Run: 2026-02-17-01KHMR1MPM3AXM0X36WBM6XMBM

The air inside the Fae Grove did not smell like Richmond Park. Outside the boundary of ancient oak standing stones, the London night would be thick with the scent of damp earth, cut grass, and the distant, metallic tang of the city's exhaust. Here, the air was sterilized, heavy with the cloying perfume of wildflowers that had no business blooming in November. They erupted from the ground in violent clusters of violet and gold, their petals unfurled under a moon that hung too low and looked too large, casting shadows that seemed to detach themselves from their sources. Aurora Carter stepped over a root that twisted like a arthritic finger, her boots sinking slightly into moss that felt unnervingly warm. She paused, her hand instinctively going to the small crescent-shaped scar on her left wrist, a nervous habit forged in childhood and hardened by the years with Evan. The memory of his shouting, the way he could make a room feel small and suffocating, usually triggered a fight-or-flight response that left her shaking. But tonight, the fear was different. It wasn't the familiar claustrophobia of an abusive relationship; it was the primal, hollow dread of being watched by something that didn't understand the concept of mercy. She had come here because the pendant around her neck had begun to burn. The Heartstone, a deep crimson gem no larger than her thumbnail, rested against her collarbone. Usually, it pulsed with a faint, reassuring warmth when a Hel portal was near, a compass needle spinning toward danger or escape. Tonight, it was scorching. The silver chain bit into her skin, hot enough that she feared it might leave a brand. Yet, there was no portal. No swirling vortex of dark energy, no tear in the fabric of reality. Just the stillness of the grove and the impossible, year-round bloom of flowers that whispered when the wind didn't blow. "Isolde?" Aurora called out, her voice sounding thin and brittle in the dense air. "It's Rory. I got your message." There was no answer. The silence that followed wasn't empty; it was expectant. It pressed against her eardrums, a physical weight that made her teeth ache. She tightened her grip on the strap of her delivery bag, the canvas feeling粗糙 and real against her palm, the only anchor to the world she knew. She worked for Yu-Fei at the Golden Empress; she delivered noodles and dumplings to flat complexes in Shoreditch. She lived above Silas' bar, where the floorboards creaked in a predictable rhythm and the smell of stale beer was comforting in its mundanity. This place, this pocket between Earth and the Fae realm, belonged to none of those certainties. A sound clicked to her left. Aurora spun around, her bright blue eyes scanning the tree line. The ancient oaks stood sentinel, their bark etched with runes that seemed to shift when she looked at them directly. Nothing moved. Just the wildflowers, nodding slowly in a breeze she couldn't feel. "Just a branch," she muttered, trying to inject logic into the situation. "Or a fox. Richmond is full of foxes." But foxes didn't click. Foxes didn't mimic the sound of a fingernail tapping against glass. She took a step forward, the Heartstone flaring with heat again. The glow from the gem cast a bloody light on the ground in front of her, illuminating the wildflowers. As she watched, one of the bluebells nearest to her boot wilted. It didn't droop naturally; it shriveled instantly, turning black and crumbling into ash within seconds. Then the next one did. And the next. A wave of decay rippled outward from her feet, killing the eternal spring of the grove in her wake. Panic, cold and sharp, spiked in her chest. She hadn't touched them. She hadn't done anything. *You are not alone.* The thought arrived in her mind fully formed, but it didn't sound like her own voice. It was softer, layered with a thousand overlapping whispers, like dry leaves skittering over stone. Aurora backed away, her heel catching on a root. She stumbled, catching herself on the rough bark of an oak. The tree felt wet, slick with a substance that smelled of copper and old blood. She jerked her hand back, wiping her palm on her jeans, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird. "Show yourself," she demanded, forcing her voice to remain steady. She was cool-headed. That was who she was. When Evan had cornered her in the kitchen, threatening to break her legs if she tried to leave, she had talked her way out, finding a loophole in his anger, a distraction. She could think her way out of this. "I'm not afraid of you." The lie tasted like ash in her mouth. From the corner of her eye, a shape detached itself from the shadows between two standing stones. It was tall, impossibly slender, its limbs elongated and jointed in too many places. It didn't walk; it flowed, unfolding itself from the darkness like smoke given form. Aurora turned her head to look directly at it, but the moment her gaze landed on the space it occupied, it was gone. Only the swaying of the tall grass remained. Then, a whisper came from directly behind her right ear. "Laila." Aurora froze. No one called her Laila. Not anymore. It was a name she had shed along with her old life, a ghost from a time before Cardiff, before the law degree she never finished, before the running. Only Eva knew that name, and Eva was miles away, safe in a world that made sense. Another step. The grass crunched, but the sound was wrong. It sounded like bones breaking. She began to walk, faster now, heading for the boundary of the grove. The ancient oaks marked the exit, the threshold back to Richmond Park, back to the streetlights and the hum of traffic. She focused on the nearest stone, a jagged monolith covered in lichen. If she could just touch it, she could break the circle. The path seemed to stretch. With every step she took toward the stone, the grove expanded. The distance between her and the oak remained constant, mocking her effort. The wildflowers continued to die in her wake, a trail of black ash marking her progress through the impossible garden. The air grew colder, the cloying floral scent replaced by the smell of ozone and rotting meat. *We have been waiting,* the voices chorused, coming from everywhere at once. From the trees, from the ground, from inside her own skull. *The stone calls to us, Aurora. The stone opens the door.* Her hand flew to the Heartstone. It was no longer just warm; it was blistering. The deep crimson gem was glowing with a fierce, inner light, throbbing in time with her heartbeat. But the pulse was erratic, arrhythmic, skipping beats that made her vision blur. "I didn't open anything," she gasped, her breath pluming in the suddenly frigid air. "I don't know what you want." A figure stepped out from behind the standing stone she had been trying to reach. It wore her face. It was Aurora, down to the shoulder-length black hair and the delivery uniform stained with soy sauce. But the eyes were wrong. They were voids, empty pits of absolute blackness that drank the moonlight. The duplicate smiled, a expression that stretched too wide, tearing the corners of its mouth. "You brought the key," the thing said, its voice a perfect mimicry of Rory's own, stripped of all emotion. "Now we can go home." Aurora backed away, her foot hitting something soft. She looked down. It was a pile of clothes—her clothes. Her jacket, her jeans, her boots. They lay in a heap on the moss, empty and deflated, as if her body had simply evaporated out of them. She looked down at her own hands, expecting to see them fading, turning translucent. They were solid. Real. The scar on her wrist throbbed in sympathy with the burning pendant. The imitation took a step toward her, extending a hand that had too many fingers. The shadows around it lengthened, reaching out like grasping tendrils. The wildflowers in the immediate vicinity burst into flame, burning with a cold, blue fire that consumed without heat. Aurora realized then that the time behavior of the grove was shifting. An hour inside could be minutes outside, or days. Or centuries. If she stayed here, if she let that thing touch her, she might cease to exist in the real world before she even hit the ground. She gripped the hot pendant, the silver chain searing her skin. She needed to break the connection. She needed to sever the link the artifact had forged. With a cry of pain and defiance, she yanked the chain from her neck, the metal burning her palm. She didn't think; she acted. She swung the glowing Heartstone like a makeshift flail and smashed it against the nearest ancient oak. The impact sent a shockwave through the grove. The ground shuddered. The blue fire extinguished instantly. The imitation froze, its smile faltering as a crack appeared in its chest, leaking not blood, but darkness. The world lurched. The colors of the grove bled together, the vibrant greens and purples dissolving into grey. The scent of rot vanished, replaced by the damp, muddy smell of a London park in winter. The standing stones were just stones again, silent and inert. Aurora fell to her knees on the cold, wet grass of Richmond Park. The moon was high and distant, normal and small. The city hummed in the distance, a beautiful, chaotic symphony of life. She clutched the broken pendant in her hand, the crimson stone dark and cracked, no longer pulsing. Her breath came in ragged sobs, steam rising in the chill air. She was alone. The silence was just silence. But as she stood up, brushing the mud from her knees, she felt it—a faint, rhythmic tapping at the edge of her hearing, like a fingernail against glass, coming from the shadows of the trees behind her. She didn't turn around. She started to run, sprinting toward the park gates, toward the lights, praying that the things that lived in the spaces between hadn't followed her out.