Run: 2026-04-24-01KQ0G8EEBSCNBYRT33PBVKYXM

The third deadbolt gave with that same stubborn clunk it always did, and Rory pulled the door open already halfway into a speech about delivery receipts. The speech died. Lucien stood on the landing like he'd been painted there — charcoal suit immaculate despite the East London drizzle, ivory cane resting against the toe of one polished shoe, one amber eye and one black eye settled on her with the calm of a man who had all the time in the world. "You're not the curry delivery," Rory said. "A rare disappointment, I'm sure." His mouth tilted. "May I come in, or would you prefer to conduct this on the stairwell for the benefit of your neighbours?" She didn't move. Ptolemy wound between her ankles, purring at the new arrival with the traitorous enthusiasm cats reserved for people one was actively trying to dislike. "You didn't ring." "I did, in fact. Three times. Your buzzer has been broken since November." "Then how did you—" "Mrs. Bashir let me in. She remembered me." "Of course she did." Rory folded her arms across the oversized jumper she'd stolen from Eva's wardrobe that morning. "Everyone remembers you, Luc. It's the suits. You radiate insurance salesman." "And yet you remain unconvinced by my policies." He didn't push past her, which was somehow worse. He simply waited, the picture of patience, while rain caught the platinum of his hair and refused to ruin it. "Five minutes, Aurora. That's all I'm asking." She hated when he used her full name. It landed somewhere low in her stomach, a place she'd been pretending didn't exist since the night in Spitalfields. Since the rooftop. Since he'd said what he'd said and she'd said what she'd said and they'd both walked off in opposite directions pretending they weren't walking too fast. She stepped aside. Lucien moved past her with that economy he had, everything spare, nothing wasted. He knew the flat. He'd been here before. He set the cane against the bookcase by the door — the one gesture that always gave him away as something other than a man — and turned to face her as she worked through the deadbolts again. "You've added another lock," he said. "Observant." "Expecting trouble?" "Always." She turned. The kitchen was six steps from the door; he filled it without meaning to. "Say what you came to say." "No tea first?" "Luc." "Very well." He slid his hands into his pockets. The black eye caught the light from the bulb overhead and swallowed it. "I have a name for you. The one you've been chasing." Her breath caught before she could stop it. "Evan?" "A man who crossed the Channel three weeks ago under an alias. My people traced him to a flat in Whitechapel. Half a mile from here, Aurora." She turned away. Put her hands on the counter. The crescent scar on her wrist showed white against the wood, and she noticed Lucien notice it, and she moved her arm before she could stop herself. "Why are you telling me this in person?" "Because if I had called, you would have hung up." "Fair." "And because I wanted to see your face when I told you." She looked at him then. Properly. The suit, the cane, the careful, careful distance he kept with the whole of his body, as though he were holding something in check that he did not trust to let loose. "Why?" "To judge whether you were going to do something stupid." "And?" "The verdict is not favourable." A laugh scraped out of her before she could swallow it. "You came all the way here, in the rain, to lecture me?" "I came all the way here, in the rain, because the last time you went looking for him without backup you ended up in A&E with a broken wrist, and I was not there." He said it evenly, the way he said everything, but something beneath the words had weight. "I do not intend to repeat that particular absence." The kitchen went quiet. Ptolemy leapt onto the counter and neither of them told him off. "That's not fair," Rory said. "What isn't?" "Saying it like that. Like you get to just — show up, and say things like that, after—" "After what I said on the roof?" "Yes." "After what you said?" "Yes." "Aurora." He took one step, not more. "I meant every word. That has not become less inconvenient with time." She pressed her palms harder against the counter. "You told me you couldn't." "I told you I shouldn't. There is a difference. You didn't stay long enough to appreciate the grammar." "Oh, fuck off with your grammar." "Language like that, from a barrister's daughter." "I'm not a barrister." "No." His voice softened, just a fraction. "You are a delivery girl with a hunted look and a kitchen knife on her counter, and I am thirty-two years old and running out of patience with the version of myself that walked away from that rooftop." She wouldn't look at him. She couldn't. The jumper was too warm suddenly and the flat was too small and Ptolemy was purring like a small engine and she could smell the rain on Lucien's coat, the faint cedar of whatever absurd cologne he wore, and she had been doing fine, she had been, she had been almost fine, and now— "Don't," she said. "Don't what?" "Don't come in here and be — be kind at me. I can't do it today." He was quiet. Then: "Then I shall be unkind. Pack a bag. You are not staying here tonight." She laughed, wet and startled. "Excuse me?" "If Evan is half a mile away, you are not sleeping above a curry house with three deadbolts and a cat." "Eva's bed is quite comfortable, actually." "I've no doubt. You are still not staying in it." "And where am I meant to go, Luc? Yours?" He held her gaze. One amber eye, one black. The rain tapped the window behind him. Ptolemy, useless, kept purring. "If you like," he said.