Three generations of analysts and agents, spymasters and bonebreakers, know what it means when the man with the narrow face appears. It means danger is on the rise, and whatever answers they give him may be enough to stave it off for another day. The world has survived this long thanks to that network. Files in MI5 are carefully preserved of every interdiction. Her Majesty's servants do not forget. Institutions have a long memory.

(Even those suborned in the service of another. Even after the blood has drained, there are those who remember his name and curse him.)

But now, the shadows in Bucharest feel oppressive. The air is brittle and cold, a single breath away from shattering into ice. Alani shivers. Tightens the scarf around her neck. Hurries her pace as she rounds the corner.

Then stops dead.

(The memory is almost completely faded, but she remembers the man talking to her fellow agent, Daniel Biggs. She remembers the bead of sweat trickling down the side of Biggs's face as they talked. She remembers the two of them turning to look at her desk. The memory ends there as if snipped by a pair of scissors.)

She swallows around a throat suddenly gone very dry. The only blessing is that her voice does not waver in the slightest as she speaks.

"...Afraid you're a long way from London."

What's one more ghost of the past to contend with?