Run: 2026-04-25-01KQ2JRJR3340SB3XB33TYWS14

The knock came at half past eleven, three sharp raps against the deadbolted door. Rory looked up from the grimoire spread across Eva's coffee table, Ptolemy stirring in her lap with an irritable flick of his tail. Eva wasn't home. She'd texted an hour ago from the British Library, buried in manuscripts that wouldn't let her leave until dawn. Which meant whoever was on the other side of that door wasn't expected. Rory set the cat aside and rose, her bare feet silent on the worn floorboards. She checked the peephole and felt her stomach drop through the floor. Lucien Moreau stood in the dim hallway, leaning on his ivory-handled cane like he had all the time in the world. His platinum hair caught the weak bulb light, slicked back as always, and even through the distorted fisheye of the peephole she could see the difference in his eyes—one amber, one black—fixed on the door as if he knew precisely where she was standing. She should walk away. She should pretend she wasn't home, let him knock until his knuckles bruised, and then call Eva to complain about fixers who couldn't take a hint. Instead, she undid the deadbolts. All three of them. The door swung open and cold air coiled around her ankles, carrying the scent of rain and expensive cologne. Lucien's mouth curved into something that wasn't quite a smile. "Laila." She flinched at the name. He knew she hated it. That was the point. "Lucien." She kept her voice flat. "Did you follow me here?" "Follow is such an inelegant word." He gestured with the cane toward the interior of the flat. "May I come in? The hallway has a draft." "There's a draft in here too. I keep the windows open." "To let the research breathe." His gaze slid past her shoulder, taking in the towers of books, the scattered scrolls, the chalk markings on Eva's floor that she'd been too tired to scrub clean. "I see you've made yourself comfortable." "Comfortable isn't the word I'd use." Rory stepped back, leaving the door open. She didn't invite him in. She didn't have to. He was already moving, the tap of his cane against the wood floor a rhythm she remembered too well. He navigated the clutter with practiced ease, settling onto the edge of Eva's threadbare sofa. Ptolemy emerged from behind a stack of papers, fixed Lucien with a suspicious stare, and retreated under the table. Smart cat. Rory closed the door and leaned against it, arms crossed. "What do you want, Lucien?" "To see you." He said it simply, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. As if he hadn't ended things six months ago with a curt note slipped under her door at the bar, his elegant handwriting spelling out words like *untenable* and *better this way*. "Bullshit." His eyebrows rose. "Language, Laila." "Don't call me that. And don't pretend you came all the way to Brick Lane because you missed my conversation." She pushed off from the door, pacing past him toward the kitchenette. Her hands were shaking. She hated that her hands were shaking. "You need something. You wouldn't be here otherwise." Silence stretched behind her. She filled the kettle anyway, because doing something with her hands was better than standing there waiting for him to speak. "I heard about the attack on the Golden Empress," he said finally. "Three nights ago. A man with a silver knife and a message for Yu-Fei Cheung. You were there." Rory's fingers stilled on the kettle's handle. "I was in the back. I didn't see anything." "Laila." His voice dropped, losing its polished edge. "Aurora." The sound of her real name, spoken in that low register, made her chest tighten. She turned to face him. He had risen from the sofa, leaning heavily on his cane, and in the weak light of Eva's flat he looked thinner than she remembered. Tired. The tailored charcoal suit was immaculate, but there were shadows under his eyes that no amount of tailoring could hide. "I heard you took a knife to the shoulder protecting the delivery boy," he said. "I heard you bled out half your blood on Yu-Fei's kitchen floor before anyone could get you to a healer." "I don't know who you've been talking to, but they're dramatic." "Am I wrong?" She didn't answer. The kettle began to boil, steam rising in a thin plume, and she watched it rather than look at him. "I came because I needed to see that you were alright." His voice was careful now. Measured. The voice of a man who dealt in information and never gave more than he had to. "And because I owe you an explanation." "I don't want an explanation." "You deserve one." She laughed, and it came out bitter and sharp. "You sent me a note, Lucien. A *note*. After six months of—" She stopped, pressing her palm against the counter. "Of whatever that was. You didn't owe me forever. You didn't even owe me a scene. But you owed me a conversation." He stood very still, both hands braced on the ivory head of his cane. When he spoke, his voice was rough. "My father found out about you." The words hit her like cold water. She turned fully, studying his face for the lie she expected to find there. His father. The demon from Avaros. The reason Lucien had the black eye and the half-blood that ran through his veins like poison. "He sent word," Lucien continued. "Through channels I couldn't ignore. He knew I'd been seeing someone. A human. Someone I cared about." His jaw tightened. "He made it clear what would happen if I continued." "So you ended it to protect me." She said it flatly, without the gratitude he was clearly expecting. "How noble." "I ended it because I knew what he would do. He would have come for you, Rory. He would have taken you apart piece by piece to make a point about the consequences of fraternizing with mortals." "And now?" She stepped toward him, stopping just out of arm's reach. "What's changed?" "I'm not sure anything has." He met her eyes, and in the amber one she saw something that looked remarkably like fear. "But I heard about that knife, and I realized that I would rather face my father's wrath than spend another day wondering if you were alive or dead." The kettle clicked off. Steam dissipated into the cold air of the flat. Rory stood there, feeling the weight of six months between them, the scar on her wrist aching the way it did when the weather turned. She thought about the note. The silence. The way she'd checked her phone every night for a week, waiting for a text that never came. She thought about the knife. The blood. The way she'd thought, for one stupid, flickering moment, that at least she wouldn't have to keep wondering if he'd ever come back. "I don't forgive you," she said. "I know." "Not yet." Lucien's mouth curved, and this time the smile reached his eyes. "I can work with 'not yet.'" Ptolemy emerged from under the table, approached Lucien's cane, and sniffed it suspiciously before rubbing his cheek against the ivory. Lucien looked down at the cat, then back at Rory, and something in his expression softened. "Tea?" she asked. He inclined his head, the gesture elegant and familiar and maddening. "I would like that very much." She turned back to the kettle, and behind her she heard him lower himself back onto the sofa, the creak of old springs and the tap of the cane against the floor. The sound of someone settling in. The sound of someone who intended to stay.