Run: 2026-10-05-01M46B3A1C93DNDYCM79VT69GD

The door opened against the toe of Lucien Moreau’s polished shoe. Rory looked down at it, then up at the man who had placed it there. Rain clung to his platinum hair. His charcoal jacket hung open, and his right hand gripped the ivory handle of his cane hard enough to bleach his knuckles. “Move your foot.” “Someone followed me from Spitalfields.” “Then you’ve brought them to the wrong address.” His gaze flicked past her shoulder, across Eva’s stacks of books and the scroll balanced on the radiator. One amber eye, one black. Rory had once spent an entire evening inventing excuses to look into them. Now she kept her hand on the door. “I need ten minutes.” “You had six weeks.” His mouth tightened. From downstairs came the clang of a pan and a cook’s shout. The stairwell smelled of fried onions, wet wool, and the coriander Eva kept forgetting to bring upstairs. Lucien stood beneath the bare landing bulb with a dark patch spreading under his ribs. Rory pulled the door wider. “Is that blood?” “Yes.” “Yours?” “For once.” “Don’t make me regret this before you get inside.” He withdrew his foot and crossed the threshold. Rory checked the landing, shut the door, and threw all three deadbolts. Behind her, something scraped against a table. “Touch those notes and Eva will finish whatever happened to you.” “I was putting down my hat.” “She’ll object to that too.” Rory turned. Lucien held his hat against his thigh. A drop fell from its brim onto the floorboards. Ptolemy emerged from beneath the sofa, sniffed Lucien’s shoe, and planted a paw on it. “The cat appears less hostile.” “The cat licks carrier bags.” She took his hat and set it on an upturned biscuit tin. Lucien watched her, his gaze catching on the crescent scar at her wrist when her sleeve slid back. Rory pulled the sleeve down. “Where’s Eva?” “York. Conference. I’m feeding Ptolemy and making sure her landlord doesn’t let himself in. Why are you bleeding in her hallway?” “I went to collect a document.” “Did the document stab you?” “The man withholding it objected to my fee.” “Your fee or your theft?” Lucien drew a narrow leather folder from inside his jacket. Blood marked one corner. Rory did not reach for it. “No.” “You haven’t seen what’s inside.” “I know what you look like when you want somebody to take something dangerous off your hands.” “This belongs to you.” He opened the folder. Her name sat at the top of the first page. Aurora Carter. Below it lay the address of her flat above Silas’ bar, the Golden Empress delivery rota, and a photograph of her locking her bicycle outside a shop. Rory took the folder. The photograph had caught her with a paper bag clamped between her teeth while she hunted for her keys. Nothing remarkable. She remembered the delivery: two soups, extra chilli oil, no tip. Someone had stood across the street and watched. “Who?” “An associate of my father’s.” She looked up. “What did you tell him about me?” “Nothing.” “Then how did he get my rota?” “Through a man I used to employ.” “Used to.” “He won’t be collecting information for anyone again.” Rory closed the folder. Her fingers had gone cold against the leather. “You don’t get to say that in your nice voice and expect me not to hear it.” “I wasn’t asking you not to.” “Did you kill him?” “No.” She studied his face. Lucien set the cane against the wall. “I paid him to leave London. I suspect someone else will inherit his poor judgement.” That sounded enough like the truth to annoy her. She pointed at the sofa. “Sit down.” “I can stand.” “You’re dripping on Eva’s floor. She’ll charge both of us.” He lowered himself between a stack of journals and a cardboard box labelled SUMERIAN—CHECK TRANSLATIONS. The movement pulled a breath through his teeth. Rory fetched the first-aid tin from under the sink. Eva had packed it with plasters, gauze, a thermometer, and a handwritten warning against mixing aspirin with three potions Rory had never heard of. When Rory returned, Lucien had unbuttoned his waistcoat. Blood had soaked his shirt along the left side. “Jacket off.” He eased one shoulder free. The other caught, and he stopped. Rory put the tin down. “Do you want help?” “Yes.” She slid her hand under the wet cloth and worked it past his elbow. His shirt stuck to the wound beneath it. She remembered another jacket, another room, Lucien laughing into the hollow below her ear while she complained about the price of his tailoring. She laid this one across the back of a chair. “Shirt too.” “A familiar instruction.” “Not tonight.” He lowered his eyes and worked the buttons with his uninjured hand. Rory moved a tower of books off the coffee table. Beneath them she found two mugs, a packet of dried lavender, and a plate with one fossilised crust. “You came here because you knew Eva was away.” “Yes.” “How?” “Her conference programme was public.” “And you thought I’d be here.” “I asked Silas.” “Did he tell you to sod off?” “He suggested a more elaborate arrangement.” Despite herself, she pictured Silas delivering it while polishing a glass. Lucien pulled the shirt away from his skin. Rory crouched beside him. The cut ran beneath his lowest rib, narrow and ugly, with blackened edges. “That doesn’t look like a disagreement over money.” “It was an iron blade.” “Does half-demon mean half as much trouble with iron?” “In this instance, the arithmetic disappoints.” She pressed folded gauze to the cut. He jerked, then held still. “Keep that there.” He placed his hand over hers before she could withdraw it. Warm fingers, rain-cold cuff. Rory looked at their hands until he lifted his away. “Sorry.” “For that?” “For a considerable list.” “Start with the useful part. Is someone coming up these stairs?” “No. I lost the man following me near the market.” “Then why the shoe in the door?” “I thought you’d close it.” “I was going to.” “I know.” She opened a bottle of antiseptic. “Eva’s door has three locks and a protection charm she won’t let me vacuum near. Does it work?” “Yes.” “And you checked that before you came?” “I wouldn’t have brought this here otherwise.” Rory soaked another pad. “You brought it here because you decided I should see it. That’s different.” He accepted the correction with a dip of his chin. She cleaned the wound. His fingers dug into the sofa seam, but he did not turn away. For several seconds she heard only the restaurant extractor and Ptolemy batting something beneath the table. Then Lucien spoke. “I should have shown you the first file.” Rory stopped. “The first.” “Six weeks ago.” She set the stained pad inside the tin’s lid. “The night you told me I’d mistaken attention for affection.” Lucien’s jaw shifted. “Yes.” “You had this then.” “Less detail. Enough.” She stood. Her knee struck the table, making the mugs jump. “You sat across from me and let me explain myself.” “I remember.” “No. You let me explain why I wanted you. Like I’d turned up to apply for a job.” “Rory—” “You watched me say it, and then you told me I’d misunderstood.” His bare shoulders looked strange in Eva’s cluttered sitting room. Without the jacket, the cane in his hand, the polished desk between them, he had nowhere to place his usual composure. “I wanted you to stop coming to my office.” “Congratulations.” “I thought distance would remove you from their interest.” “And did it?” “No.” She picked up the folder and shook it once. “No. But I did spend a fortnight wondering which bit made you laugh after I left.” Lucien leaned forward. The gauze slipped; he caught it against his side. “None of it.” “You don’t get to correct what happened in my head.” “No. I don’t.” Rory stared at him. She had prepared herself for an argument, for some fine distinction between what he had meant and what she had heard. His agreement left her with the bottle in one hand and nowhere to put it. She returned to the sofa. “Lift your arm.” He obeyed. She taped a fresh dressing over the wound, pressing the adhesive down with two fingers. His skin tightened beneath her touch. “Next time someone makes a file on me, I see it.” “Yes.” “Before you make decisions with my name on them.” “Yes.” “And if you don’t want me, you can say it. You don’t have to invent a public safety announcement.” He caught her wrist, then loosened his fingers. “I wanted you.” Her pulse struck beneath his thumb. “That’s past tense.” “I want you.” She looked at him. He held her gaze without the smile he used to turn questions aside. “I wanted you at dinner. I wanted you when you came to the office with that broken bicycle light in your pocket. I wanted you when you told me my coffee tasted like burnt furniture.” “It did.” “It does.” Her mouth moved before she could stop it. Not quite a smile. He noticed and did not reach for more. Rory glanced at his hand. He released her. “I didn’t come here to collect forgiveness.” “Good. I haven’t got any ready.” “I came because you needed the papers. And because I couldn’t stomach sending someone else to knock.” “You could have knocked six weeks ago.” “Yes.” She sat beside him, leaving the width of a journal between them. Downstairs, someone turned up a radio. A bass line rattled the spoon in one of Eva’s abandoned mugs. Ptolemy jumped onto the sofa, inspected the gap, and wedged himself into it. Lucien looked down at the cat. “A firm boundary.” “He’s sitting on a book.” Rory drew the journal out from beneath Ptolemy’s belly. The cat complained, caught the edge with one claw, then settled against Lucien’s thigh. She laid the journal on the table. “Ten minutes are up.” “I’ll go.” He reached for his shirt. Rory caught the fabric before he could lift it. “That’s full of blood.” “I’ve worn worse.” “That wasn’t permission.” He left his hand on his knee. Rory rubbed a clean corner of the shirt between her fingers. “You can stay while we go through the file.” “All right.” “And you can answer questions without editing them for my benefit.” “All right.” She looked at the wet strands coming loose above his temple. Lucien had once told her rain offended his hair more than any weapon could. She had touched it then, and he had gone quiet under her hand. Now she reached towards him and paused. His gaze followed her fingers. “May I?” “Yes.” She brushed the strand back. Her fingertips grazed his temple, then rested against his cheek. He shut his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, she leaned closer. “Don’t take this for forgiveness either.” “I won’t.” Rory kissed him. She kept it brief, one hand against his face, the other braced on the sofa. His mouth moved beneath hers, but he did not pull her in. She withdrew far enough to look at him. “Was that all right?” “Yes.” His answer came without polish. She touched his lower lip with her thumb, then lowered her hand. Ptolemy stretched between them and drove a paw into Rory’s hip. She picked up the folder. “Move your elbow. You’re sitting on my rota.” Lucien shifted, and she opened the first page across their knees.