Run: 2026-09-03-01M1KD1EPCN175R077C1YE2VRN

The knock came in three sharp raps, too deliberate to be a delivery. Rory set down her mug and looked across the cramped flat. Ptolemy, sprawled across a stack of Eva’s research notes, lifted his head and blinked slow amber eyes. She crossed to the door, bare feet silent on the warped floorboards. The peephole was old and fisheyed, and for a second she didn’t trust what she saw. Rain-slicked platinum hair. A charcoal suit darkened at the shoulders. One hand braced against the doorframe, the other curled around an ivory-handled cane. Her stomach dropped. She undid the first deadbolt, then the second, then the third, her fingers moving from memory. She opened the door six inches, enough to let in the smell of wet pavement and something sharper underneath. “Wrong flat,” she said. Lucien Moreau tilted his head. Rainwater slid from his hair onto his cheek. “I know exactly which flat.” “You look like hell.” “I need to come in.” Rory’s hand tightened on the door. “Not a chance.” He shifted, and she saw it then: the dark stain spreading along his left side, the way his weight leaned too heavily on the cane. Blood, not rain, dripped from his cuff onto the threshold. “Please, Rory.” The word landed like a stone in her chest. She’d never heard him say it before. She opened the door wider. He stepped inside, bringing the cold with him. The flat shrank instantly, every cluttered surface suddenly too close. Ptolemy jumped down from the table and wound between Lucien’s legs, then hissed and retreated under the sofa. Rory locked all three deadbolts behind him out of habit, then turned and crossed her arms. “You’re bleeding on Eva’s rug.” Lucien glanced down at the dark drops already soaking into the worn wool. “I’ll replace it.” “You can’t replace everything.” His eyes found hers, one amber and one black, and something flickered in the amber one. “No,” he said quietly. “I can’t.” Rory pointed to the small kitchen chair. “Sit before you fall.” He moved like a man who had spent the last hour pretending he wasn’t hurt. The cane tapped against the floorboards, and he lowered himself into the chair with a controlled exhale. Rory went to the bathroom and came back with a first aid kit and a threadbare towel. She tossed the towel at him. “Take off the jacket.” He caught it with his free hand and hesitated. Then he shrugged the jacket off with a wince. His white shirt was soaked through, pink at the left side. She could see the tear in the fabric, the ugly gash beneath it along his ribs. She knelt beside him and opened the kit. “This needs stitches.” “It’ll heal.” “Not if you keep bleeding on my friend’s floor.” “I said I’d replace it.” “And I said you can’t replace everything.” She soaked a cotton pad with antiseptic and pressed it to the wound. He hissed through his teeth. “Hold still.” “You’re enjoying this.” “A little,” she admitted. His mouth curved, but it wasn’t quite a smile. She worked in silence for a moment, cleaning the edges of the gash. The flat was too quiet. Rain tapped against the window, and the old radiator ticked. She could smell him beneath the rain and blood—sandalwood and something warm, a scent she had spent months trying to forget. “Why are you here, Lucien?” She kept her eyes on the wound. “Last time I saw you, you walked out of my flat at two in the morning and didn’t look back.” “I looked back.” “Not from where I was standing.” He was quiet. She pressed a fresh gauze pad over the wound and taped it down with more force than necessary. He didn’t flinch. “I had reasons,” he said. “You always have reasons. They never seem to include telling me the truth.” “The truth is complicated.” “The truth is you’re a coward.” His jaw tightened. “I’m many things. Coward isn’t one of them.” “Then why did you leave?” The question hung between them. She finally looked up. His face was pale, rain still beading at his temples, but his eyes were steady. “Because I was trying to protect you,” he said. “From what?” “From me.” Rory sat back on her heels. A bitter laugh escaped her. “That’s the worst line you’ve ever used.” “It’s not a line.” “I didn’t need protection, Lucien. I needed you to stay.” “I know.” She shook her head and began packing the first aid kit, her hands unsteady. “You don’t get to show up here bleeding and say that. You don’t get to make me feel sorry for you.” “I’m not asking for pity.” He leaned forward, and she caught the faint hitch in his breath as the movement pulled at his side. “I came because Evan’s back in London.” Rory froze. The name hit her like cold water down her spine. “What?” “He was seen in Shoreditch two nights ago. Asking about you.” She stood, backing away until her hip bumped the edge of the table. Ptolemy crept out from under the sofa and jumped onto the table, knocking a stack of papers to the floor. Neither of them moved to pick them up. “And you waited until now to tell me?” “I’ve been trying to find him first.” “That’s not your job.” “It became my job the moment I let you walk away.” “You didn’t let me walk away.” Her voice rose. “You left. There’s a difference.” “Same difference.” “No, it isn’t.” She pressed her hands flat on the table behind her, grounding herself. “You don’t get to rewrite what happened. You left, and I had to figure out how to be fine without you. I was doing it, too. I was fine.” He looked at her for a long moment. “You were fine,” he repeated, and there was no mockery in it. “That’s why you opened the door.” “You were bleeding.” “You could have let me bleed.” She opened her mouth, then closed it. The radiator ticked again. Ptolemy padded across the table and sniffed the first aid kit, then sat down and began washing his paw. “Eva asked me to check on you,” Lucien said. Rory blinked. “Eva asked you?” “She worries.” “Since when do you and Eva talk?” “Since you stopped answering her calls.” “I answer her calls.” “Not the ones about me.” She looked away, at the rain streaking the window, at the books and scrolls piled on every surface. Her chest felt too tight. “You can’t stay here.” “I’m not asking permission.” “This is Eva’s flat.” “I know. She’s in Edinburgh until Thursday. She told me where the spare key was, but I didn’t want to use it.” He paused. “I wanted you to choose to let me in.” Rory turned back to him. He was still sitting in the kitchen chair, still too pale, still bleeding through the gauze she’d just applied. But his eyes were on her, and there was something raw in them she hadn’t seen before. “You’re a bastard,” she said quietly. “I know.” “You left me.” “I know.” “And now you’re here, and I’m supposed to just—” She broke off, pressing the heels of her hands to her eyes. “I hate that I’m glad you came.” The silence stretched. She heard the chair scrape, then his footsteps, uneven without the cane. When she lowered her hands, he was standing in front of her, close enough that she could feel the heat of him through the cold he’d brought in. “I’m not going anywhere tonight,” he said. “Not until I know you’re safe.” “And after that?” “After that, you can tell me to go. I’ll go.” He reached up, hesitated, then tucked a strand of her black hair behind her ear. His fingers were cold. “But I’ll come back. I’ll always come back, Rory.” She should have stepped away. Instead, she looked up at him, at the rain still drying on his collar, at the sharp line of his jaw, at the amber eye and the black one watching her like she was the only fixed point in a shifting world. “You’re still bleeding,” she whispered. “It’ll heal.” “That’s not what I meant.” His hand dropped to her wrist, his thumb brushing the small crescent-shaped scar there. “I know.” Ptolemy meowed once, loud and indignant, and the spell cracked. Rory stepped back, but not far. She looked at the blood on her hands, at the mess of first aid supplies on the table, at the man standing in the middle of Eva’s flat like he belonged there. “There’s a spare blanket in the cupboard,” she said. “You can take the sofa.” “Thank you.” “Don’t thank me yet.” She moved past him toward the bathroom, then stopped in the doorway. “Lucien.” He turned. “If you leave again without saying goodbye, I won’t open the door next time.” He held her gaze. “I won’t leave.” She wanted to believe him. The worst part was that she almost did.