AI The third deadbolt clicks free an instant before Rory’s brain registers that the knock isn’t the usual delivery bike rattle or Eva slamming her scrolls down on the counter. She’d spent ten minutes this morning jiggling each of the three locks until they caught, just to be safe—Brick Lane’s late-night crowd didn’t care that Eva’s flat was stacked with research that could get both of them ejected from their flats, or worse. Her fingers are still sticky from the chai she’d been sipping while marking Eva’s latest run of 18th-century grimoire transcriptions when she twists the doorknob, yanking the door open before she can overthink it.
The streetlamp across the lane bleaches the edges of the man standing on the step, but she’d know that silhouette anywhere: broad shoulders tapered to a narrow waist, the way he rests his weight on one hip, ivory cane propped against his calf like he’d had it strapped to his leg his entire life. His hair is slicked back so tight it glints, platinum blond strands catching the light, and when he lifts his head, his eyes—one amber, one black—pin her in place, as if he’s been staring at her through the keyhole for hours. Her bright blue eyes snap to his, sharp and wary, and she freezes mid-breath.
It’s Lucien.
The man she’d ghosted three months prior, after a night that had curled into three weeks of stolen takeout and whispered secrets, before he’d crossed a line she couldn’t unsee: he’d sold the intel she’d pried loose about a local Avaros smuggling ring to a gang of goetic demons, knowing she’d risked Eva’s safety to dig it up for him. She’d blocked his number, changed her delivery route so she wouldn’t run into him at the few supernatural cafes that dotted East London, and tried to erase the way his heterochromatic eyes had made her feel like she was the only person in a room full of ghosts. Now he’s standing on Eva’s doormat, holding a crumpled paper bag that smells like salted caramel rice cakes—her favorite, the kind she’d eaten after her mum died, back when Cardiff still felt like home . His tailored charcoal suit is slightly rumpled at the cuffs, a detail that takes her by surprise; she’d always known him to be immaculately pressed, every hair in place, every button aligned .
“Rory,” he says, and his voice is lower than she remembers, rougher around the edges, like he’s been shouting into the wind to find her. He’d always spoken perfect, clipped English before, the kind of accent that made her forget he was half-demon, half-human, until she’d seen the way his irises shifted color when he was angry .
She doesn’t move from the doorway, one foot hooked behind the other, the crescent scar on her left wrist peeking out from the cuff of her faded Golden Empress delivery hoodie. “What are you doing here?” Her voice is sharper than she intends, and she winces, but she can’t bring herself to soften it. This is Eva’s space, the only safe place she’s had since she left Evan and Cardiff behind. She doesn’t need Lucien Moreau barging into it.
He shifts the paper bag from one hand to the other, and his cane taps once against the brick step, a quiet, anxious rhythm she’s never heard from him before. “I tracked you here,” he says, and the admission hangs in the air, thick with the scent of butter chicken drifting up from the curry shop below the flat. “I didn’t know where else to go. I’ve been trying to find you since—”
“Since you sold me out,” she cuts him off, her chest tightening with a mix of fury and something else, something hot and tight in her throat that she refuses to name. She’d spent every night since then replaying the way he’d laughed when the demons had cornered her in a Hackney warehouse, how he’d driven away before she could even thank him for the warning, like she’d been nothing more than a tool to him.
A tabby cat with a white front paw darts around her calves, rubbing against her jeans, and Rory kneels down to scratch Ptolemy’s chin before realizing she’s let the cat step between her and the doorway. When she stands back up, Lucien is looking at the cat, his amber eye softening, and for a split second, she sees the man she’d fallen for, not the fixer who’d betrayed her.
“Ptolemy,” she says, more to herself than anything, because Eva had named the cat after the ancient astronomer, a gift from Rory for her 25th birthday. “She’s Eva’s.”
Lucien nods, and when he finally lifts his gaze back to hers, the black iris is almost swallowed by the shadow of his eyelashes. “I remembered you talking about her,” he says, and his voice is quiet, almost guilty. “I read the note you left on my apartment door. The one where you said I didn’t get to choose what I got to know about you.”
She blinks, surprised. She’d left that note after she’d blocked his number, crumpled up at first, then rewritten it three times before slipping it under his door. She’d thought he’d thrown it away, or ignored it, like he’d ignored every other boundary she’d set.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he says, and this time, his voice breaks a little. He steps closer, and Rory can smell the cedar from his cane and the faint salt of the rice cakes on his breath, and she remembers the first time she’d felt that same scent, when he’d brought her hot chocolate after a particularly brutal fight with Evan, back when she was still living in Cardiff. “I didn’t know they’d use the intel against you. I thought they’d use it to shut down a smuggling ring, not to target anyone who helped me get it. I was going to come find you the next day, but they took my office, my contacts, everything. I’ve been hiding in Marseille for two months, working to pay back the damage I caused. I only found out you moved to Brick Lane yesterday, from a contact of mine who owes me a favor.”
He holds out the paper bag now, and she can see the way his fingers are shaking slightly around the top. “I stopped at the corner shop on the way here. They had the rice cakes. The ones you used to eat when you were stressed about your pre-law exams.”
Rory stares at the bag, then at him, and for a second, she can taste the chai she’d been drinking earlier, bitter and sweet, and she can hear Ptolemy purring against her leg, and she can smell the butter chicken drifting up from below. She’d thought she’d hate the sight of him, thought she’d slam the door in his face and never speak to him again, but instead, she finds herself stepping to the side, the paper bag forgotten for a second.
“She’s in the back room,” she says, nodding toward the narrow hallway that leads to Eva’s bedroom, where she’s been camped out for the past three days working on a paper about pre-medieval Welsh folklore. “She’s been up for 36 hours. Don’t wake her up unless she’s bleeding or the flat is on fire.”
Lucien’s eyes widen a little, and he gives her a small, tentative smile, the first one she’s seen from him since the night he’d sold her out. “Understood,” he says, and he steps over the threshold, his cane tapping softly against the scuffed wooden floorboards.
Rory closes the door behind him, locking each of the three deadbolts in turn, the familiar clicks a quiet reassurance that he’s inside Eva’s safe space, not outside pestering the neighbors. The main room of the flat is so cramped that she has to step sideways to get past the stack of grimoires leaning against the kitchenette wall, scrolls tied with frayed leather string spilling onto the linoleum floor. A half-eaten plate of samosas sits on the rickety coffee table next to a laptop open to a page of handwritten Welsh transcriptions, and Ptolemy jumps up onto the arm of the worn velvet armchair, curling into a ball.
“I’m driving for Golden Empress now,” she says, gesturing to the faded hoodie on her frame, as she leads him toward the coffee table. “The only job that lets me show up when Eva needs me to transcribe her scrolls. Quit pre-law halfway through the semester, left Evan, moved to London. My life’s been a series of bad choices and even worse timing lately.”
Lucien sets the paper bag down on the coffee table, careful not to knock over a stack of ancient pamphlets, and he sits down in the armchair, his cane resting across his lap. “I’m sorry about Evan,” he says, and his voice is gentle, like he’s afraid to trigger a fight. “I should have been there for you, back then.”
She sits down across from him, on the edge of a beat-up couch covered in a patchwork quilt, and she lets her gaze drift to his cane, the ivory handle glinting in the dim light from the table lamp. She’d seen the hidden blade slip out of that cane once before, when Lucien had used it to fend off a gang of goetic demons who’d tried to steal her research notes outside a Hackney dive bar. She’d been so scared that night, but he’d held her afterwards, his warm hand on her back, and she’d forgotten all about her fight with Evan for a few minutes.
“I didn’t need you to be there for me,” she says, and her voice is quieter than she intends . “I just needed you to stop lying to me. To stop using me.”
He nods, and his amber eye softens, the black one fading into the shadow of his eyelashes. “I know. I was a selfish asshole. I thought that getting the intel would make me a better fixer, that I could prove to my dad that I wasn’t a waste of space. I didn’t stop to think about who I’d hurt along the way.” He pauses, and he reaches into the inside pocket of his suit jacket, pulling out a small, folded piece of paper, and he slides it across the coffee table to her. “This is what I found in my desk after the demons took everything. It’s the note you wrote me. I kept it, even after you blocked my number.”
Rory picks up the folded paper, her fingers trembling slightly , and she unfolds it. It’s the note she’d scribbled three months ago, the one she’d rewritten three times before slipping it under his door, the words scrawled in her messy, hurried handwriting: You don’t get to know me if you’re just going to use me. I’m not a tool. I’m not going to be your secret weapon. Don’t call me again.
Tears prickle at the back of her eyes, and she wipes them away quickly , embarrassed. She’d thought she’d never see that note again, thought she’d shredded it as soon as she’d slipped it under his door.
“I’ve been trying to make it right,” he says, and he reaches out, his hand brushing hers on the coffee table. “I worked for two months smuggling human artifacts back to their rightful owners, paying back every penny I made from selling your intel. I didn’t stop until I was the man you deserved, back when you first let me into your life.”
Rory looks up at him, and for a second, she can see the way his lips are parted , the way his heterochromatic eyes are fixed on hers, and she can feel the weight of all the unsaid words hanging between them: the way she’d missed him, the way she’d hated him for betraying her, the way she’d never stopped wanting him. She leans in a little closer, and he leans in too, and their lips brush, and for a second, everything feels right, like the past three months didn’t happen, like she didn’t have to hide from Evan, like she didn’t have to run all the way to London to escape her old life.
Then Ptolemy jumps up onto the coffee table, knocking over a stack of pamphlets, and they pull apart, laughing, and Rory feels something lighten in her chest, like the weight of the past few months is finally starting to lift. She looks at Lucien, and she sees the man she fell for, not the fixer who betrayed her, and she realizes that maybe, just maybe, she’s willing to give him a second chance.