Run: 2026-09-23-01M37HQWGE0WGF462HEHJ6SG0F

The door opened the width of its chain. Lucien Moreau stood in the corridor with rain on the shoulders of his charcoal suit and a split across one cheekbone. Rory kept her hand on the door. Behind her, Ptolemy jumped from a stack of books to the hall floor, sending three loose pages sailing beneath the radiator. “No.” Lucien glanced at the chain, then at her. His black eye caught the yellow light from the curry house sign across the street; the amber one stayed in shadow. “I haven’t asked you anything.” “You came to my door.” “I thought this was Eva’s door.” “She’s out.” “Then I need to speak to you.” Rory started to close it. His cane slid into the gap, ivory handle against the frame. She looked down at it, and he withdrew it at once. “Don’t do that again.” “No.” He held the cane against his leg. “I’m sorry.” Rain ticked off his hair onto the worn stair carpet. He looked past her, not into the flat but towards the brass chain. Eva’s three deadbolts stood open. Rory had left them that way while she waited for a food delivery. “How did you know I was here?” “I didn’t. Eva told me she’d be at home.” “She isn’t.” “I gathered that.” “Call her.” “I did. Her phone’s off.” Rory could hear the curry house extractor below the floorboards. She could also hear Lucien breathing through his nose, a short hitch on each inhale. The cut on his cheek was fresh, but it wasn’t what had brought him here. “What happened?” “An argument.” “With a fist?” “With a door. The fist came first.” She let the silence sit between them. He had once stood close enough to her that she could feel his pulse beneath her fingers. Now the chain kept him a foot away, and she was grateful for every link. “Who?” “A man who wanted Eva’s address.” Rory pulled the door shut, freed the chain and opened it again. “Get in.” Lucien crossed the threshold. She locked all three deadbolts behind him. Ptolemy rubbed against his trouser cuff, received a scratch beneath the chin and followed Rory into the sitting room as if escorting a prisoner. Eva’s flat had gained another wall of paper since Rory’s last visit. Notes covered the window frame, pinned around the glass so that Brick Lane appeared in narrow, untidy slices. A saucepan held down one corner of a map on the table. On the sofa, a heap of scrolls left room for one person if they sat sideways. Lucien stopped just inside the room. “Is Eva all right?” “She went to meet someone at the British Library. Who wanted her address?” “I didn’t get a name.” “You always get a name.” “This time I got him away from the building where we met. His friends stayed behind.” Rory reached for her phone. “I’ll ring her.” “She won’t answer until she’s out of the reading room.” “I’ll leave a message.” She typed while he set his cane beside the door. Its tip left a wet crescent on Eva’s rug. Rory recognised the handle, the seam where the blade lay concealed. Three weeks ago, she had seen him draw it under the railway arches at Bethnal Green. Three weeks ago, she had also seen him put himself between her and something with too many teeth, then leave before dawn without giving her a reason. Her thumb hovered over the screen. “You could have sent a message.” “I have. Twice.” “I mean after Bethnal Green.” “I know what you mean.” She pressed send. The message showed one grey tick. From below came the clang of a dropped tray and a burst of laughter. Lucien turned his face towards the sound. Rory saw the bruise forming under his jaw. “You need ice.” “I need the pages Eva took from my office.” “Start with the man at your meeting.” “Rory.” “You don’t get to arrive bleeding and give orders in someone else’s flat.” He looked at her, then lowered his eyes to his wet shoes. “His name was Idris Vale. He wanted a copy of Eva’s notes on the Avaros gate. I told him she didn’t have one. He didn’t believe me.” “Was he right?” “I don’t know what she has.” “Then how does he know where to look?” “He saw her leave my office last Tuesday.” Rory went still. “You’ve been seeing Eva?” “She’s been helping me translate a record.” “Last Tuesday.” “Yes.” “Eva knows you left me under the railway arches.” Lucien’s hand closed around the head of his cane. “She knows what happened there.” “She knows the part you told her.” Rory crossed to the kitchen alcove before he could answer. She pulled a bag of frozen peas from the icebox, wrapped it in a tea towel and came back. Lucien took it without touching her hand. “Thank you.” “Put it against your jaw.” He did. The towel hid the bruise and part of his mouth, leaving his eyes fixed on hers. “What did Eva tell you?” “That you’d been sleeping. That you were working your shifts at the Golden Empress. Nothing you wouldn’t want me to know.” Rory let out a breath that held no humour. “You asked after me.” “Yes.” “But not to me.” “You didn’t answer my calls.” “You rang the morning after, while I was getting the stitches out of my shoulder. Once.” He moved the peas away from his face. “I rang more than once.” “My phone was broken. I told you that when you found me.” “I left a note at the bar.” “There was no note.” Lucien stared at her. Rory felt the old anger sharpen, then falter. She had spent three weeks building a clean account of what he’d done. He had left. He had chosen not to explain. The note, if it existed, put a crack through that account without mending anything beneath it. “Who did you give it to?” “The barman. Tall, shaved head. He knew your name.” “Silas.” She folded her arms. “What did it say?” Lucien studied the peas in his hand. “That I needed to speak with you. I gave him my number.” “I know your number.” “I didn’t know whether you’d kept it.” She had. It sat in her contacts under Lucien, with no surname, despite the number of times she had opened it to make herself delete it. “Why didn’t you come upstairs?” “Silas told me you didn’t want me there.” “He told you that?” “He told me you’d made it clear.” Rory pulled her phone from her pocket. There was still one grey tick beside her message to Eva. “I’ll ask him about the note.” “You should.” “And you should tell me what happened after you put me in that taxi.” Lucien looked towards the window. The pinched strips of street between Eva’s notes glistened under rain. He shifted his weight off his left leg. Rory remembered him stumbling under the arches and refusing her help. “The thing we drove back through the gate had marked you,” he said. “When I cut it, it marked me. I thought if I stayed near you, anything hunting that mark would find you too.” “You thought.” “Yes.” “You didn’t check whether I was willing to take that chance.” “I saw blood on your coat. I saw you holding your shoulder together with one hand.” His grip tightened on the towel. “I could get you away from the gate, or I could stand there and explain the risk while you bled.” “That explains the taxi. Not the rest of the night.” “I went back.” Rory glanced at his cane. “Alone?” “After you left.” “For what?” “The gate wasn’t shut. I had to close it.” “You told me it was finished.” “I wanted you to get into the taxi.” Rory looked at the carpet. Ptolemy had settled on one of Lucien’s shoes, his paws tucked under his chest. “You lied to get rid of me.” “Yes.” “At least we’ve found something you’ll say without a fight.” Lucien took that without defending himself. His silence left room for the rain and the extractor and Rory’s own memory of leaning against him in the taxi, the smell of iron and smoke on his collar. She had wanted him to ride with her. She had wanted him to ask. She picked a fallen page off the floor. Eva had drawn the same symbol in seven versions, each ringed with cramped annotations. Rory set it on the table. “Is Vale coming here?” “He was still at my office when I left. I lost the man who followed me at Whitechapel.” Lucien looked at the locked door. “I came to warn Eva and collect the pages. I didn’t expect to find you.” “You can’t take anything without her permission.” “I know.” “Good.” “I also don’t want you alone here if Vale works out where she lives.” “There are three locks, and I can call people.” “I can stay until Eva comes back.” “You can wait. There’s a difference.” He nodded and put the peas against his jaw again. Rory took the empty chair by the table, its seat buried under notebooks, and began moving them to the floor. Lucien remained by the door. “You can sit down,” she told him. “You’re dripping on a map Eva spent a week drawing.” He stepped clear of the rug but didn’t approach the sofa. “The chair’s yours.” “There’s half a sofa.” “Half a sofa covered in documents.” “Move them. Eva will survive.” Lucien balanced the frozen peas on his knee while he lifted two scrolls and a pile of envelopes from the cushion. He sat at the far end. Ptolemy abandoned the shoe, climbed onto the sofa and pushed his head beneath Lucien’s free hand. Rory watched his fingers work through the cat’s fur. Those same fingers had been careful with the bandage on her shoulder under the arches. She had held on to that detail, too, though it made being angry harder. “You could have told Eva to warn me,” she said. “I asked her not to carry messages for me. I’d already put her in the middle.” “She put herself there when she kept your Tuesday visit from me.” “She told me she would tell you.” “She hasn’t.” Lucien rubbed Ptolemy’s ear. “Then she’s waiting for a chance.” Rory glanced at the clock above the mantel. Eva had been due back twenty minutes ago. Her message still hadn’t delivered. “Show me what Vale wants.” Lucien removed the peas from his jaw. “I don’t have the record.” “Draw the symbol.” “It’s on the third page of Eva’s notes. I recognised it when she copied it.” Rory looked at the sheet she’d picked up. Seven versions of a circle, each broken at a different point. She slid it across the table towards him. “This one?” Lucien bent over it. The edge of the towel slipped from his hand, and she saw the swelling along his jaw. He pointed to the smallest drawing. His finger came to rest a few inches from hers. “That. Eva changed the opening to test a reading. Vale wanted to know which version matched the record.” Rory held the page flat by its corners. “Did you tell him?” “No.” “Does Eva know?” “She knows the translation is disputed. I hadn’t told her about Vale.” Rory looked up. “Tell her when she gets back. No gaps.” “I will.” His hand stayed beside hers on the table. Neither moved it. Downstairs, the laughter stopped and the extractor kept grinding against the rain. “There was something else I meant to tell you that night,” Lucien said. Rory’s eyes lifted from the ink. His amber eye met hers; the black one showed her own face, small and bent over Eva’s table. “Was it about the gate?” “No.” He drew his hand back and laid it on Ptolemy’s spine. The cat opened one eye, then closed it. Rory turned the page towards herself. “Then you can tell me after you’ve called Eva.” Lucien took his phone from his pocket. He kept the frozen peas against his jaw while he dialled, and Rory held the page under the lamp so he could read the symbol to her when she answered.