Run: 2026-02-17-01KHMR2AXYD9HZK08BBNTT9PAY

The oak standing stones loomed before them like ancient sentinels, their bark silvered with age and something else—something that caught the light wrong. Aurora ran her fingertips across the nearest trunk and felt a faint vibration, as if the tree were humming at a frequency just beyond hearing. "This is it," Isolde said from somewhere behind her, her voice like wind through autumn leaves. The half-Fae woman hadn't made a sound approaching, hadn't disturbed a single twig. When Aurora turned, Isolde's silver hair seemed to shimmer even in the grey London afternoon, her pale lavender eyes fixed on the space between the two largest stones. Nyx drifted closer, their form more solid than usual—almost human today, a silhouette of condensed shadow with those faintly glowing violet eyes. They'd insisted on coming despite the danger to them outside of true darkness. "The boundary is thin here," Nyx whispered, their voice carrying across the small clearing like wind through a tomb. "I can feel it." Aurora adjusted the strap of her rucksack and took a breath. She could feel it too—a thrumming in her chest that had nothing to do with nerves and everything to do with the Heartstone pendant hanging beneath her shirt. It had been growing warmer since they'd arrived at Richmond Park, the heat building steadily like a second heartbeat. "Ready?" Isolde asked, though it wasn't really a question. The seer's feet didn't touch the ground as she moved toward the space between the stones; Aurora had stopped being surprised by that particular quirk three weeks ago. She stepped forward. The moment her foot crossed the boundary, the world inverted. It wasn't painful—there was a peculiar absence of sensation, as if she'd stepped into cotton. Colors drained from her peripheral vision, and for one terrible moment, she existed in a grey void. Then— Sound crashed back. Not the muted sounds of Richmond Park—birds, distant traffic, the murmur of the city—but something richer. Deeper. The air itself seemed to sing. Aurora gasped and stumbled forward into the Fae Grove. What spread before her was impossible. The clearing existed in impossible geometry, larger inside than the space between the stones should have allowed. Wildflowers bloomed in a tapestry of colors that didn't exist in the natural world—purples so deep they looked black, blues that seemed to glow from within, pinks like the inside of shells. They grew in deliberate patterns that suggested cultivation without the rigidity of human gardening. The flowers moved gently despite the stillness of the air, swaying in time with something only they could feel. The sky—Aurora looked up and found it a twilight color, that luminous blue-grey of the hour before true dusk. Stars were already visible, precise and crystalline, arranged in constellations that made no earthly sense. They didn't twinkle; they held steady, watching. "Breathe," Isolde instructed gently. "The air is thinner here. Different. Your lungs will adjust." Aurora hadn't realized she'd gone shallow in her breathing. She made herself inhale fully and tasted something like petrichor and honey, with an undertone of silver. It filled her chest with a lightness that made her dizzy. Nyx moved past them both, their form becoming more defined as they crossed deeper into the grove. Here, away from the sharp sunlight of the mortal world, they seemed more present. Less like a shadow and more like a being that had merely chosen darkness as their natural state. They reached out and touched one of the flowers—a bloom of impossible violet—and it chimed like a bell. "Careful," Isolde called, but there was amusement in her voice. "They're easily startled." The flower didn't wilt at Nyx's touch; instead, it bloomed fuller, its petals unfurling with a soft crystalline sound. Where the others nearby witnessed this, they began to bloom as well, a ripple of flowering moving outward from where Nyx stood. Aurora moved deeper into the grove, her eyes adjusting to the luminous quality of this place. A path revealed itself as she walked—not worn into the earth, but suggested by the arrangement of flowers, as if they parted politely to show her the way. The Heartstone pendant grew warmer. "Why are you bringing it deeper?" Nyx asked, drifting alongside her. "The pendant sings of Hel. This is Fae-touched ground." "I need to understand what it does," Aurora said. She'd been carrying the artifact since the morning a stranger in a darkened corner of the Golden Empress had pressed it into her palm and disappeared before she could ask questions. Three weeks of research had yielded nothing but questions piled upon questions. "Isolde said this was the only place we could safely test its properties." "Safe is a relative term," Isolde said, appearing beside them without Aurora having seen her move. "The Fae Grove permits many experiments that would tear holes in the Veil elsewhere. Time moves differently here. The laws are more... flexible." They walked deeper still, and the landscape shifted. The flat clearing gave way to gentle hills that shouldn't have existed in the space between those oak stones. Trees emerged—ancient specimens that predated human civilization, their branches twisted into elegant spirals. The flowers continued their impossible colors, but now they were sparser, as if the grove had wild places and cultivated ones. A stream appeared, running through the landscape with water so clear that Aurora could see each stone on its bed. The water moved upward in places, defying gravity, and where it did, the flowers below it glowed brighter. She knelt at its edge and found her reflection staring back—but younger somehow, or perhaps just lighter, as if some weight she carried had been momentarily lifted. "The Veil is thinnest at the standing stones," Isolde explained, settling herself on a moss-covered stone beside the stream. Her silver hair trailed across her shoulders, and she moved with the grace of something that had walked through countless centuries. "But here, deeper in, you cross from the margin into true Fae-touched earth. Time pools in corners. Impossible things become... probable." "How long have you lived here?" Aurora asked. "Three hundred years by Earth's reckoning," Isolde said. "Seventeen, by the Fae courts' measure." She smiled, sad and knowing. "They sent me away for speaking truth to mortals. The courts prefer mysteries." The Heartstone pendant pulled harder at its chain now, warm enough that Aurora could feel it through her shirt. She drew it out into the twilight air, and it pulsed with deep crimson light. The glow intensified as if responding to the magical saturation of the place. Nyx drew back, their violet eyes widening. "Careful. That is a beacon." "To what?" Aurora asked, but she already knew. The codex Isolde had lent her had been clear on this point: Heartstone artifacts drew Hel's attention. They were keys of a sort. "The veil-wards monitor intrusions," Isolde said quietly. "We have time before they respond. But not much." She rose smoothly, her feet still not touching the ground. "Do what you came to do, Aurora Carter. Learn what your pendant is. But learn quickly." Aurora gripped the pendant, feeling its warmth spread through her palm. Around them, the wildflowers' singing grew louder, a chorus of bell-tones and crystal chimes. The impossible sky above shifted, the stars rearranging themselves. She had come seeking answers in this alien place. Now, it seemed, the place itself was beginning to answer back.