Run: 2026-10-05-01M46BBTJS6MT6G88KTMZG3662

The door opened as far as the chain, and Lucien Moreau stood on the other side with blood on his cuff. For one stupid second, Rory was glad to see him. Then she remembered the last time. “No,” she said, and pushed the door shut. His cane caught it before it reached the frame. Not his hand. Never anything as careless as a hand. “Rory.” She stared at the strip of ivory wedged between door and jamb. Six weeks ago, she had watched those fingers curl around a champagne glass while he told her their brief association had become inconvenient. He had said it in front of people. Worse, he had said it gently, as though she might thank him for sparing her the effort of understanding. “Take that out.” He withdrew the cane immediately. She shut the door. Behind her, Ptolemy sat on a stack of photocopied manuscripts, washing one striped paw. The flat smelled of cumin from the curry house below and the black tea she had forgotten to drink. Eva had been gone for two days, leaving Rory to feed the cat, keep the windows latched, and refrain from reorganising anything. Rory had managed two of the three. On the landing, Lucien said, “I wouldn’t have come if it wasn’t necessary.” She closed her eyes. There it was. Necessary. An excellent word for a man who could turn anything he wanted into an obligation. “Eva’s not here.” “I know.” Of course he knew. Lucien made his living knowing things. Rory rested her forehead against the door. She had deliveries at eleven tomorrow. She had a clean apron drying over Eva’s radiator and a flat of her own above Silas’ bar, where she should have been sleeping. She did not have room in her life for this. Something struck the landing wall with a wet, ugly thump. “Lucien?” No answer. She slid back the chain and opened the door. He had one shoulder against the wall. His slicked-back hair had come loose at the temple, and his charcoal suit was dark down one side, the fabric clinging to him. Under the landing’s jaundiced bulb, his amber eye looked almost gold. The black one gave her nothing. “What happened?” “A disagreement.” “Did the other party disagree with a knife?” “Briefly.” She looked past him down the narrow staircase. No footsteps. No voices beyond the restaurant noise filtering up from below. “Inside.” “Rory—” “Don’t make me regret it before you’ve crossed the threshold.” He stepped into the flat. She closed the door and set all three deadbolts, then tugged once on the handle. When she turned, he was looking at her. “What?” “Nothing.” She knew that particular nothing. It had lived between them for months before he finally kissed her, and afterwards it had seemed almost tender. Now it irritated her. “Coat off. Sit down.” “There isn’t a chair.” There were three, technically. One held books, one held scrolls, and one held a disassembled lamp surrounded by research notes. Rory swept the books onto the table. Lucien looked at the resulting pile. “Eva will kill you.” “Get in line.” He took off his jacket carefully enough that her stomach tightened. The blood on his cuff belonged to him; more had soaked through the left side of his shirt. She fetched Eva’s first-aid box from beneath the sink. It was wedged between washing-up liquid and a jar labelled SALT—DO NOT COOK WITH. When she returned, Ptolemy was rubbing his face against Lucien’s trouser leg. “Traitor,” Rory told him. “He has discerning taste.” “He eats string.” Lucien’s mouth moved, nearly a smile. She hated how quickly she noticed. “Undo your shirt.” His fingers paused at the top button. “Medical instruction,” she said. “Don’t get hopeful.” “I wouldn’t dare.” That was a lie. He had dared plenty before. He had dared brush a crumb from the corner of her mouth in a crowded café. Dared find her after a late delivery and walk his immaculate shoes through the rain beside her. Dared kiss the small scar on her wrist as though every part of her deserved his attention. Then he had decided she was inconvenient. She pulled a second chair clear and sat close enough to examine the wound. A shallow cut ran along his ribs. Ugly, but not deep, unless half-demons arranged their organs differently. “Do you need a hospital?” “No.” “Is that a medical opinion or a masculine one?” “A practical one. It will heal.” “Then why hasn’t it?” “Because it happened twelve minutes ago.” She pressed gauze against it. He drew a sharp breath. “Good,” she said. “For whom?” “For my understanding of anatomy.” The flat fell quiet around them. Downstairs, someone laughed; crockery clattered, followed by a burst of music. Lucien’s skin was warm under her fingers. She had forgotten that. Or tried to. “What are you doing here?” she asked. “I needed to warn you.” Her hands stilled. “About?” “A man came asking after you tonight. Welsh accent. Knew your father’s name. Knew where you worked.” The cold reached her before the name did. “Evan?” “I don’t know. He wouldn’t give a name.” “What did he look like?” Lucien described him without embellishment. Brown hair. Heavy watch. A chip in one front tooth. Rory set down the gauze. Of all the things she had imagined on the other side of Eva’s door, she had not imagined Cardiff arriving with a knife. “He’s in London.” “Yes.” “How did he find you?” “He’d been directed to me. He thought I could locate someone discreetly.” Someone. A parcel gone astray. A woman who had left without permission. Rory pushed back her chair and stood. There wasn’t enough room to pace. She reached the kitchen counter in three steps, turned, and found Lucien watching her without the polished expression he usually wore for difficult clients. “Did you tell him anything?” “No.” “You knew where I was.” “Yes.” “And you knew Eva was away.” “Rory—” “How?” He glanced towards the window. “I asked Silas where you were after the man left.” After. She held on to that small distinction. “Did Evan do that to you?” “He followed me out. I declined a second conversation.” “Apparently not hard enough.” “No,” Lucien said. “Not hard enough.” There was no cleverness in his voice. That made it worse. She gripped the edge of the counter. She had spent months making London ordinary: shifts at the Golden Empress, shopping lists, keys that belonged to her. She knew which buses ran late and where to get decent bread. Evan had no right to turn the whole city into somewhere she needed to escape. “Does he know about this flat?” “I don’t believe so.” “Believing isn’t knowing.” “No.” At least he wasn’t offering her a comforting lie. She reached for her phone and sent Eva a message: Evan’s in London. I’m safe at yours. Call when you can. Then she messaged Yu-Fei, asking him not to give her rota or number to anyone, no matter what they claimed. Her thumb shook only once. She corrected the typo before sending. Lucien remained in the chair, holding the gauze against his side. “I can arrange—” “Don’t.” He stopped. “I’m not being put in a car and sent somewhere you’ve chosen. I’m not having my job dealt with or my life rearranged while everyone congratulates themselves on keeping me safe.” “I was going to say that I can arrange for Silas to meet you here in the morning.” “Oh.” “If you want him to.” She looked down at her phone. “I’ll ask him.” “All right.” She sent the message, then returned to the first-aid box because there was something to do with her hands. She cleaned the wound, applied a dressing, and refused to apologise when the adhesive caught a few hairs. “Why would he stab an information broker who wouldn’t help him?” Lucien hesitated. “What did you say to him?” “Something ill-advised.” “Lucien.” “I told him you had left him. That finding you wouldn’t alter that fact.” She pressed the last edge of tape flat. “He hates being told no.” “I gathered.” “You could have called me.” “Yes.” “Instead of bleeding on Eva’s chair.” “Yes.” “Why didn’t you?” He looked at her for a long moment. “Because you wouldn’t answer.” She had blocked his number. Twice, after he used another. “That usually communicates something.” “It did.” “But here you are.” “Here I am.” She sat back. His open shirt exposed a pale line near his collarbone she had traced once in the dark. She could remember the exact pressure of his hand at her waist, which seemed an unfair thing for a body to retain while the mind was trying to conduct a sensible conversation. “Is this going to be another situation where you decide what I need to know?” “No.” “You said that quickly.” “I’ve had six weeks to consider the question.” Rory gave a small, humourless laugh. “Lucky you. I’ve had six weeks to wonder whether I imagined the whole thing.” His expression changed. “No.” “The dinners. You turning up when my shifts finished. That night in your kitchen.” “No,” he said again, quieter. “You told me I’d misunderstood.” “I know.” “In front of your friends.” “They weren’t my friends.” “That distinction wasn’t much comfort at the time.” He lowered his gaze. For once, she couldn’t mistake his silence for composure. “A man at that dinner had learned about you,” he said. “He was testing how much you mattered to me. I thought if I made the answer look like nothing, he would leave you alone.” She waited for the rest. For the claim that he’d had no choice. It didn’t come. “I humiliated you,” he said. “Then I let you believe it because explaining meant admitting there was a risk I hadn’t warned you about.” “You could have told me afterwards.” “Yes.” “You could have let me decide whether I wanted to take that risk.” “Yes.” The agreement left her with nowhere easy to put her anger. She looked at his hands. One lay open on his thigh. The other still held the ruined gauze, though he no longer needed it. “You don’t get to make me feel small and call it protection.” “I know that now.” “Do you?” He met her eyes. “I’m trying to.” That, at least, sounded like something a person could actually do. Outside, tyres hissed over wet tarmac. Ptolemy jumped onto the table, inspected the first-aid box, and settled squarely on the packet of sterile dressings. Rory let out a breath she hadn’t known she was holding. “I was falling in love with you,” she said. She hadn’t meant to say it. The words were simply there, more embarrassing than the open shirt or the memory of his mouth. Lucien went very still. She stood, gathering wrappers. “Don’t look pleased. It’s not good news.” “I wasn’t—” “I know what you look like when you’re pleased.” “Rory.” She kept her eyes on the rubbish bin. “I was already in love with you.” Her hand stopped above the pedal. He said it without charm. No careful smile, no lowered voice intended to coax her closer. She turned and found him sitting awkwardly in Eva’s cluttered kitchen, his shirt open, his hair disordered, watching her as though she could do something worse than send him away. “You have a terrible way of showing it.” “Yes.” “I don’t trust you.” “I know.” “And this doesn’t fix anything.” “No.” She dropped the wrappers into the bin. Her phone vibrated. Silas could come over now. She typed back that morning was fine, then thought better of it and asked him to call in ten minutes. She wanted another voice tonight. Someone who knew where she was. When she looked up, Lucien was buttoning his shirt. “What are you doing?” “Leaving.” “You’re hurt.” “It’s closing already.” She could see he was telling the truth. The blood had stopped seeping through the dressing. “Where will you go?” “Home. I’ll keep my phone on. If you want anything—information, someone downstairs, no involvement from me at all—tell me.” He reached for his jacket. Rory caught his wrist. It was a small movement. Still, it stopped them both. She felt his pulse beneath her thumb, quick and steady. His gaze dropped to her hand, to the crescent scar on her left wrist, then rose again. “You can stay until Silas calls,” she said. “All right.” “And then we can talk about what happens tomorrow.” “All right.” She should have let go. Instead, she moved her thumb once across his skin. He did not lean towards her. That restraint hurt almost as much as the longing. “Do you want to kiss me?” she asked. His breath left him slowly. “Very much.” “Ask, then.” “May I kiss you?” She considered him for a moment, this man who had answers for half of London and none that could make the last six weeks disappear. “Yes.” He stood carefully. She put a hand against his chest, keeping him still, and rose onto her toes. The first kiss was brief. His mouth was warm, familiar enough to bring a sharp ache behind her ribs. When she pulled back, he waited. So she kissed him again. This time his hand settled at her waist, light enough that she could step away. She curled her fingers into his shirt and drew him closer, mindful of the dressing beneath it. There was nothing effortless about it. She was still angry. Still frightened. Tomorrow she might wish she had kept the chain on the door. Tonight, she wanted his mouth against hers, and she wanted to be the one who chose it. When they parted, she rested her forehead against his chin. “If you ever do that to me again,” she said, “there won’t be another conversation.” His hand stilled at her waist. “I understand.” She stepped back before she could turn that answer into a promise it wasn’t yet. “Tea?” “Yes, please.” “You can move the cat.” Lucien glanced at Ptolemy, who had begun chewing the corner of a sterile dressing. “He seems occupied.” “He’s discerning.” That earned her a smile: small, tired, entirely without polish. Rory filled the kettle. Behind her, Lucien negotiated with the cat in soft French. Her phone lay on the counter within reach, the three deadbolts were fastened, and in a few minutes Silas would call. For now, she took down two mugs.