AI The green neon sign sputtered faintly as Aurora pushed open the heavy oak door of The Raven’s Nest, a familiar jangle of brass bells announcing her arrival. The scent of old wood and spilled whiskey wrapped around her like a threadbare coat. She20was already tugging at the strap of her delivery bag, her mind half-occupied with the route she still needed to finish before Cheung started texting her about the Wong order, when she saw him.
He sat at the far end of the bar, away from the other patrons, 25hunched over a tumbler of something amber. The grey-streaked auburn hair caught the dim light first,209then the slight tilt of his shoulders, the way he rolled the glass between his palms. Older. Thinner in the face. But it was the limp—the way he’d hooked his left foot around the brass rail as if it were a concession—that made her stop dead on the threshold.
Silas had told her about the Prague operation once, late at night after closing, when the maps on the walls seemed to whisper their own secrets. A double-cross. A flight of icy stairs. A knee that never healed right. But14 that had been years ago. A different lifetime.
She hadn’t seen him since the funeral.
Rory’s fingers tightened on the delivery bag. She could still turn around. The bell would jangle again,16 and he might not even look up. She could just—
“Aurora.”
His voice hadn’t changed. Low, measured , the kind of voice that could talk a man off a ledge or coax a confession from a stone. He didn’t turn on his stool, but his hand stilled on the glass. She saw his reflection in the mirror behind the bar, the deep-set hazel eyes finding hers in the silvered glass.
“Silas,” she said, the name coming out steadier than she felt.
She crossed the floor, her trainers silent on the worn floorboards. The other patrons—a young couple arguing quietly in the corner booth, a middle-aged man staring into his pint as if it held prophecy—paid her no mind. The Raven’s Nest was that kind of place. It collected people the way the Thames collected silt, slowly and without comment.
She slid onto the stool beside him, closer than she’d intended. Up close, the changes were sharper. The beard was still neatly trimmed, but the silver had overtaken the auburn almost entirely. His skin, once weathered to a healthy bronze from the years of fieldwork, had faded to a paler shade, the lines around his mouth deeper, set into something that resembled a smile but wasn’t.
He finally turned to face her, and she saw the signet ring glint on his right hand, the same silver band he’d worn since before she’d known him. He’d used it to crack a window in Barcelona once, she remembered. Or was it Vienna? The memories16 blurred now, like watercolours left in the rain.
“You’re196 delivery for the kitchen?” he asked, gesturing to the bag with his chin.
“Rory, please,” she corrected him, though the softness in her voice took the edge off. “Silas. I go by Rory now.”
He absorbed that with a single, deliberate nod, the gesture of a man who had spent decades cataloguing196 information. “Rory, then. Good. Suits you.”
“Does it?”
“Less formal. Less—” He paused, searching for the word in the amber depths of his glass. “Less like someone else’s decision.”
The words landed heavier than he likely intended. She felt them press against the scar on her wrist, the small crescent shape that Evan had given her when she’d tried to grab her keys off the kitchen counter before he could throw them. That was the thing about Silas. He’d always been able to see straight through to the unspoken thing, the dark shape moving under the surface of conversation.
“I didn’t know you were back,” she said, waving down the bartender—a young man with a neck tattoo she’d never seen before—and ordering a soda water with lime. She needed her head clear for the rest of her shift.
“I’m not back,” Silas said, swirling his whiskey. “I’m192 passing through.”
“You still196 own this place, don’t you?”
A ghost of a smile flickered at the corner of his mouth. “On paper.”
She turned the glass of soda water in her hands, the condensation slick against her palms. “I live upstairs now. Flat 2B. Moved in three years ago, after—” She stopped, suddenly unsure how much to say. Silas had20 been19 gone for six years. He’d missed the worst of it.
“After Cardiff,” he finished for her.
She192 didn’t ask how he knew. Some people gathered190 information for a living. Silas had made it an art form.
“Eva thought it’d be good for me,” she said16 quietly, her fingers finding the scar on her left wrist, the motion automatic. “Get out of the city. Away from—away.”
Silas12 followed the movement with his eyes but said nothing. Another gift. The man could hold silence like a weapon, but he’d never used it to hurt her. Only to let her decide what she wanted to say.
“It’s13 been six years,” she said finally.
“I know.”
“You left without saying goodbye. One day you were just—gone. The bar closed for a week. Marcus had to tell me. Marcus , Silas. Not you.”
He set his glass down with a soft clink,14 and his24 left leg shifted on the rail,204 the old injury making itself known. “There are things I can’t explain, Aurora. Rory. Operations that don’t fit neatly into190 words over a pint.”
“I’m not asking for details. I’m asking why you didn’t trust me enough to15 say anything at all.”
She hadn’t meant to say it so bluntly. But the06 years had worn away her patience for evasion. She’d learned to call things what they were, to name13 monsters, even when the names tasted like ash on her tongue .
Silas was silent for a long moment, his gaze fixed on the bottles lined up behind the bar. The green neon sign in the window flickered , reflected in the glass. “I wasn’t20 sure you’d want to hear it from me.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“No,” he agreed. “It’s not.”
The couple in the corner booth rose, throwing down crumpled notes, their argument apparently resolved or abandoned. The door swung shut behind them, and the bells jangled, a hollow sound.
“I thought about writing,” Silas said16 quietly,14 his voice so low she had to lean in to hear. “A hundred times. I wrote the words,190 and196 then I burned them. Because anything14 I said would have been12 a lie, and you—” He looked at her then,14 really looked, his12 hazel eyes12 sharp with14 an emotion she couldn’t name. “You deserved better than that.”
Rory felt the sting of tears, unwelcome and surprising, behind her eyes. She blinked them back. “My father died.”
“I know.”
“You weren’t there.”
He flinched. It was a small thing, a tightening of the muscle in his jaw, but she saw it.
“I know,” he repeated.
“You’d always said you’d be there. After the Prague thing, when you16 got out, when you opened this place, you said, ‘If anything ever happens, Rory, I’ll be there.’ And then my dad—the cancer took him in four months, Silas. Four months. And I16 called you, I left messages, and you—” She stopped,16 pressing the heel of her palm against her sternum where the old grief still lived, a stubborn14 houseguest that refused to leave.
“I was14 in a14 safe house in Minsk,” he said,14 his voice raw.14 “I didn’t get your messages until six weeks after the funeral. And14 by14 then—” He shook his head. “By then, I convinced myself it would14 be easier for you if I stayed gone.”
“Easier for me, or easier for you?”
The question16 hung between them,14 sharp and clean as a knife.
Silas14 rubbed his thumb over the silver signet ring. “You’re smarter than I ever gave you credit for.” He paused. “Or maybe I just16 forgot that you always were.”
Rory took a16 sip of her soda water, the lime sharp against her tongue. “16I’m sorry,” she said14 after a moment. “That wasn’t fair.”
“It was entirely fair.” He signaled the bartender for another whiskey,14 and14 Rory noticed his hand trembling just slightly , the tremor of age and14 exhaustion.16 “You’ve always been16 honest with me. Even when I didn’t return the favor.”
“The Spymaster,” she said,14 a trace of an old, fond16 bitterness in her voice. “Some things don’t change.”
“Some things do.”14 He gestured, a slight movement of his chin,16 toward her14 left hand.14 “The scar. It’s different. I noticed when14 you came in.”
Rory looked down at her wrist, at the pale14 crescent moon of raised skin.14 Evan’s handiwork.16 “That’s16 a story16 for another whiskey. One16 I don’t think either16 of us is ready for.”
“Fair enough.”14 He accepted the refill and held it toward her, a mock toast.14 “To old friends.”
She14 hesitated, then14 raised16 her glass.12 “To16 showing up. Finally.”
They drank, and the silence15 that followed was different. Softer. Not16 without regret—the regret was28 still there,14 woven into the gaps between words—but without the14 sharp edges. It was the silence of two people who had16 loved each other, in their own complicated way, and16 had hurt each other, and14 were now trying to decide if16 sixteen seconds of vulnerability could outweigh six years of absence.
Outside14 the green neon buzzed, and14 the16 city murmured beyond the glass, and Rory checked her watch,14 knowing14 she was already20 late for the next delivery,14 knowing14 Cheung would be furious.14
But12 she didn’t move. Not yet.