Run: 2026-02-17-01KHMR36WR0FZEEJZN14N8AJ5V

Aurora Carter had delivered dumplings through sleet and navigated drunk men outside Silas’ bar with the same flat stare she used on court forms, but Richmond Park at dusk made her palms sweat anyway. The path under her boots looked ordinary enough at first—mud, winter-grass flattened by dog walkers, the bare black lace of branches overhead. Then the trees began to stand too still, as if the air had forgotten how to move. Sound thinned. The distant traffic that had been a constant London hiss a moment ago dropped away like a radio turned off. Nyx kept to her shadow, not quite inside it, not quite separate. When she glanced down, she saw their shape where her body blocked the last of the low sun: a taller outline stitched to hers, as if the dark itself had learned to stand. “You feel it,” Nyx said. Their voice never fully arrived in her ears. It brushed the inside of her skull, the way a memory did. “The edge.” “The Veil,” Rory murmured. She didn’t like how easily the word came to her now, like it had been waiting behind her teeth. She hooked a thumb under the silver chain at her throat. The Heartstone Pendant rested against her collarbone, the gemstone a deep crimson that looked almost black in the dim. It had been warm since she’d left the flat. Not hot—more like a hand held close to a candle. Ahead, the standing stones rose from the earth as if they’d been grown rather than placed. Ancient oak, greyed with age, their surfaces ridged with old growth rings that should’ve belonged inside a tree, not on the outside. They formed an uneven gate. Between them, the air shivered. Rory slowed. She had a sudden, irrational sense that her skin was too loud. “There,” Nyx whispered. “Boundary.” Rory swallowed, tasting cold. She thought of her mum’s careful voice explaining Welsh myths like bedtime stories. She thought of Evan—her ex, not the stone gate—and how the world had once been only human cruelties, simple and predictable. That smaller world had hurt, but it had made sense. This one didn’t owe her that courtesy. She slid her hand under her coat to where the Fae-forged blade sat strapped against her ribs. The moonsilver dagger was always cold, an icicle pressed to her side. It steadied her in a way warmth didn’t. “Right,” she said, because she needed a word she could control. “We go in, we find Isolde Varga, we ask our questions, and we leave.” “And if time fractures?” Nyx asked. “If minutes become days?” “Then we… cope,” Rory said. Her tone came out sharper than she meant. She softened it with a breath. “I’m not doing heroics. I’m doing information.” Nyx’s faint violet eyes flickered in the pocket of darkness. Amusement, maybe, or something older that only resembled it. “Information is a kind of blade.” She didn’t answer. She stepped forward instead, into the shivering air between the oak stones. The world blinked. For a heartbeat Rory felt suspended, not falling, not standing—simply held in a pressure that had no direction. Her teeth hummed. Her pendant pulsed once, a slow thud of warmth against bone. Then her boots found ground again, and the air changed. It smelled like wildflowers crushed between fingers. Not one flower—dozens at once, woven together: honey-sweet and green-sharp, a scent that should’ve belonged to late spring, not the edge of winter. Light shifted too. There was no sun in the sky she could see, no clear source, and yet the clearing ahead glowed as if lit from within. Colors didn’t behave: the greens were too deep, the blues too bright, the whites of small blossoms almost luminous. The trees around the clearing were taller than oaks had any right to be, their bark smooth as stone, their branches arched overhead in a gentle ribcage. Rory took another step and felt her skin prickle as if she’d walked through static. Behind her, the standing stones were still visible—but they looked farther away than they should, like a door she’d already crossed in a dream. Nyx drifted out of her shadow, coalescing into a tall silhouette beside her. In this light their edges seemed softer, less like a cut-out and more like smoke shaped by intent. “This is… it?” Rory asked, hating how small her voice sounded. “The Grove,” Nyx said. “Fae-touched. Old.” Rory’s eyes went to the ground. The grass was thick, rich, and unblemished. No mud. No dead leaves. And no tracks. She lifted one boot and set it down again, carefully, then looked back. Her footprint wasn’t there. The blades of grass sprang up untouched, as if her weight had never been. A chill ran along her spine despite the mild air. “That’s not normal.” “Normal is a contract the worlds did not sign,” Nyx replied. Rory almost snorted. “You’ve been waiting to say that.” Nyx’s violet eyes glowed faintly. “Perhaps.” They moved forward. The clearing widened. Wildflowers crowded the ground in impossible abundance: foxglove and something like it, with translucent bells that caught the light and held it; daisies with petals tipped in pale gold; tiny blue stars that seemed to turn their faces toward Rory as she passed. She told herself it was a trick of her eyes, the kind that happened when you stared too long at patterns. Then she heard it. Music, faint as a thread, without an obvious source. Not the clean notes of a flute or violin, but something that sounded like wind learning language. It curled around her thoughts and made her want to stop and listen. She forced herself to keep walking. “Don’t,” Nyx murmured, as if hearing her impulse. “It lures.” Rory’s grip tightened on her coat lapel. “I wasn’t going to.” She wasn’t sure she believed herself. The air grew cooler as they went deeper. The trees leaned closer. Here and there, pale stones jutted up through the flowers, each carved with shallow grooves that caught shadow in their lines. Rory leaned toward one and saw, with a frown, that the grooves weren’t letters she recognized. They were too fluid, too curved, as if written by a hand that had more joints than hers. She straightened quickly. The pendant warmed again, a slow pulse that didn’t match her heartbeat. “Nyx,” she said softly. “Is the Heartstone—” “Yes,” Nyx answered. “It wakes near tears.” Rory’s stomach tightened. “So there’s a Hel portal here.” “Or something that resembles it,” Nyx said. “The Veil is thin in places where the worlds bruise each other.” Rory looked around at the flowers and the light and the soft music. Bruise was an ugly word for something so beautiful. That made her more uneasy, not less. They crested a slight rise, and the grove opened into a deeper hollow. In the center stood a pool of water, perfectly still. No ripples, no insects skating on the surface. The water reflected the trees overhead, but the reflection was wrong—too sharp, too dark, as if the pool were a window instead of a mirror. On the far side of the pool a woman stood as if she’d been waiting since before time learned to measure itself. Isolde Varga was smaller than Rory expected, slight, almost delicate. Her silver hair fell to her waist in a smooth spill, catching the ambient light like spun metal. Her eyes—pale lavender, uncanny—lifted to Rory with a calm that felt like the opposite of kindness. Not cruelty. Simply certainty. She wore no heavy coat, no scarf, though the air here had cooled enough that Rory’s breath fogged. Isolde’s bare feet rested on the grass and left it unmarked. No footprints, Rory noted, and felt something inside her settle into a grim little knot. So the stories were true. That should have comforted her, but truth in this place came with teeth. Isolde’s gaze slid to Nyx. “A shadow with a name,” she said. Her voice was soft, but it carried easily, like a bell heard across water. “And a girl with borrowed fire.” Rory’s jaw tightened at girl. She forced herself to keep her expression neutral. “Aurora Carter,” she said. “Rory. You’re Isolde.” “I am,” Isolde replied, as if confirming a weather report. Rory gestured toward the pool, because her eyes kept trying to fall into it. “Is that… safe?” “Safe is not a word the Grove understands,” Isolde said, and a faint curve touched her lips—almost a smile, but not quite. “It understands balance. It understands bargains. It understands hunger.” The word hit Rory wrong. Hunger. She touched the Heartstone again. The gem pulsed warmly, once, twice, like it agreed. Nyx’s silhouette sharpened. “You called us.” Isolde’s head tilted. “Did I? Or did you follow the scent of what you fear?” Rory exhaled slowly. She’d promised herself information, not theatrics. “I need answers,” she said. “About the pendant. About why it reacts—about Hel portals.” Isolde’s gaze dropped to Rory’s throat. The pendant’s crimson glow was faint but visible now, a dull ember under skin. “A heart that is not yours,” Isolde murmured. “Crimson stone. Silver chain. Dymas gave it teeth.” Rory’s fingers curled around the gem. It was warm enough now that it felt alive. “Dymas,” she repeated. “Gluttony. That’s Hel.” Isolde’s eyes returned to Rory’s. “You have learned names. Names are doors.” “And you speak in riddles,” Rory said, unable to keep the edge out of her voice. “Can you speak plainly for once?” Isolde’s expression didn’t change, but the air seemed to press in slightly, as if the grove listened. “Plain speech is a straight road,” she said. “This place has no straight roads.” Rory stared at her for a moment, then nodded once. Fine. She could work with crooked. “Show me,” Rory said. “Show me what’s making it react.” Isolde’s lavender eyes flicked toward the pool. “Do you want to look through, Aurora Carter? Or do you want to step through?” Rory’s throat went dry. “Those aren’t the same thing.” “No,” Isolde agreed, and her tone held the faintest hint of satisfaction. “You understand more than you think.” Nyx shifted beside Rory, their shadowy form moving like smoke disturbed by a breath. “If there is a tear here, you should have told the Wardens.” Isolde’s head turned, slow and graceful. “Wardens monitor what they can name. Not what they cannot.” Rory glanced down again. The water’s surface remained still, but the reflection had begun to change. The dark between reflected branches wasn’t just shadow anymore. It held a warmth, a dim amber that didn’t belong in this cool grove. Like a sunset trapped beneath glass. Her pendant throbbed in response, a steady, eager heat. Rory took a cautious step closer. The flowers near the pool were different—fatter petals, heavier scents. Sweet to the point of rot. Her stomach rolled at the smell, even as some animal part of her wanted to lean in and inhale. “The other side,” she whispered before she could stop herself. “Not fully,” Isolde corrected. “A bruise, not a wound. But bruises deepen when pressed.” Rory’s mind flashed to grand feasts she’d heard about in half-muttered conversations—Hel’s gluttony realm, the excess, the indulgence. The amber sky. If the pool was a bruise against that realm, then the warmth under her feet wasn’t friendly. She forced herself to look away from the water and focus on Isolde’s face. “Why is it here?” Isolde’s silver hair stirred though there was no wind. “Because the worlds are greedy,” she said. “Because mortals reach for magic, and magic reaches back. Because something in Hel has learned to smell this grove’s sweetness.” Rory’s pulse quickened. “Something is trying to come through.” Isolde didn’t nod. She didn’t need to. “It has already tasted the edge.” Nyx’s violet eyes flared faintly. “What do you want, Seer?” Isolde’s gaze returned to Rory. “I want what I always want,” she said, voice low as the pool. “For you to choose, and to pay.” Rory let out a humorless breath. “I’m not paying anything I haven’t agreed to.” Isolde stepped closer to the pool. Her bare feet never bent the grass. She knelt and trailed her fingers just above the water without touching. The surface trembled anyway, as if it recognized her. In the trembling reflection, Rory saw it: a flash of another place. A sky the color of warm amber. Rows upon rows of something like vineyards, but the vines were too thick, the grapes too dark, swollen like bruises. Stone terraces crowded with tables. Silver platters piled high with food she couldn’t name—gleaming fruit that seemed to bleed juice, roasted meats lacquered in honey, breads studded with gemstones instead of seeds. The sight made Rory’s mouth water in spite of herself. It was obscene. It was gorgeous. Then the reflection shifted again, and behind the tables she glimpsed movement: shapes too tall, too thin, watching from the edge of that feast like hungry guests waiting for an invitation. Rory’s stomach turned. The sweetness in the air suddenly felt cloying, like perfume sprayed over decay. She yanked her gaze away and took a step back. The world steadied. The music in the grove faltered, briefly souring into a dissonant hum. Nyx’s voice came like a cold hand. “You saw.” “Yes,” Rory said, and her voice didn’t shake, but her fingers did. She tucked them into a fist. The crescent scar on her left wrist tugged as her skin tightened, an old memory of pain insisting on being counted. “So what now?” Isolde rose smoothly. Her lavender eyes held no pity. “Now you decide what you will be,” she said. “A door that stays closed, or a door that learns to bite.” Rory’s hand slid under her coat to the moonsilver dagger. The Fae-forged blade was a strip of winter against her skin. She drew it just enough to see the leaf-shaped edge catch the strange light. It glimmered faintly, eager and cold. “Bite,” Rory said. Isolde’s smile finally appeared, small and sharp. “Good,” she murmured. “Then walk with care, Aurora Carter. The grove is listening. And it loves a brave meal.” Rory stared at the pool again, at the amber hint beneath the surface, and felt the Heartstone pulse warmly like a second heart. Somewhere beyond the standing stones, London carried on in its ignorant rush. Here, in this pocket between worlds, the air tasted of flowers and danger, and every step felt like it might be the one that took her too far. She tightened her grip on the dagger, squared her shoulders, and followed Isolde along the pool’s edge, deeper into the grove where the trees grew closer and the music grew louder, as if the place itself was leaning in to hear what she would do next.