Run: 2026-09-23-01M36R8CKK7Y8RGFB6EKPMMFVV

The door opened, and Lucien Moreau stood on the landing with rain on his shoulders and a dark smear across one cuff. Rory kept one hand on the latch. The other curled against the doorframe, crescent scar pale against her wrist. “You have ten seconds to tell me why you’re here.” His amber eye held hers. The black one slid past her, taking in the narrow hall, the unlit kitchen behind her, the cardigan thrown over a chair. “Someone asked Yu-Fei about your delivery routes.” “Eight seconds.” “Two men came to the Golden Empress this afternoon. They knew your name and the streets you cover.” “Six.” “They weren’t looking for takeaway.” She looked at the stain on his cuff. “Is that yours?” Lucien glanced down as if he’d forgotten it. “Some of it.” “Then you’ve got four seconds to explain why you brought it to my door.” “I didn’t know where else to go.” The answer landed harder than she wanted. Rory shifted her grip on the door. Behind him, the stairwell carried up a wash of bass from Silas’s bar, the same low pulse she heard through the floorboards every night. No footsteps followed Lucien. No voices climbed the stairs. “You had plenty of places to go,” she said. “You made sure I knew that.” “I know.” “Do you? Because last time you told me you couldn’t afford to be seen with me. Then you vanished before I could ask whether that meant the danger had passed or you’d decided I’d become inconvenient.” A muscle moved in his jaw. He’d shaved, but not since morning. Rain had loosened a strand of platinum hair near his temple. “I was wrong to leave you without an answer.” “That’s not an answer.” “No.” His fingers tightened around the ivory handle of his cane. “It isn’t.” Rory waited. He’d always been good at making silence feel like an offer. She’d once mistaken it for trust. The smear on his cuff had begun to darken. A drop slipped from the edge and struck the wooden landing between them. “Are you bleeding on my doorstep?” she asked. “I’m bleeding on your landing.” “Enjoy the distinction from downstairs.” His mouth almost changed. Almost. “Rory—” “Don’t.” He stopped. She had thought about that voice during the months he’d been gone. In the quiet after deliveries, on the bus, once in the middle of kissing someone else and finding herself watching the door instead. She had practised what she’d say if he came back. None of the rehearsed lines had survived his face. “You don’t get to use my name like we’re picking up a conversation,” she said. “I won’t.” “Good.” “May I come in?” “No.” Lucien looked past her again. His gaze caught on the open window in the kitchen, where the curtain shifted in the draught. “You should close that.” “You should stop giving me instructions.” “There was a man outside the restaurant who knew your name. I saw the photograph he carried.” “Your photograph?” “Yours.” A cold pinch drew tight beneath her ribs. Rory kept her hand on the latch. “What did it look like?” “Taken from the opposite pavement. You wore the red coat you left at Eva’s.” “Which means it was old.” “Not very.” She reached for the door, ready to shut it in his face. Lucien’s cane struck the landing before she could move. He flinched, his free hand closing over his side. The neat line of his charcoal jacket had split beneath the lapel. A dark patch spread through the shirt below it. Rory’s temper held. Her body, traitor that it was, took a step forward. “Sit down before you fall down.” “I can manage.” “You can bleed on the stairs, then. Silas will charge you for the cleaning.” “I’d rather not cause him trouble.” “You’ve never had that problem before.” She opened the door wide enough for him to pass, then stepped back at once. Lucien crossed the threshold without touching her. He carried the rain and the scent of cold stone into the flat. Rory shut the door and slid the bolt home. He stood in her narrow hall, shoulders drawn tight. The cane rested against his palm, its ivory handle worn smooth where his thumb had pressed. “Take off your jacket.” His eyes lifted to hers. “That wasn’t on my list of expected greetings.” “Neither was you turning up with a hole in your shirt.” “You used to be more welcoming.” “I used to have worse judgement.” “Your judgement has improved, then.” “Considerably.” He unbuttoned the jacket. His left hand moved with care, fingers held stiff. Rory saw a shallow cut across the knuckles, then the blood beneath his shirt. He laid the jacket over the chair without letting it brush the wall. “You brought a blade to my flat,” she said. “I brought a cane.” “Your cane has a blade.” “You remember.” “I remember everything that made my life harder.” She went to the kitchen cupboard for the first-aid tin. When she returned, he had stayed where she left him, one hand braced on the back of the chair. “Sit.” He lowered himself with measured care. The chair creaked. Rory set the tin on the table and dragged another chair close enough to reach him. She didn’t sit. “Shirt up.” “Rory—” “Would you like me to fetch Silas? He can hold you still.” Lucien unfastened two buttons and lifted the fabric. A narrow slice ran along his ribs, red at the edges, shallow enough to avoid the worst of it. His skin looked pale beneath the lamplight. Rory pressed gauze to the cut. His breath caught. “Still good at giving orders,” he said. “Still bad at following them.” Her fingers worked over the wound. The skin around it was warm. He held still, eyes fixed on her face, while she cleaned the blood away. She kept her gaze on the work. “Who did this?” “Someone who wanted the photograph back.” “You took it from him?” “I took it from the pavement.” “Lucien.” “He had a knife.” “And you brought the result here.” “I knew you’d ask questions.” “That’s not a reason to come to my flat.” “No.” He watched her wrap the bandage around his ribs. “It’s a reason to come to you.” Her hands paused. A strip of gauze stretched between them. “That sentence used to work.” “I know.” “You keep saying that as though it repairs anything.” “It doesn’t.” “Then stop.” She tied the bandage. His gaze dropped to her hands, to the scar crossing her left wrist. He didn’t touch it. His restraint stirred up a sharper ache than a careless hand would have. Rory closed the first-aid tin. “You could have sent a message.” “I didn’t know if you’d read it.” “You could have left one with Yu-Fei.” “That would have put her in the middle.” “You’ve never let that stop you before.” His face tightened. “You think I used her to get to you.” “I think you decided who deserved the truth. You told me to leave. You didn’t tell me what had happened, who was coming, or what you’d promised to make it stop.” “I thought if you knew, you’d stay.” “So you lied.” “Yes.” “And when I stayed anyway, you chose for me.” “Yes.” The bluntness took the next sentence from her. She stood, carrying the bloodied gauze to the sink. Water ran pink over her fingers. “You could have trusted me.” “I should have.” She turned off the tap. “You had months to say that.” “I spent them finding out who had taken the photograph.” “You knew where I lived.” “I knew you didn’t want me here.” “I still don’t.” He glanced at the bolted door. “Yet you let me in.” “Because I didn’t want blood on the stairs.” “Of course.” “Don’t make a story out of it.” “I wouldn’t dare.” She turned, and found him watching her with a patience she had once found tender. Now it felt like a hand held just short of her skin. “What do you want from me?” “To tell you what I should have told you before.” “Start with the men.” “One of them works for a broker who’s been buying names from the people who move between realms. The other carried your photograph. I don’t know who sent them.” “And you expect me to believe you came here for my safety?” “I came because you deserved to know.” “Those are different things.” “They are.” She leaned against the counter. “You can’t keep arriving with half a truth and call it honesty.” “I’m not asking you to.” “Then what are you asking?” Lucien’s fingers flexed against his knee. For once, he seemed to have misplaced the answer he’d polished for other people. “Stay in the room long enough for me to give you the whole account.” Rory glanced at the blood on the gauze, then at his face. She could still see the man who had kissed her in the back of a cab and pressed his forehead to hers when the driver missed their turn. She could also see the man who’d stood on her doorstep months later and told her to leave London without once saying he wanted her to stay. “You get one account,” she said. “No edits. No clever omissions.” “I understand.” “And if you try to manage me—” “I won’t.” “You don’t know what I was about to say.” “I know the shape of it.” She pulled out the chair opposite him and sat. “Prove you know the difference between listening and guessing.”