Run: 2026-02-17-01KHMQWHDAJQY6WM7HV606RQ18

The air in Richmond Park was ordinary. It smelled of damp earth and the distant, exhaust-tinged breath of London. Rory Carter drew it deep into her lungs, a futile attempt to steady the tremor in her hands. Beside her, a flicker in her peripheral vision was all that marked Nyx’s presence, a human-shaped void against the mottled grey of the October sky. Before them stood Isolde Varga, a figure of impossible stillness. Her silver hair, a stark river against the dying autumn colours, caught what little light there was. She faced a circle of nine standing stones, hulking and moss-eaten, ancient as the bones of the island. They looked like forgotten teeth in the gums of the earth. “The world you know has thin places,” Isolde said, her voice the chime of distant bells. She didn't look at them as she spoke, her pale lavender eyes fixed on the largest of the stones. “Places where the skin of what is can be peeled back.” She reached out a slender, ageless hand and pressed her palm flat against the granite. No sound, no sudden flare of light. But Rory felt it. A thrumming in her teeth, a pressure behind her eyes as if the world were briefly holding its breath. The space between the stones seemed to shimmer, to warp like heat-haze on a summer road. Nyx solidified slightly, their form coalescing from shifting shadow into a sharper silhouette. “The Veil thins,” their voice whispered, a dry rustle of leaves that seemed to come from everywhere at once. “She is not just opening a door. She is inviting us through the wall.” Isolde stepped through the threshold. For a half-second, her form distorted, then vanished. Rory swallowed. Her heart hammered a frantic rhythm against her ribs. She glanced at the space where Isolde had been, now just an empty gap between two stones. “Right. Through the wall it is.” She took a breath and followed. The transition was like plunging into cold water. The sounds of London—the far-off siren, the drone of a plane—were sliced away, replaced by a profound, humming silence. The air grew thick, sweet with the scent of night-blooming jasmine and damp soil, a perfume that had no business being here in the London autumn. Rory blinked, her eyes struggling to adjust. They stood in a clearing bathed in a soft, pearlescent light that seemed to emanate from the air itself. The sky above wasn't grey, but a soft, twilight violet, starless and eternal. Wildflowers bloomed in a riot of impossible colour at their feet; cobalt bluebells nestled beside fiery summer poppies, and delicate snowdrops pushed up through moss the colour of emeralds. Towering silver birches and ancient, gnarled oaks formed a cathedral ceiling high above, their leaves a vibrant green that defied the season. “God,” Rory breathed, the word a small, lost thing in the immense quiet. She turned, expecting to see the standing stones, the gap leading back to the park. There was nothing. Just more of the impossible forest, closing them in. A knot of unease tightened in her gut. She could have been here five minutes or five hours; the light gave no clues. Her watch face was blank. “Time is a suggestion here,” Nyx whispered, their form more stable in the muted light, their violet eyes glowing faintly. “A story the Grove tells itself. It does not always tell it in order.” Rory looked down at her feet. Her boots had left dark prints in the lush moss. A few feet away, Nyx’s presence disturbed nothing. And ahead, Isolde glided over the ground, leaving no trace at all, a ghost in her own home. The sight was more unsettling than any overt display of power. Isolde led them deeper, following no discernible path. The silence was broken only by the soft pad of Rory’s footsteps and the whisper-drift of Nyx’s passage. The place felt watchful. Rory’s hand strayed to the familiar shape of the Fae-forged blade tucked into her jacket, its moonsilver hilt always cold against her skin. Isolde’s gift. She was beginning to understand why she might need it. The pendant around her neck, usually inert, felt like a dead weight. The Heartstone was a thing of Hel, born of Dymasian excess. Here, in this place between Earth and the Fae realm, it seemed dormant, its faint inner glow extinguished. It was a relief. They came to the heart of the Grove, a clearing within the clearing. A vast, weeping willow, its branches like silver curtains, trailed into a perfectly still, circular pool. The water was black and reflective as polished obsidian, mirroring the starless violet sky without a ripple. The air here was even thicker, charged with a palpable energy that made the hairs on Rory’s arms stand on end. Isolde stopped at the water’s edge. “You seek answers for a question you have not yet learned to ask,” she said, her lavender gaze finally settling on Rory. “Show me the hunger you wear upon your breast.” Rory’s hand went automatically to the Heartstone Pendant. She hesitated for a moment, then pulled the silver chain over her head. The deep crimson gemstone, roughly the size of her thumbnail, lay inert in her palm. It looked like a drop of congealed blood. She held it out. Isolde didn’t take it. She merely looked at it, an unreadable expression on her ethereal face. “A key forged in a hungry fire. It longs for the lock. It sings a song of gluttony, calling to a door that should remain shut.” “A door to where?” Rory asked, her voice tight. “To a table that is never empty,” Isolde murmured, turning her gaze to the black pool. “To a feast where the guests are also the ingredients.” As she spoke, the surface of the water stirred. Not with ripples, but with images, milky and indistinct at first, then sharpening into focus. Rory leaned closer, mesmerized. She saw a sky the colour of warm amber, stretching over sprawling orchards heavy with unnaturally large fruit. She saw grand halls and kitchens vast as cathedrals, staffed by sweating, frantic figures in stained white aprons. A grand feast, a table groaning under the weight of golden platters piled high with food she couldn't name. The vision sharpened on a single figure at the head of the table, a Prince in silks, lifting a goblet to his lips. Rory couldn’t see his face, but a sense of ancient, all-consuming indulgence bled from the image, a need so profound it felt like a vacuum. “Dymas,” Nyx breathed, the name a sibilant hiss. The Shade’s form shimmered violently, as if the name itself were an irritant. “Belphegor’s domain.” The image in the pool swirled and vanished, leaving only the reflection of Rory’s own wide, bright blue eyes staring back. “The stone is a compass needle that points to the tear,” Isolde said, her voice soft but insistent. “It wants to go home. If the Veil is weak when it finds its way, the feast will spill over. The Bountiful Earth will become just another course on the Prince’s menu.” Rory’s fingers tightened around the pendant. It was no longer just a cryptic gift from an unknown benefactor. It was a threat. A responsibility. She thought of her part-time job delivering food for Yu-Fei, the mundane reality of her life in London. Her flat above the bar, the arguments she’d had with her barrister father about her choices. All of it felt a million miles away, a life lived by someone else. “What do I do?” she asked, the question raw. “A key can be used to open a lock,” Isolde replied, her riddle-speech infuriatingly calm. “Or it can be hidden so the door can never be found. Or,” she added, her pale lavender eyes meeting Rory’s with unnerving intensity, “it can be broken. But all things forged in a hungry fire burn the hand that tries to unmake them.” Rory tucked the pendant back under her shirt, the crimson stone cool against her skin. For now. She looked around at the impossible, beautiful, and terrifying Grove. The wonder she had felt upon entering had curdled into a cold dread. This wasn’t a sanctuary. It was a classroom, and she had just received her first, terrible lesson. The silence of the Grove pressed in, no longer wondrous, but waiting. Waiting for her to choose which door to close.