Run: 2026-02-17-01KHMQGDQDB9YK00G3AESR5W5Q

The air in Richmond Park was too still. Rory Carter adjusted the strap of her backpack, the weight of the Heartstone pendant pressing against her sternum through the thin fabric of her hoodie. She shouldn’t have come here at night. That much was obvious now, standing beneath the skeletal branches of the ancient oaks, their gnarled fingers clawing at the bruised purple sky. But the pendant had grown warmer with every mile she’d biked from Silas’ bar, its faint pulse insistent against her skin, like a second heartbeat. *This way. Now.* She exhaled, her breath curling in the cold. The standing stones loomed ahead, their surfaces slick with moss, their shapes too perfect to be natural. They marked the boundary of the Fae Grove—or so the whispers in Silas’ bar had claimed. *Isolde’s grove*, the old man with the milky eye had called it, his voice dropping to a rasp. *Where the veil’s thin as spider silk.* Rory swallowed. She wasn’t superstitious. She didn’t believe in fairy tales. But the pendant had led her here, and after the way it had reacted to the Hel portal in Whitechapel—flaring like a brand against her skin—she couldn’t ignore it. Not when the alternative was another night of lying awake, listening to the creak of the floorboards above Silas’ bar, wondering if Evan had found her again. She stepped between the stones. The moment her boot crossed the threshold, the world *shifted*. Not violently—nothing so obvious as a crack of thunder or a gust of wind. Just a subtle, sickening *tilt*, like the ground had exhaled beneath her. The air thickened, sweet and cloying, thick with the scent of crushed petals and damp earth. The wildflowers at her feet glowed faintly, their petals unfurling in the dark as if drinking in the moonlight. *Year-round blooms*, the old man had said. *Ain’t natural.* Rory’s fingers twitched toward the pendant. It was warmer now, almost hot, the crimson gemstone pulsing in time with her quickening heartbeat. She forced herself to breathe. *In. Out.* She wasn’t afraid. She was *prepared*. She had her knife in her boot, her phone in her pocket (though the signal had vanished the second she passed the stones), and the pendant, which—according to the cryptic note slipped under her door last week—was supposed to *protect* her. *From what*, exactly, the note hadn’t said. A twig snapped. Rory froze. The sound had come from her left, near the cluster of silver birches. She turned her head slowly, her pulse hammering in her throat. Nothing moved. The trees stood silent, their bark pale as bone in the dim light. *Probably just an animal*, she told herself. A fox. A badger. Something normal. Then the whispering started. It was so faint at first she thought she’d imagined it—a sigh, a breath, a voice too low to make out the words. But it grew louder, layering over itself until it filled the grove, a chorus of murmurs just beyond comprehension. Rory’s skin prickled. She spun in a slow circle, her boots sinking slightly into the damp earth. The wildflowers trembled, their petals quivering as if stirred by an unseen wind. “Hello?” Her voice sounded too loud, too *human* in this place. The whispering stopped. Silence pressed in, heavy and suffocating. Rory’s breath came faster. She reached for the pendant, her fingers brushing the warm stone. It pulsed once, sharply, like a warning. Then the first figure stepped into view. It was a woman—or something shaped like one. Tall, too tall, her limbs elongated and slender as a spider’s. Her skin was the color of moonlight on water, her hair a cascade of silver that moved as if submerged. She wore a dress of woven vines, the fabric shifting like living things. Her eyes— Rory’s stomach lurched. Her eyes were *wrong*. Not black. Not brown. Not any color Rory had a name for. They were deep, endless, like looking into a well that had no bottom. And they were *fixed* on her. “You’ve come,” the woman said. Her voice was the sound of wind through dead leaves, dry and whispering. “We’ve been waiting.” Rory’s fingers tightened around the pendant. “Who are you?” The woman tilted her head, the movement too fluid, too *unnatural*. “You may call me Isolde.” A smile curved her lips, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “And you are the one who carries the stone.” Rory’s throat went dry. “What do you want?” Isolde took a step forward. The wildflowers withered beneath her bare feet, their petals curling in on themselves like burning paper. “The same thing you do, little thief.” Another step. The air grew colder. “To open the way.” Rory’s pulse roared in her ears. *Open the way.* To what? The Hel portal? The note had said the pendant could *seal* them, not— A second figure emerged from the trees. Then a third. Then more, until the grove was ringed with them—pale, silent, their eyes like black holes in their faces. They didn’t speak. They didn’t need to. Their presence was enough. The weight of their gaze pressed down on Rory like a physical force, squeezing the air from her lungs. Isolde extended a hand. Her fingers were too long, the joints bending in ways that made Rory’s stomach twist. “Give it to me.” Rory stumbled back. The pendant burned against her skin, its pulse frantic now, like a trapped bird. “No.” Isolde’s smile widened. “You don’t understand what you hold.” “I understand enough.” Rory’s voice was steadier than she felt. She reached into her pocket, her fingers closing around the knife. “It’s mine.” The grove went still. Even the whispering stopped. Isolde’s head tilted again, her silver hair rippling. “Yours?” She laughed, the sound like cracking ice. “Nothing here is *yours*, child. Not the stone. Not the grove. Not even the air you breathe.” Rory’s grip tightened on the knife. “Then I’ll take it with me when I leave.” Isolde’s smile vanished. “You won’t leave.” The words hung between them, heavy with finality. Rory’s breath hitched. She should have run. She should have turned and bolted the second she felt the ground tilt beneath her. But it was too late now. The figures had closed in, their circle tightening like a noose. The wildflowers at her feet blackened, their petals crumbling to dust. Isolde took another step. “The stone belongs to the grove. To *us*.” Rory’s back hit something solid—the trunk of an oak, its bark rough against her palms. She was trapped. *Think, damn it.* She needed a plan. A distraction. *Anything.* Her fingers brushed the pendant again. It was *scorching* now, the heat searing through her hoodie. She gasped, jerking her hand away. The gemstone glowed, a deep, angry red, like a coal stoked to life. Isolde’s eyes flicked to it. For the first time, something like uncertainty flickered across her face. “What have you done?” Rory didn’t know. She didn’t *care*. She grabbed the pendant, hersing as the heat bit into her skin, and *yanked*. The chain snapped. The moment the pendant left her neck, the grove *screamed*. It wasn’t a sound. Not really. It was a *feeling*, a wave of agony that crashed over Rory, driving her to her knees. The figures around her staggered, their forms wavering like smoke. Isolde shrieked, her voice a razor’s edge of pain, and the ground *split* beneath Rory’s hands, a jagged crack tearing through the earth. Rory didn’t wait. She scrambled to her feet, the pendant clutched in her fist, and *ran*. The grove twisted around her, the trees bending like living things, their branches snatching at her hair, her clothes. The whispering rose to a shriek, a thousand voices screaming in her skull. She didn’t look back. She couldn’t. The standing stones were ahead, their shapes wavering in the dark. She lunged for them, her lungs burning, her legs screaming— —and then she was *through*. She hit the ground hard, the impact knocking the breath from her lungs. Gasping, she rolled onto her back, her fingers still clenched around the pendant. The night air was cold. *Normal.* The stars above her were sharp and bright, the kind of sky you saw in the city when the smog cleared. She was back. Rory sat up, her body trembling. The grove was gone. The standing stones stood silent, their surfaces dark and still. No whispering. No figures. No Isolde. Just the pendant, still glowing faintly in her palm. She stared at it, her breath coming in ragged bursts. *What the hell just happened?* Then she heard it. A sound. Not from the grove. Not from the trees. From *behind* her. Rory turned slowly. Silas’ bar stood dark and silent, its windows black. The street was empty. The bike she’d left leaning against the lamppost was still there, its wheels glinting in the dim light. But the door to the bar was *open*. And standing in the doorway, his face half-lit by the flickering neon sign, was Evan. His smile was slow. Deliberate. “Miss me, Rory?”