laughs, a soft, warm sound, and rubs circles into her back with his hand. “My blade is the one hidden in my cane,” he says, and he pulls back a little, so he can look down at her, his amber and black eyes soft with amusement. “I don’t lose often. And I definitely wouldn’t have lost you.”
She laughs, a wet, shaky sound, and swipes at her tears again. “You’re an idiot,” she says, but there’s no heat in her voice, just relief.
“Maybe,” he says, and he leans in, slow, like he’s giving her a chance to pull away, and when she doesn’t, when she tilts her head up to meet him, his lips brush hers, soft and tentative, like he’s afraid she’ll vanish if he kisses her too hard. It’s better than she remembered, better than the late nights in Marseille, better than any of the quiet moments she’d daydreamed about in the months since she’d left. The kiss is warm, and safe, and exactly what she’s been needing.
Ptolemy meows then, loud and indignant, and they pull apart, laughing, as the tabby cat jumps up onto the couch and knocks over a mug of chamomile tea, spilling it across Eva’s research notes. “Well,” Rory says, grinning, as she grabs a paper towel from the kitchen counter. “I guess we’re not the only ones who’s jealous.”
Lucien smiles, a real smile, the first one she’s seen from him since she left Marseille, and he leans against the couch, his cane propped beside him, and reaches out to scratch Ptolemy behind the ears. The tabby cat leans into his hand, his tail unfurling, and Rory feels a warmth spread through her that she hasn’t felt since before Evan started yelling, since before she had to flee Cardiff. She looks around the flat, at the stacks of books, at the chalkboard covered in ley lines, at the faded Golden Empress apron hanging on the chair, and she realizes that she doesn’t have to hide anymore. Not here, not with Lucien.
He glances up at her, his heterochromatic eyes crinkling at the corners, and nods at the tea-stained notes. “You’re still into the weird supernatural stuff?” he asks, and she laughs, as she sits down next to him on the couch, Ptolemy curling up in her lap.
“Eva dragged me into it,” she says, and she rests her head on his shoulder, her scarred wrist resting on her knee. “Turns out East London has more weird stuff going on than just bad curry and overpriced bookshops.”
He hums, a soft sound, and wraps his arm around her waist, pulling her closer. “I can help you with that,” he says. “If you want me to.”
She looks up at him, at his slicked-back platinum hair, at his bright amber and black eyes, at the way his suit is still perfectly pressed, even after he’s been walking around East London looking for her, and she smiles. “Yeah,” she says. “I’d like that.”
Ptolemy stretches out across her lap, his purr loud enough to compete with the distant hum of the curry shop below, and Lucien leans in to press a slow, soft kiss to her forehead, and Rory lets herself believe, for the first time in months, that she’s finally home.