Run: 2026-02-17-01KHMQXC8QJ39ZB4JMVYBNKYV2

The iron gates of Richmond Park had been locked for hours, but Aurora Carter knew the gap in the fence near the Roehampton side. She slipped through, the rusted metal snagging specifically on the heavy wool of her coat, a distinct sound that seemed to echo too loudly in the stillness. London was supposed to be a city of constant noise—the low-frequency hum of the M25, the distant wail of sirens, the murmur of eight million people living atop one another. But here, past the boundary line where the manicured lawns gave way to ancient bracken, the silence was absolute. It was a heavy, suffocating blanket that pressed against her ears. Rory adjusted her scarf, her breath pluming in the frigid night air. She shouldn't be here. Her shift at the Golden Empress had ended three hours ago, and any sensible person would be back in the flat above Silas’s bar, nursing a tea and ignoring the damp. But the silver chain around her neck felt like a noose of ice, and the stone it held had been thrumming against her sternum all evening. She pulled the Heartstone pendant from beneath her layers. In the moonlight, the deep crimson gem looked black, indistinguishable from the straight, dark hair falling past her shoulders. It was dormant now, cold to the touch, roughly the size of her thumbnail. Yet, beneath the surface, she could swear she felt a vibration, a faint heartbeat that wasn't her own. The unknown benefactor who had gifted it to her had provided no instruction manual, only the cryptic object itself. "Okay," she whispered. "Show me." She began to walk. She knew the way to the Grove, or at least, she knew the way it appeared when it wanted to be found. The ground was uneven, hard with frost. The ancient oaks of the park stood like gnarled sentinels, their leafless branches clawing at the overcast sky. As she moved deeper, the temperature didn't drop, which was the first sign. It stabilized. The biting wind that had stung her cheeks near the road died completely. She reached the cluster of ancient oak standing stones that marked the perimeter—dead wood that refused to rot, petrified by age and influence. Rory stepped between them. The transition wasn't a flash of light or a shimmer. It was a pressure change, like an airplane descending too quickly. Her ears popped. The air suddenly tasted different—metallic, like ozone and crushed petals. She was in the Fae Grove. Usually, this place felt suspended, a pocket of eternal, hazy afternoon regardless of the time in London. But tonight, the Grove was nocturnal. The grass was knee-high and lush, untroubled by the winter that held the rest of the park in a chokehold. Wildflowers bloomed in impossible riots of color, muted now by the darkness into shades of grey and bruised purple. Rory unclicked a small torch from her belt but hesitated to turn it on. The darkness here wasn't empty; it felt occupied. She took a step, and the lush grass didn't rustle. It squelched. Rory froze. She looked down at her boots. The ground wasn't wet with dew; it was sodden. The scent of ozone was being overtaken by something copper-rich and sweet. *Wrong.* Every instinct she had honed growing up in Cardiff, every alarm bell that had rung during those final, terrified months with Evan before she fled to London, began to peal at once. She was an intruder here, but for the first time, she felt like prey. She gripped the pendant. It was no longer cold. It spiked with heat, a sudden flare that made her gasp and drop it against her sweater. It wasn't the gentle, pulsing warmth she had experienced before when near a portal. This was a warning burn. The faint inner glow of the crimson stone ignited, casting a sickly red light across her left hand. The light caught the small, crescent-shaped scar on her wrist—the souvenir of a childhood accident that felt a lifetime away. Under the red illumination, the scar seemed to writhe, a trick of the shadows. "Is anyone here?" she called out. Her voice was flat, controlled, betraying none of the heart-hammering fear rising in her throat. She expected Isolde, or perhaps one of the glib, dangerous locals of the Fae realm. There was no answer. Only the silence, which had shifted from heavy to predatory. Something moved at the edge of her vision. Rory snapped her head to the right, toward a cluster of weeping willows that formed a natural curtain. Nothing. Just the swaying of branches, though there was no wind. She began to back away, retracing her steps toward the standing stones. Her movements were fluid; she didn't run. Running triggered the chase response in dogs and men; she assumed it worked the same for whatever occupied the spaces between worlds. *Crunch.* The sound came from behind her this time. Not the squelch of wet earth, but the dry, brittle snap of bone or wood. Rory spun around, bringing her torch up and flicking the switch. The beam cut a cone through the gloom. It illuminated the wildflowers, the majestic trunks of the oaks, the swirling mist that clung to the ground. And it illuminated the shadow. It stood ten yards away, nestled between two trees. It wasn't a person. It was a suggestion of a shape, taller than a man, its edges blurring into the night. It looked like a smudge on a photograph, a defect in the lens of the world. Rory’s breath hitched. She blinked, expecting eyes, a face, something recognizable. But the figure had no features. It was a void. The Heartstone violated her chest with heat. It was searing now, frantic. The codex of her own experience told her this object reacted to Hel portals. If it was reacting to *this*, then this thing wasn't Fae. It was something worse. The smudge shifted. It didn't take a step; it simply appeared closer, dissolving and reforming three feet nearer in the blink of an eye. Rory didn't wait. She turned and ran. The thick grass tangled around her ankles, dragging at her boots like grabbing hands. The wildflowers, beautiful in the daylight, felt like wire snares in the dark. She pumped her arms, her breath tearing out of her lungs in ragged gasps. She needed the standing stones. She needed the boundary. But the Grove was deceptive. Time moved differently here, expanding and contracting like a breathing lung. Distance was just as fluid. She ran toward where the entrance should have been, but the line of trees seemed to recede, stretching the clearing into an infinite corridor. A sound rose behind her. A low, wet mimicry of a voice. *"Au... ror... a..."* It wasn't a call. It wasn't a greeting. It sounded like tectonic plates grinding together, forcing air through meat. It knew her name. She didn't look back. She focused on the blue-grey gloom ahead, searching for the jagged silhouette of the dead oaks. Her mind raced, discarding panic, analyzing variables. *The Grove responds to intent. It responds to will. If I believe I am trapped, I am trapped.* "I am leaving," she said through gritted teeth, forcing the words out between gasps. "let me out." The air pressure dropped again, ringing in her ears. To her left, the darkness coalesced. The shadow was pacing her, keeping even with her sprint without moving its legs. It flowed through the trees, blacker than the bark, a silhouette of negative space against the night. Rory skidded, changing direction, throwing her weight to the right to put a massive oak between her and the entity. Her shoulder slammed into the rough bark, jarring her teeth, but she used the momentum to push off, forcing herself toward the edge where the mist seemed thinnest. She could hear it now. Not footsteps. A slithering sound. Like wet leather dragging over stone. *Closer.* She saw the standing stones. They were right there, barely twenty feet away, looking mundane and solid and beautifully wretched. Rory lunged for the gap between them. The air in front of her shimmered. The shadow didn't chase her; it intercepted. It rose up from the ground directly between the standing stones, blocking the exit. It towered over her, seven feet of shifting darkness. For a second, the flashlight beam hit it dead center. There was no reflection. The light was simply absorbed, eaten by a hunger that felt ancient. Rory skidded to a halt, the heels of her boots digging deep furrows in the mud. She was five feet from it. The cold radiating from the figure was absolute zero; it burned her skin. She was cornered. The thing formed a limb—or what passed for one—an elongated extension of shadow reaching toward her face. Rory didn't scream. She didn't cower. Her hand flew to her chest, gripping the searing hot pendant. She wasn't a warrior, she was a law school dropout and a delivery driver, but she was Aurora Carter, and she had survived worse than the dark. She ripped the pendant from beneath her shirt, holding the piece of Dymas artifacts out like a brand. The crimson light wasn't a glow anymore; it was a flare, bright and bloody. "Back," she commanded. It wasn't a plea. It was a verdict. The red light hit the shadow. A sound like screaming metal tore through the clearing. The shadow recoiled, the darkness boiling away where the red light touched it, as if the light were acid. The figure didn't retreat; it destabilized, losing its cohesion, scattering into wisps of black smoke that screamed in multiple, overlapping voices. Rory didn't wait to see if it reformed. She threw herself forward, diving through the smoke, through the space between the standing stones. The transition was violent this time. A physical blow that knocked the wind out of her. She hit the hard, frosted ground of Richmond Park, rolling instinctively to absorb the impact. The smell of ozone and blood vanished, replaced instantly by the smell of damp earth and deer droppings. The silence of the Grove was gone, replaced by the distant roar of a jet engine passing overhead on its approach to Heathrow. Rory scrambled up, spinning around to face the trees. The standing stones were just wood. The space between them was empty. The mist was gone. She stood there, chest heaving, her left hand still clutching the pendant. It was cooling rapidly, fading from a frantic burn to a manageable warmth, and finally back to inert metal. She looked at her wrist. The crescent scar was pale white, agonizingly normal against her skin. Rory backed away until she hit the paved path, her eyes never leaving the tree line. The Grove was closed. But out there, in the dark, something had been waiting for the door to open. And it knew her name.