Run: 2026-09-03-01M1M0R2W686ZKNVASWFJR45J2

The third deadbolt clunked free. The door opened. Lucien Moreau stood on the landing with his fist raised to knock again. Behind him, the stairwell breathed cumin and fried onions from the curry house below. The single bulb painted his slicked-back platinum hair the colour of old bone and turned his charcoal suit a deeper black. One amber eye caught the glow; the other, fathomless black, swallowed it. His ivory-handled cane rested against his shoulder, the thin blade inside it a secret her fingertip had learned six months ago and could not forget. Ptolemy, Eva's tabby, shot between Rory's ankles and wound himself around Lucien's trouser leg, purring fit to rival the extractor fan. Rory's fingers tightened on the door's edge. She kept her body in the gap, blocking the threshold. Six months gone, and he still wore the same cologne, something like smoked citrus and old paper. Her straight black hair brushed her shoulders as she held her ground. Her pulse knocked against the crescent scar on her left wrist. "You always did knock like you owned the building." Lucien lowered his fist. His gaze travelled past her, into the flat, then back. "Nice security. Three deadbolts on a first-floor flat. Expecting a siege?" Heat climbed her neck. She didn't widen the gap. Her bright blue eyes stayed level. "Expecting you, apparently." Lucien's mouth curved. The expression didn't reach his eyes. "May I come in? Or shall I conduct our reunion on the landing where every neighbour above the curry house can listen?" She held his gaze. Ptolemy butted his head against Lucien's shoe, the traitor. Behind her, the cramped one-bedroom had surrendered every surface to books, scrolls, and Eva's research notes. A half-eaten plate of toast balanced on a stack of papers. The place smelled of dust, ink, and whatever spice drifted up through the floorboards. She stepped back. "Don't get comfortable. The sofa's got a spring like a knife." He entered. The cane tapped once against the floorboards. He took in the chaos with a sweep of his mismatched eyes. "You always did think better in a mess." "I think better without someone breathing down my neck." "Then I'll stand over here." He set the cane against the arm of a chair buried under scrolls. He didn't sit. The silence stretched until Ptolemy leapt onto a tower of books and sent a scroll rolling across the floor. Rory bent, retrieved the scroll, and set it back. Her hand gave one betraying shake. She curled it into a fist at her side. "What do you want, Lucien?" He reached into his suit jacket. She went still. He drew out a folded flyer, not a weapon, and held it out. Cheap paper, printed with a grinning golden empress and the address of the Golden Empress restaurant. "You've been doing deliveries for Yu-Fei Cheung." "So you've had me watched." "I've had you alive. There's a difference." She didn't take the flyer. He let it drop onto a pile of notes. "Evan's in London." The name went through her like cold water. Her ribs tightened around her lungs. She had left Cardiff to escape Evan, fled to London at Eva's urging, taken the flat above Silas' bar and the job at the Golden Empress to keep moving, to keep the past from catching her. Hearing it on Lucien's mouth made the room tilt. "How do you know?" "I make it my business to know. He's been asking questions in the sort of places that sell answers. He's hired a trafficker out of Avaros. A demon called Vesh who deals in favours and flesh." Rory's laugh scraped her throat. "Six months. You walked out six months ago with your coat over your arm and not a word. Now you show up to tell me my ex has hired a demon?" Lucien's throat worked. The amber eye held a fleck of something like regret; the black one gave nothing away. "I walked out because staying would have put a target on your back." "You could have told me that instead of letting me think I'd imagined all of it." "You imagined nothing." He closed the distance before she could brace. The flat shrank to the space between them. He smelled of smoked citrus and rain. His thumb found the crescent scar on her left wrist, the one from a childhood accident, the one he'd once kissed after she'd told him the story. The contact burned. She didn't pull away. "You were never a job, Rory." Her voice dropped. "Then what was I?" "The one thing I couldn't fix." She searched his face. The amber eye, the black eye, both fixed on her with the same impossible focus. Attraction twisted in her gut, familiar and unwelcome. She had missed him with a ferocity that shamed her. "Don't." She didn't step back. "You say that like you mean it." "I mean it. You don't get to touch me and vanish. You don't get to leave me to wonder whether I was just a way to pass the time until the next job." His grip on her wrist tightened, not hurting. "You were the only thing that ever made me want to stay in one place." Ptolemy knocked a stack of papers off the table. The clatter broke the moment. Rory stepped out of his hold and crouched to gather the scattered notes. Her hands were steadier now, or she pretended they were. She waved a hand between them. "If Evan's in London, say it plain. Don't dress it up with whatever this is." Her throat tightened. "I can't do the thing where you look at me like that and then disappear." Lucien crouched beside her. He didn't touch the papers. He touched her sleeve, pushing it a little higher, baring the scar. "I'm not here to disappear. I'm here because Vesh will find you. He'll find the Golden Empress, he'll find Silas' bar, he'll find this flat. I can't watch you from a distance anymore." Rory sat back on her heels. "You want me to trust you. After six months of silence." "I want you to trust me enough to stay alive. The rest we can fight about later. I mean it." He stood, offered her his hand. "Let me help, start to finish. No vanishing." She looked at his hand, then at his face. One amber eye, one black. The Frenchman, the fixer, the half-demon who had walked out of her life and still owned too much of it. "You stay on the sofa. Ptolemy hogs the bed. And if you vanish again—" "I won't." "You'd better not. I've got a dawn delivery shift and a cricket bat under the bed, and I'm not above using either." The corners of his mouth lifted. He didn't reach for her again. "I'll be here when you get back." "See that you are." She didn't take his hand. She stood on her own, brushing dust from her knees. The flat settled around them, the curry-house scent rising through the floor, the books and scrolls waiting. Lucien picked up his cane and leaned it against the wall. He looked like a man preparing to stay. His mouth opened, the first syllable of her name forming— Ptolemy launched himself off the bookshelf. A stack of scrolls toppled, unspooling across the rug. Rory swore and dived for them.