AI The rain stuck to the Raven’s Nest’s smudged front windows like crushed ash, turning Soho’s neon bleed into a watercolor mess of lime and pink that streaked down the panes. Rory leaned her shoulder against the oak bar, the neck of her half-empty lager cold against her palm, and rubbed the crescent scar on her left wrist until it pinkened. It was 9:17 on a Tuesday, the slowest night of the week, the only other patrons a pair of backpackers who’d split an order of fries from the chip shop down the block and were now squabbling over a subway map spread across their table. Her Golden Empress delivery uniform still smelled like ginger and soy, the thermal bag slung over the foot of her stool crumpled at the edges, the last run of the night done early enough that she’d skipped changing out of the black polo emblazoned with the restaurant’s gold dragon before settling in. Above her, the stairs to her flat creaked only when she climbed them; for the last six months, this bar had been the only place she didn’t feel like she was holding her breath, even if the text that had pinged her phone three nights prior—I know you’re in London.—still looped in her head, Evan’s name blocked but his number familiar , the one he’d cycled through three times before she’d fled Cardiff.
Silas was wiping down the same spot on the bar for the third time in ten minutes, his hazel eyes fixed on the door like he was waiting for someone, though Rory had never known him to wait for anyone. The silver signet ring he never took off glinted as he wrung the cloth out, his left leg propped on the low footrest under the bar to take the weight off the bad knee that gave him that faint, familiar limp. She’d never asked him how he’d hurt it, just like he’d never asked her about the scar on her wrist or the way she flinched whenever a man’s voice raised too loud behind her. The walls of the Nest were lined with things he never talked about either: frayed black and white photos of men with unsmiling faces, old maps of cities she’d only ever read about, Prague and Berlin and Beirut, their edges taped back together where they’d torn. The green neon sign above the door sputtered every few minutes, casting a sickly glow over the frame of the bookshelf that hid the back room, the one she’d only seen open twice, when men in tailored coats had slipped in after hours and stayed until dawn, their voices too low to make out.
The door’s brass bell jangled before she could take another sip of lager, cold air and rain blowing in hard enough to make the candles on the bar flicker . A man stood in the doorway, soaked through to the bone, his dark hair streaked with the same grey that threaded through Silas’s auburn waves, his coat dripping onto the scuffed pine floor. He was around Silas’s age, fifty-eight, give or take, his face lined around the eyes like he’d spent a lot of time squinting into sun he hadn’t expected to see. For a second, no one moved. The backpackers went quiet, the only sound the gurgle of the cider pot simmering on the back burner, spiced with cloves and cinnamon. Silas’s cloth slipped from his hand, landing in a puddle of spilled beer on the bar. Rory had never seen him look unsteady, not even when a drunk had thrown a punch at him the month prior and Silas had disarmed him before the man’s fist had gotten within a foot of his jaw. But now his face went white, the color draining from his cheekbones like someone had sucked it out, and he had to grab the edge of the bar to keep from leaning too hard on his bad leg.
“Si,” the man said, his voice rough, like he’d gargled with glass. He pushed the door shut behind him, the bell jangling again, and shook rain off his sleeves. “Heard you were hiding out here. Took me three months to track you down. Told a bloke in a Camden pub you ran the only raven-themed bar in Soho worth drinking in, and who else would be daft enough to name a bar that?”
Silas didn’t speak for a long time. He bent slowly, his limp more pronounced than Rory had ever seen it, to pick up the cloth, and when he stood up, his voice was hoarse, like he’d swallowed a stone. “Tom. I buried you. Your mum’s plot in St. Fagans, outside Cardiff. I sent daffodils every spring. Your mum thought I was your work mate. Never had the heart to tell her I was the only family you had left.”
Rory’s breath caught. St. Fagans was the cemetery on the edge of the city she’d grown up in, the same one her nan was buried in. She’d rubbed the scar on her wrist so hard it stung, and she dropped her hand into her lap, staring at the two men across the bar, the space between them thick with twelve years of things they’d never said. Tom walked toward the bar, his boots squelching, and leaned against the wood, ten feet away from Rory, like she was just part of the furniture, just the quiet girl who lived upstairs who never bothered anyone. He pulled off his soaked coat, draping it over the back of a stool, and sat down, his eyes sweeping over the maps on the wall, landing on a tattered photo taped behind the bar: two young men standing in front of Prague’s Charles Bridge, Silas twenty years younger, his hair a deep unstreaked auburn, no limp, grinning with a beer bottle in his hand, Tom at his side, equally bright-eyed. “You kept the photos,” he said, quiet .
“Couldn’t throw them away,” Silas said. He poured two fingers of bourbon into chipped tumblers, pushing one across the bar to Tom, the silver signet ring scraping against the wood. The bourbon was the good stuff, the stuff he only pulled out for people he cared about, the stuff Rory had only seen him serve once, when his sister came to visit the previous Christmas. “The official report said you died in the raid. The line was the safe house blew up, that there was nothing left to bury. I spent six months trying to prove they were lying. MI6 shut me out, said I was traumatized, stuck me behind a desk, and I quit. Moved down here, opened this place. Thought I’d spend the rest of my life making amends for leaving you there.”
Tom laughed, but it was wet, and he swiped at his cheek with the back of his hand before he picked up the bourbon, taking a long sip. “You didn’t leave me. MI6 left us both. They faked my death to keep the double they’d planted in the cell from finding out I was still alive. Spent five years in a prison outside Plzeň. Got out when a contact I’d made traded a hard drive full of state secrets for my release. Spent the last seven years in Portugal, growing oranges. Had a lot of time to think. A lot of time to say I was sorry.” He rolled up the sleeve of his sweater, and a thin, silver brand bloomed on his forearm, faded but still legible, a mark the prison guards had left on men who caused trouble. “I caused a lot of trouble there. But I’m sorriest I got us into that mess. I told you the asset was clean. I told you we didn’t need backup. That was all me. I got you thrown out of the service, got you that limp. I read the reports they put out, said you took a bullet getting out. Bullshit. You went back in for me. Tripped over that fucking root in the safe house’s backyard, blew out your knee. I heard that from the bloke who pulled you out. You risked everything for me, and I got us both burnt.”
Silas was crying now, silent tears tracking down his face, his beard glistening where they wet the hair. He twisted the signet ring on his finger, over and over, the same nervous tick Rory had when she was scared . “I blamed myself. I thought I should have overridden you. I was the lead on the op. It was my call. I spent twelve years thinking I’d gotten my best friend killed. Twelve years of drinking alone, of putting those maps up on the wall so I never forgot. Never forgot what I’d done.”
Rory’s throat tightened. She pulled her phone out of her pocket, the screen lighting up, the last text from Eva, her childhood best friend who’d begged her to come to London after Evan hit her, the one she’d pushed away eleven months prior, when Evan had found her in Bristol and showed up at her flat. She’d been so scared he’d hurt anyone who loved her that she’d screamed at Eva over the phone, told her she never wanted to see her again, that if she contacted her she’d move to Scotland and never come back. Eva’s last text was still in her inbox, sent the day after that fight: I’m here whenever you’re ready. I love you. Rory typed, fast, her fingers shaking, I’m in London. I live above a bar in Soho. I’m so sorry I pushed you away. I was scared he’d hurt you. Can we get coffee tomorrow? Please. She hit send, and a second later, the text bubbles popped up, Eva online, like she’d been waiting for it. I’ll bring your favorite cinnamon latte. I’m outside your bar right now. I’ve been parked down the block for a week, making sure you’re okay.
Rory looked up, her bright blue eyes wet, and through the rain-streaked window, she saw a woman leaning against a streetlamp, her phone in her hand, waving. Across the bar, Silas and Tom were clinking their bourbon glasses, the weight of twelve years of regret lifting, softening, like the rain outside that was starting to slow. The green neon sign glowed, casting a green glow over the maps, over the two old friends who’d found each other again, over Rory, who’d just gotten her best friend back. She stood up, slinging her thermal bag over her shoulder, and called across the bar, “I’m heading up, Si. Lock up when you’re done, yeah?” Silas looked up, wiped his eyes, and grinned, a real grin, the first one Rory had seen in months. “See you tomorrow, kid. Enjoy your coffee.” Rory laughed, wiping the tears off her face, and pulled the door open, the bell jangling behind her, the cold rain hitting her face, and Eva was there, pulling her into a hug, and for the first time in years, she didn’t feel like she was holding her breath.