Run: 2026-09-03-01M1KZY1W5SH2XVBSH4K7DDV7R

The third deadbolt gave a grating shriek and slid free. Rory yanked the door inward. Cold air from the stairwell carried the curry house's cumin and garlic up to the landing. Lucien Moreau stood there, one hand resting on the ivory head of his cane, the other curled loose at his side. Rain spotted the shoulders of his charcoal suit. His platinum hair was slicked back, not a strand out of place, and his mismatched eyes—amber and black—held hers without blinking. For a second neither of them moved. The tabby cat, Ptolemy, darted from the cramped hallway and wound around Lucien's trouser leg, then hissed and backed beneath a table piled with scrolls. Rory's fingers tightened on the door's edge. The small crescent scar on her left wrist caught the light. "Well. The Prodigal Frenchman remembers Brick Lane exists." Lucien's mouth curved, but the smile didn't reach his eyes. "Your friend keeps three locks on the door. I'm flattered you opened all of them for me." Rory shifted her shoulder against the frame, blocking the entrance. "Eva's paranoid, not me. And I'd have left you on the landing if I'd known it was you." Lucien glanced past her into the flat, taking in the books stacked on every surface, the research notes pinned to the walls, the narrow sofa buried beneath paper. "Is that why you're here instead of your own place above Silas'? Because Eva's paranoia is better company than mine?" Rory's jaw tightened. She stepped back, not an invitation, pure reflex, and he crossed the threshold with the unhurried grace of a man who'd never been told no. "I'm cat-sitting. Eva's at a conference in Edinburgh. Don't change the subject." Lucien stopped in the middle of the cramped room, the cane's tip clicking once against the floorboards. Ptolemy watched from beneath the table, tail lashing. "I came because Evan's been released." The name landed like a fist. Rory's spine went rigid, her bright blue eyes narrowing. She pressed her left wrist to her stomach, then forced her hand back to her side. "Don't say his name in front of me like you have the right." Lucien's thumb moved over the ivory handle of the cane, a slow caress that drew her eye to the concealed blade. "I have every right. I'm the one who made sure you got out of Cardiff alive." A bitter laugh escaped Rory. She moved to the table and began gathering scrolls into a stack, needing something to do with her hands. "You made sure I ran. Then you disappeared. Six months, Lucien. Not a call, not a message. You don't get to walk back in and play guardian." Lucien followed her with his gaze, tracking the straight fall of her shoulder-length black hair, the tense line of her shoulders. "You told me to go." Rory spun back, a scroll clutched in one hand. "I told you to stop lying to me! There's a difference. You let me think you were a fixer with a fancy suit and a sharp tongue. You never mentioned the half-demon thing, or that your father's from a realm called Avaros, or that half the things that go bump in this city answer to you." Something flickered in the amber eye, gone too fast to name. "Telling you would have put a target on your back. It did anyway, didn't it?" Rory stilled. The scroll crumpled in her grip. She set it down. "Is that why you came? Because Evan's out, or because you found out I've been asking questions about Avaros?" Lucien didn't deny it. His silence stretched, filled by the distant clatter of pans from the curry house below and Ptolemy's low growl. "Both. You've been digging into things that bite, Rory. Eva's notes—" He nodded at the papers. "She's been translating a grimoire that mentions the Carter bloodline." Rory's pulse jumped. She kept her face neutral, the way she'd learned in the year she'd spent looking over her shoulder. "My bloodline? We're barristers and teachers, Lucien. My father argues property law, he doesn't traffic with demons." Lucien took a step closer. The scent of him reached her—sandalwood, rain, and something darker, like struck flint. "Your mother's family came from the Welsh borders. The Ellis line. There are stories about a woman who bargained with something in the hills and walked away with a debt." Rory lifted her chin. "My mother is a teacher. She marks essays and drinks too much tea. If there's a debt, it died with whoever was stupid enough to make it." Lucien's hand rose, then stopped a breath from her cheek. The nearness of him sent a traitorous heat through her. "You always do that. Deflect with logic when you're terrified." Rory didn't retreat. Her voice dropped. "And you always touch me when you want me to stop thinking." Lucien's fingers curled into a loose fist and returned to the cane. "It used to work." Her throat tightened. She turned away, putting the table between them, and bent to scratch Ptolemy behind the ears to hide the shake in her hand. The cat leaned into her touch, purring. "It worked because I was stupid enough to think you'd stay." Lucien moved around the table, stopping on the other side, close enough that the papers rustled with his nearness. "I'm staying now." Rory straightened, the crescent scar on her wrist stark against her pale skin. "You can't. You'll leave again the moment it gets dangerous, and I'll be the one left picking up the pieces. Again." Lucien's jaw clenched. "I left because I thought it would keep you safe." Rory met his mismatched gaze, letting him see the hurt she'd buried for six months. "It didn't. It made me feel like I wasn't worth staying for." For a moment he stayed silent. Then he closed the distance and caught her left wrist, his grip careful, his thumb brushing the crescent-shaped scar. The contact sent a jolt through her, equal parts comfort and ache. "This is where he did it, isn't it? Evan." Rory jerked her wrist, but didn't fight hard. "A childhood accident. That's the story I tell people." Lucien's thumb traced the crescent again. "You told me the truth once. On the night I left." Her breath caught. "You mean the night you decided I couldn't handle the truth about what you are." Lucien released her wrist but didn't step back. "I decided I couldn't handle watching you look at me the way you'd looked at him." The words hung between them, raw and unfinished. She searched his face, the angles she'd traced with her fingertips in another life. "And how do I look at you now?" His amber eye seemed to brighten, the black one fathomless. "Like you hate that you still want me." She should have denied it. Should have shoved him back through the door and thrown the three deadbolts. Instead she stood there, the heat of his body seeping into the space between them, and let the silence answer for her. Lucien lifted a hand to her hair, then stopped. "Evan's in Whitechapel. He's asking about a delivery girl with black hair and blue eyes." The mention of her job at Golden Empress sent a chill down her spine. She stepped back, the moment breaking. "Yu-Fei's restaurant. He's been there?" Lucien nodded once. "Not yet. But he will be. I can place you somewhere safe—" Rory cut him off. "No." Lucien's brow furrowed. "Rory—" She grabbed a set of keys from the table, the Golden Empress delivery bag slung over one shoulder. "I'm not running again. Not this time. You want to help? You can tell me everything you've been hiding, starting with why my family's name is in a grimoire." Lucien studied her, the set of her jaw, the stubborn jut of her chin. Then he inclined his head, the platinum hair catching the light. "Then we start now. But not here." Rory moved past him to the door, Ptolemy twining around her ankles. She pulled it open and glanced back over her shoulder. "Then keep up, Frenchman. And if you disappear on me again, I'll find you." A real smile touched his mouth this time, brief and dangerous. He followed her onto the landing, the cane clicking against the step. "I'm counting on it."