Run: 2026-07-01-01KWE8VB2S6422GMVN871TPD7H

The three deadbolts took Rory longer than usual to work through, her fingers still stiff from the cold delivery run across half of Shoreditch. When she finally hauled the door open, ready to complain to Eva about the state of the stairwell, she found Lucien Moreau standing there instead, rain beading on the shoulders of his charcoal suit like he'd walked through the storm out of spite for umbrellas. "You've got the wrong flat." "I don't think I do." He didn't move, didn't reach for the doorframe or try to charm his way past her. Just stood there, amber eye catching the hallway light, black eye swallowing it whole. Ptolemy picked that moment to slink between Rory's ankles and out into the hall, sniffing once at Lucien's shoes before deciding he wasn't worth the trouble. "Eva's not here." "I didn't come for Eva." "Right." Rory crossed her arms, leaning into the doorframe like it might hold up the rest of her argument. "Because the last time I saw you, you told me finding you again would be a mistake. Your words. Very dramatic. I remember because I actually wrote it down, wondering if I'd need it as evidence one day." "Evidence of what?" "That you're insufferable." The corner of his mouth twitched, not quite a smile. "I've been called worse. Usually by you." "Usually deserved." Behind her, the flat exhaled its usual chaos — stacks of Eva's research notes leaning like drunk soldiers, candle wax pooled on saucers, the smell of old paper and cardamom from the curry house below seeping through the floorboards. Rory didn't invite him in. She didn't close the door either, which she supposed said more than she wanted it to. "How did you even find this address?" "I'm an information broker, Aurora. Finding addresses is somewhat the point of my existence." "Finding addresses of people who don't want to be found, you mean." "You didn't say you didn't want to be found. You said I was insufferable." He shifted his weight onto the cane, though she'd seen him walk fine without it plenty of times. A prop. Everything about Lucien was a prop, right down to the way he tucked his hands into his pockets like he had nowhere else particular to be, when she knew for a fact he always had somewhere else to be. "Two very different statements." "Fine. I don't want to be found. Better?" "Not particularly." Rain dripped off the edge of his cane, tapping the floor in a rhythm that filled the silence she didn't know how to fill herself. She remembered the last time they'd stood close like this — a warehouse near the Thames, the smell of blood and ozone, his hand closing over her wrist right where the crescent scar sat, and the words that came after that she'd spent three weeks trying to forget. "You could've called." "You never gave me your number." "That was rather the point, Lucien." "I know." He said it simply, without the usual practiced ease, like the admission cost him something. "I came to apologise." "You don't apologise. It's not in your nature. You told me that yourself, over wine, like it was something to be proud of." "I'm making an exception." "For what?" "For you." The words landed somewhere in her chest she didn't want them to reach. She hated how easily he still did that — dismantled her irritation with three plain words and that infuriating stillness he wore like a second suit. She thought of Evan, briefly, unwillingly, the way his voice used to soften right before it turned cruel, and she made herself hold onto the memory long enough to steady her spine. "You don't get to just show up. Rain-soaked and repentant. Like this is a film." "Would you prefer sunshine?" "I'd prefer honesty." That, finally, made him go quiet. He looked past her, into the flat, at the chaos of Eva's research, then back to her face like he was recalibrating something. "I told you finding me again would be a mistake because I believed it. Not because I wanted you gone." His voice dropped, losing some of its polish. "There are things in my world that follow me, Aurora. Things that would very much enjoy using you against me. I thought pushing you away kept you safe. It was, in retrospect, an idiot's logic." "You could've just said that. Instead of being cryptic and infuriating." "Would you have believed me?" She opened her mouth to say yes, then stopped, because she wasn't sure that was true. Three weeks of stewing had a way of hardening things. "I don't know." "Fair." The rain kept falling behind him, streaking down the stairwell window at the end of the hall, and Rory became aware of how close he'd drifted without either of them noticing, close enough that she could smell cedar and rain and something faintly sulphuric that always clung to him no matter how many times he changed his cologne. "Why now?" "Because I heard you were asking around for me. Through channels you shouldn't have access to, I might add. Which means either you missed my insufferable company —" "Don't push it." "— or you're in trouble and too proud to say so." Rory's jaw tightened. She hated that he could still read her like that, hated more that he wasn't wrong. There'd been a man following her deliveries for the Golden Empress the past two days, a man with eyes that didn't quite catch the light right, and she'd asked around, quietly, hoping word wouldn't travel back to the one person she'd been trying so hard not to think about. "It's not your problem." "Everything that concerns you is my problem. Apparently. Against my better judgement." She stared at him, rain-damp and stubborn and infuriatingly present, and felt the argument she'd been building for weeks lose its footing entirely. "You'd better come in, then. Before Eva's neighbours start talking." She stepped back, holding the door, and Lucien crossed the threshold like he'd never doubted he would.