Run: 2026-02-17-01KHMQWMT0DGF3Q18G8S0DENQM

The standing stones materialized from the mist like sentinels from another age, their bark-covered surfaces twisted into shapes that oak trees had no business making. Rory pressed her palm against the nearest one, feeling the thrum of something ancient beneath the rough texture. The Heartstone pendant grew warm against her chest. "Are you certain about this?" Nyx's voice drifted from the shadow pooled at the stone's base, barely audible above the wind moving through Richmond Park's winter-bare branches. "No." Rory traced the spiral carved into the oak's surface, watching her fingers disappear into grooves worn smooth by centuries. "But Isolde said the answers we need are in her grove, and these stones mark the boundary." Nyx reformed beside her, their silhouette sharp against the grey afternoon. The faint violet glow of their eyes tracked across the circle of standing stones. "Boundaries exist for reasons." "So does breaking them." Rory stepped between two of the oaks. The world folded. That was the only way she could describe it later—as if reality had been a piece of paper that someone had creased down the middle, and in stepping through that crease she'd moved into the space between one surface and another. Her stomach lurched. The pendant flared hot, then cold, then settled into a gentle pulse that matched her heartbeat. When her vision cleared, she stood in summer. Wildflowers carpeted the ground in impossible profusion—bluebells tangled with roses that shouldn't bloom in the same season, forget-me-nots nestled against autumn crocuses. The air tasted of honey and green growing things, thick enough to coat her tongue. Above, the sky shimmered with colors she had no names for, something between twilight purple and dawn gold, shot through with ribbons of silver light that moved like living things. "Gods." The word escaped before she could stop it. Nyx emerged from her shadow, their form more solid here than she'd ever seen it. Their edges held sharp and defined, as if the space between realms gave them more substance. "This is old magic. Older than my binding. Older than most human memory." Rory took another step forward, her trainers sinking into grass so soft it felt like walking on water. Moss-covered stones created a winding path deeper into the grove, each one perfectly placed though she couldn't see the pattern. The trees here grew in spirals, their trunks braided together, branches weaving overhead into a canopy that filtered the strange light into dappled patterns across her skin. "Stay close," she said, though she wasn't sure if she was warning Nyx or herself. They moved along the path, and with each step, the sounds of London died further away. No traffic hum. No distant sirens. Just the whisper of wind through leaves that shouldn't exist, and underneath it, a sound like singing—wordless, haunting, the kind of melody that made her chest ache with longing for something she'd never had. The path curved around a massive oak, and Rory stopped so suddenly that Nyx nearly passed through her. A pool of water spread before them, its surface mirror-still and perfectly circular. But the reflection it showed wasn't the sky above. Instead, she saw a sprawling landscape of amber light—rolling hills covered in what looked like vineyards, orchards heavy with fruit she'd never seen in any supermarket. In the distance, structures rose like palaces, their architecture too precise to be natural, too organic to be entirely constructed. "Dymas," Nyx whispered, and for the first time since she'd known them, she heard something like fear in their voice. "That's Dymas. The Glutton's realm." The pendant burned cold against her skin. Rory knelt beside the pool, careful not to touch the water. The image shifted, revealing a different vista—this one all shadow and crimson light, jagged mountains beneath a bleeding sky. Then another: endless grey fog, shapes moving within it like sharks beneath murky water. "It's showing us the realms of Hel," she said. "All of them." "No." Nyx crouched beside her, their form casting no reflection in the water. "Look closer. It's showing you the rifts. The places where the Veil is weakest." They were right. As Rory focused, she could see the tears—places where the boundaries between Earth and those other realms had worn thin, shimmering distortions that pulsed with sickly light. She recognized landmarks in some of the images. The Thames. The Tower. A tube station she'd passed through just last week. "There are so many," she breathed. "The solstice approaches." A new voice, melodic and layered like harmonics, drifted through the grove. "The Veil weakens. What was hidden reveals itself. What was bound seeks freedom." Rory stood, her hand instinctively reaching for the Fae-forged blade at her belt. The dagger's moonsilver edge caught the strange light, casting its own pale glow. Isolde emerged from between two spiral trees as if she'd always been there, her silver hair moving in a wind that touched nothing else. Her lavender eyes fixed on Rory with an intensity that made her want to look away. The half-Fae woman's feet made no sound on the moss, left no impression on the soft ground. "You came seeking answers." Isolde glided closer, her movements unnaturally smooth. "But answers are seeds—plant them wrong, and they grow thorns." "The visions in the water," Rory said, fighting to keep her voice steady. "Those rifts—how do we stop them from spreading?" "Stop?" A smile curved Isolde's lips, beautiful and terrible. "A river cannot be stopped, only redirected. A storm cannot be prevented, only weathered. The Veil tears not from without, but from within. What is hungry feeds. What is bound breaks free. What is lost seeks home." Nyx moved closer to Rory, their presence a cool comfort at her back. "Speak plainly, Seer. We didn't cross into your realm for riddles." "Riddles are the only plain speech in twisted times." Isolde's gaze shifted to Nyx, and something like recognition flickered across her ageless face. "You know this truth, Shadow-between-worlds. You who were unmade and remade. You who exist in the spaces between." The Shade said nothing, but Rory felt them grow colder. Isolde turned back to the pool, gesturing with one pale hand. The images shifted again, and Rory saw her own face reflected in the water—but wrong. Her eyes glowed with amber light. Her hands dripped with shadow. Around her neck, the Heartstone pendant pulsed like a living heart. "The one who walks between carries the key," Isolde said softly. "The one who was lost will be found. The one who hungers will feast. Three paths diverge in the amber wood. Choose well, Daughter of Cardiff. Choose well, or do not choose at all." The grove shuddered. The flowers bent as if beneath a great wind, though the air remained still. The singing underneath it all grew louder, more urgent. Rory's hand tightened on the blade's hilt. "What happens if I don't choose?" Isolde's smile widened, showing teeth too white, too perfect. "Then the choice will be made for you, and all the realms will weep at what is born from such weakness." The half-Fae woman stepped backward and simply ceased to be, dissolving into the strange light as if she'd never existed. The pool's surface rippled once, twice, then went still—showing only the impossible sky above. Rory stood there, her heart hammering, the pendant cold and heavy against her skin. Beside her, Nyx remained silent, their violet eyes fixed on the spot where Isolde had vanished. "We should go," the Shade finally said. "This place is beautiful, but beauty and safety are not the same thing." Rory nodded, but she couldn't tear her gaze from the pool, from the reflection that had shown her transformed into something other. Something more. Something terrifying. The singing grew softer as they retreated along the moss-stone path, but it never fully faded. Even as the standing stones emerged from the flowers and the grey London afternoon reasserted itself around them, Rory could still hear it—a whisper at the back of her mind, promising answers and demanding prices she didn't yet understand.