Run: 2026-09-23-01M37HQ6924DZZZYRKJ4CJ38S4

Rory opened the third deadbolt and found Lucien Moreau on Eva’s landing, rain darkening the shoulders of his charcoal suit. For a moment neither of them spoke. The curry house downstairs sent up its usual warm fog of fried onions and cardamom, and somewhere behind Rory, Ptolemy made the small, demanding sound he reserved for people who had failed to feed him a second dinner. Lucien’s platinum hair was still slicked back. His ivory-handled cane rested against his leg. He looked as though he’d stepped out of an expensive car rather than climbed three flights of damp stairs, except for the blood on his right cuff. “No,” Rory said. His amber eye caught the light from Eva’s hall. The black one gave nothing away. “I haven’t asked anything yet.” “That saves us time.” She began to close the door. Lucien didn’t put his foot in it. That was what stopped her. “Eva called me,” he said. Rory kept one hand on the door. “Eva is in Bristol.” “She can use a telephone there.” Rory hated the flicker of relief she felt at his voice. It had been eleven weeks since she’d heard it outside her own head. “She sent you the photograph?” Rory asked. “Yes.” On Eva’s kitchen table lay the receipt Rory had brought back from her last delivery for the Golden Empress. It had looked ordinary until she noticed the mark beneath the customer’s signature: a thin circle of red ink, broken in three places. By the time she reached Brick Lane, the circle had appeared on the back of her hand as well. She’d scrubbed until her skin stung. It hadn’t shifted. “She could’ve told me she’d called you,” Rory said. “She believed you might refuse my help.” “She was right.” Lucien’s gaze dropped to her hand. Rory folded it against the edge of the door, too late. From inside the flat, Ptolemy gave up on dinner and came to inspect the visitor. He wound between Rory’s ankles, then sat on the threshold and blinked at Lucien. “You should let me see the receipt,” Lucien said. “After that, you can send me away.” “And the mark?” “I’ll tell you what I know.” It was a careful answer. Once, she might have mistaken careful for honest. Rory stepped back. “You can come in. Don’t touch anything.” “Of course.” He crossed the threshold without brushing her. She closed the door and turned each deadbolt while he waited. Eva’s flat had always been cramped, but Lucien made the narrow hall feel smaller. Books stood in columns along the skirting board. Rolled scrolls filled the umbrella stand. Research notes were pinned to the wall above the radiator, their corners lifting in the heat. Ptolemy followed Lucien into the kitchen as though supervising a burglary. Rory picked up the receipt by its clean edge. “Here.” Lucien set his cane against the table before taking it. He held the paper beneath Eva’s reading lamp, turning it until the red ring glinted. His mouth tightened. “What is it?” Rory asked. “A way of finding whoever carried the paper.” “A tracking charm.” “Yes.” “Then why is it on my hand?” “Contact was enough.” He looked at the mark again. “I’m sorry.” The words landed badly. She could still hear him saying them in the corridor outside Silas’s bar, eleven weeks ago, after she’d come home to find a bag packed for her and Silas waiting with the keys to a room across town. Lucien had arranged it all before telling her there was anyone looking for her. “You don’t get to say that yet,” she said. He lowered the receipt. “All right.” Rory went to the sink and ran cold water over the back of her hand. The mark stayed a stark red against her skin. Her small crescent scar, pale on the opposite wrist, vanished beneath her sleeve. “Can you remove it?” “I think so. I need salt, a flame, and your permission to cut the receipt.” She turned off the tap. “You’re asking?” “Yes.” “How novel.” He took that without protest. She searched Eva’s cluttered cupboards for salt, moving aside three jars of unlabeled herbs and a stack of index cards. Her hands were steady enough. She wanted him to notice that, then resented wanting anything from him at all. “What happened to your wrist?” she asked. He glanced down at the blood. “Someone objected to my asking about the mark.” “You could’ve led with that.” “I didn’t want to frighten you.” Rory set the salt on the table with a sharp crack. “You hear yourself, don’t you?” “Yes.” His expression changed. “I heard it as soon as I said it.” She pulled out a chair and sat. “Tell me what happened to your hand.” “I asked the wrong man who had commissioned the charm. He broke a glass. I was too slow.” “Who commissioned it?” “I don’t know. I’m going to keep asking.” That, at least, sounded like Lucien. She examined his cuff. Blood had dried along the edge, but no fresh drops fell from it. “Eva keeps a first-aid kit under the sink.” “It can wait.” “The charm can wait while you tell me exactly what you’re doing with it.” Lucien drew out the other chair. He didn’t sit until she nodded. “If I break the circle on the receipt, the mark on your hand should fade. Salt will catch what comes off the paper when it burns. If it doesn’t fade, we find another way. I won’t leave you with it.” “You told me I could send you away after you looked at it.” “You can.” Rory studied him. “And you’d go?” “Yes.” Even now, when she needed his help, he would put the choice in her hands. She wished he had done it before. Eleven weeks earlier, she had found him downstairs beside Silas, one hand wrapped around his cane and his face set like stone. He’d said someone had taken an interest in her because she’d been seen with him. He’d already arranged a place for her to stay. She’d asked why he hadn’t called. He’d answered that he’d thought she would argue. She had. He had been right about that much. He hadn’t understood why it mattered. “I told you about Evan,” she said. Lucien went still. “I told you what it was like, having someone make every decision and call it looking after me. Then you went and arranged where I’d sleep without a word to me.” “I know.” “Do you? Because when I told you not to do it again, you stopped calling. I spent three days wondering whether I’d been stupid to trust you, and the rest trying to stop wondering where you were.” Rain tapped against the kitchen window. Below it, somebody in the street laughed, loud and briefly carefree. “I was afraid,” Lucien said. Rory looked up. “I was afraid I’d brought trouble to your door. And when you were angry, I took it as proof that I should stay away.” He ran his thumb along the uninjured edge of the receipt. “I should have listened to what you were actually saying.” “You should have.” “I wanted to call.” “That wasn’t my decision either.” “No.” He met her eyes. “I’m sorry, Rory. For what I did, and for leaving you to make sense of it alone.” She believed him. It didn’t make the eleven weeks disappear. It didn’t make her any less aware of his hands, or of the kiss they’d shared the night before everything went wrong—his mouth warm against hers, his cane falling against her front door because neither of them had remembered it. Ptolemy leapt onto the table, planted a paw on the receipt, and sat down. Rory let out a surprised laugh. Lucien looked at the cat with grave disapproval. “He has strong opinions,” Lucien said. “He thinks it’s dinner.” “I thought he had already been fed.” “He has stronger opinions about that.” She lifted Ptolemy onto the floor. Then she pushed the receipt back toward Lucien. “Show me where to cut.” He slid his cane from beside the table. Rory watched him draw the thin blade from its shaft, though she’d seen him do it before. He indicated a point on the red circle with the tip. “Here. Across the line, not through the signature.” “Why?” “The name holds it to you. I don’t want to burn the wrong thing.” “Give me the blade.” He hesitated only long enough to turn the handle toward her. Rory cut through the circle. The paper parted easily. On her hand, the red mark burned, sharp as a nettle sting. Lucien noticed her flinch. “Still want to continue?” “Yes.” They took the receipt to the sink. Rory found a chipped saucer, filled it with salt, and laid the two halves of the paper on top. Lucien offered her a lighter. She lit one corner. The flame ran around the broken circle with a quick blue flicker, then settled into ordinary orange. Ash curled into the salt. The sting on her hand eased. She held it beneath the light. The circle had gone, leaving only a faint pink impression that was already fading. “Well,” she said. “That’s one problem.” “One of them,” Lucien agreed. He kept his distance while she got the first-aid kit. She brought it to the table and looked at his stained cuff. “May I?” she asked. Something passed over his face. He held out his arm. The cut was shallow, though it ran across two knuckles. Rory cleaned it while Ptolemy rubbed insistently against her calf. Lucien watched her work, quiet for once. His skin was warm beneath her fingers. She could feel how carefully he was holding still. “I’m not promising anything,” she said. “I know.” “Eva’s coming back tomorrow. We’ll work out who sent that thing.” “Yes.” “And if you find out something about me, you tell me. Even if you think I’ll argue.” “Especially then.” She taped the last dressing down. Her hands remained around his for a moment after she’d finished. Lucien looked at her, not at the bandage. “Rory.” “You can ask,” she said. “Can I kiss you?” Her pulse gave one hard beat. She thought of the locked door, the fading mark, the weeks she couldn’t reclaim. Then she thought of his foot staying clear of the threshold, and the way he had turned the blade into her hand. “Yes,” she said. “You can.” He leaned in slowly enough that she could meet him halfway. His mouth was familiar and strange, rain-cool at first, then warm. Rory caught the lapel of his suit and held on. When they parted, he rested his forehead lightly against hers. Ptolemy jumped onto the table and knocked the empty first-aid kit to the floor. Rory pulled back, laughing despite herself. Lucien bent to pick it up, and she kept a hand on his shoulder while he did.