Run: 2026-09-23-01M37HHZ265ZH2YKC018PG2V0S

Aurora opened the third deadbolt and found Lucien Moreau on Eva’s landing, his charcoal suit dark with rain. Water ran from the tip of his ivory-handled cane onto the threadbare mat. For a moment, neither of them moved. “You’ve got the wrong flat.” “Eva sent me.” “She’s in Manchester.” “She knows.” From inside, Ptolemy gave a sharp yowl. Rory glanced over her shoulder. The tabby stood on the kitchen threshold, his back arched, one paw lifted from the floor. A strip of copper wire ran beneath the threshold. It had lain flat when Rory fed him an hour ago. Now it curled at the ends. Lucien followed her gaze. “How long has he been doing that?” “Since you knocked.” “I didn’t knock.” The copper wire snapped against the skirting board. Ptolemy fled under a stack of newspapers. Rory stepped aside. “Come in.” Lucien crossed the threshold without his usual pause to straighten a cuff or inspect the room. He went towards the kitchen, then stopped short of the wire. Rory shut the door and slid the bolts home. Eva’s flat left little room for two people to stand apart. Books covered the table, scrolls occupied the armchair, and notes hung from a string across the window. Lucien set his cane against the wall beside an annotated map of London. “When did Eva call you?” Rory asked. “Twenty minutes ago. She saw the kitchen through the glass on her desk.” Rory looked at the desk. Between two towers of paper sat a small oval mirror, its surface clouded white. “She could have called me. I’m here.” “She did. You didn’t pick up.” Rory took her phone from her pocket. The screen stayed black beneath her thumb. She had meant to charge it before dinner. Lucien crouched near the threshold. His left hand hovered over the wire, palm down. A thin red line appeared across his skin. He pulled back. “Ptolemy got through the salt.” “He knocked over a jar. I swept it up.” “How much?” “All of it. It was on the floor.” Lucien looked up at her. His amber eye caught the kitchen light; the black one gave nothing back. “The salt held the wire in place.” “Then I’ll put it back.” “Not while it’s awake.” The wire struck the floor again. This time a black mark spread across the wood. Rory fetched a cup of water from the bathroom. Lucien caught her wrist before she could throw it. His fingers closed over the small crescent scar on her skin, and both of them went still. “Water feeds it.” “You could have led with that.” “I thought you were getting a cloth.” She took her wrist back. Six weeks had passed since his hand had last rested there. He had held it outside Eva’s flat then, beside the three locked bolts, while Rory asked him whether Evan had her new address. Lucien had looked her in the face and told her no. The next morning, Rory had found the address written on a receipt in Evan’s handwriting. She set the cup on a shelf well away from the kitchen. “What does it need?” “Something to hold the wire down. Human skin.” Lucien opened his left hand. The red line across his palm deepened. “Not mine.” “Of course.” “Rory.” “Tell me where to put my hand.” He moved a pile of notebooks off the nearest chair and placed one of Eva’s heavy dictionaries on the floor beside the kitchen door. The wire shivered. Ptolemy watched from behind the newspapers, eyes bright in the gap. “Press here.” Lucien indicated the dark mark on the floor. “Flat palm. Don’t touch the copper. I’ll close the ring.” Rory knelt. Heat rose through the boards and reached her face. Lucien crouched opposite her, close enough that rain from his coat touched her bare ankle. She planted her palm over the mark. The heat pulled at her skin. She gritted her teeth. Lucien unwound a length of copper from the baseboard and drew it into a circle around her hand. The end resisted him. His palm split along the red line, and a drop of blood landed on the floor. “Your hand.” “It’s fine.” “It’s bleeding on Eva’s notes.” “That is a more persuasive objection.” He took a folded handkerchief from his pocket and wrapped it round his palm with his teeth and his free hand. Rory held her place while he worked. The wood pressed hot against her skin. “Eva put this in after the break-in?” she asked. “Yes.” “She told me the kitchen wire kept mice out.” “She wanted you to sleep here.” “She could have told me what it did.” Lucien tightened the handkerchief. Rory watched him. “Did you know Evan had this address?” His hand stopped. The wire gave a hard twitch beneath her palm. Lucien pinned its loose end with his cane. “Yes.” Rory stared at the crown of his bent head. “At the door, six weeks ago, you told me he didn’t.” “I did.” “What happened to your speech about protecting me?” “I’ve used enough of it.” The wood bucked. Rory pressed down with both hands, and the crescent scar flashed pale against her flushed wrist. “Don’t stop now. I’m busy keeping Eva’s kitchen on the floor.” Lucien lifted his face. Rain had loosened a strand of platinum hair across his forehead. “Evan bought the address from someone who handled your deliveries. I found out the day before I came here. I paid him for the note he’d written it on. I thought I had the only copy.” “And when I asked?” “I didn’t want you to spend the night listening for him on the stairs.” “So you let me spend it believing you.” “Yes.” The wire slipped under the cane tip. Lucien caught it with his injured hand. His jaw tightened, but he guided the copper back towards the dictionary. Rory’s palms stung. “You went after Evan without telling me. You gave him money without telling me. Then you came here and kissed me.” “I came to tell you. I stood outside that door for ten minutes with the note in my pocket.” “You found time for the kiss.” “I did.” Lucien set the dictionary over the joined ends of the wire. “I wanted it. I should have told you before I touched you.” The kitchen light blinked once. The heat beneath Rory’s hands began to ebb, but Lucien kept his cane against the wire. “What did you do with the note?” “I still have it.” “You told me you’d destroyed it.” “Yes.” Rory lifted her eyes to his. “Was there anything that night you didn’t lie about?” Lucien looked down at the handkerchief, spotted red where it crossed his palm. “What I said before I left.” She remembered him at this very threshold, his coat over one arm, asking if she wanted him to stay. She had said she didn’t know. He had told her he would wait until she did. “You left before I woke.” “You’d asked me to go if I couldn’t tell you the truth. I couldn’t make myself say it, so I went.” “That wasn’t what I asked.” “No.” He shifted his cane a fraction. “It wasn’t.” Under the newspapers, Ptolemy crept out and planted one cautious paw on the kitchen floor. He glanced at Rory, then at Lucien, and began washing his chest. Rory eased one palm from the dark mark. The wire stayed still. She reached for Lucien’s injured hand. “Give me that. Your handkerchief’s soaked through.” He held it out. Rory unwound the linen and examined the cut. It crossed his palm from thumb to little finger, shallow at one end and deep at the other. Lucien’s free hand remained on the cane. They sat close enough that she could feel the warmth of his knee through her jeans. “There’s a first-aid tin by the sink,” she told him. “Blue lid. Don’t lift the cane yet.” Lucien reached past her with his uninjured hand. His sleeve brushed her shoulder as he searched among Eva’s jars, and Rory kept hold of his bleeding palm while he found the tin.