Run: 2026-02-17-01KHMRANV1BA6ZKNWZM6WXMT0M

The standing stones appeared where they shouldn't have been—ancient oaks twisted into archways that Rory could have sworn weren't there on her last delivery run through Richmond Park. She touched the Heartstone pendant beneath her shirt, feeling its sudden warmth against her sternum. "You feel it too," Nyx said, their voice threading through the wind like silk over gravel. They'd taken solid form for the journey, though their edges still blurred in Rory's peripheral vision, smoke that refused to settle. "The Veil's thin here." Isolde stood before the nearest oak arch, her silver hair lifting in a breeze that touched nothing else. Her pale lavender eyes tracked something Rory couldn't see. "The grove remembers those who seek truth. Whether truth is what you'll cherish, the stones do not judge." Rory glanced at Nyx, who gave the barest approximation of a shrug. "She means we can go in." "I mean," Isolde said, turning to fix Rory with an unnervingly direct stare, "that the door swings both ways, but the hinges rust at different speeds." "Right." Rory squared her shoulders and stepped between the oaks. The transition felt like pushing through a curtain of static electricity. Every hair on her body stood at attention for one breath-stealing moment, and then she was through, stumbling forward onto grass that shouldn't exist in January. Wildflowers—bluebells and primrose and species she didn't recognize, their petals shot through with silver veins—carpeted the ground in impossible profusion. The air tasted different here, sweeter and cleaner, like the first morning after a fever breaks. Behind her, Nyx materialized as if they'd always been standing there. "Interesting," they murmured, flexing their fingers. In this place, they looked almost solid, though their form still drank in light rather than reflecting it. Isolde entered last, and Rory could have sworn she saw the flowers lean toward the woman as she passed. The Half-Fae left no footprints in the soft earth, gliding rather than walking. "Stay close," Isolde said. "The grove is generous to those I guide, but it has its own whims. What you see may not be what another sees. What feels like moments may measure differently when you return." The clearing stretched further than it should have, given the dimensions Rory had observed from outside. Shafts of golden light filtered through a canopy that seemed impossibly distant, illuminating patches of the forest floor like spotlights on a stage. At the grove's heart, she could make out a structure—something built of the same twisted oak, grown rather than constructed. They moved deeper. Rory's boots made soft sounds on the grass, muffled and strange, as if the earth absorbed each footfall before it could properly echo. Beside her, Nyx made no sound at all. "Do you hear that?" Rory asked, pausing. Music drifted through the trees, if music was the right word. It sounded like wind chimes made of glass, like distant laughter, like whispered conversations in languages that predated words. The melody—if it was a melody—seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere, weaving through the grove like a living thing. "The grove sings," Isolde said. "It remembers every secret spoken within its bounds, every oath sworn, every heart broken. What you hear is its memory of joy." Nyx tilted their head, violet eyes brightening. "I hear screaming." "Memory of loss, then," Isolde corrected without inflection. "The grove contains multitudes." Rory pressed forward, drawn by curiosity stronger than caution. The pendant continued to pulse against her chest, not with the warning heat it generated near Hel portals, but with a gentle, almost soothing warmth. As they walked, she noticed other details. Mushrooms grew in perfect spirals around the trees, their caps glowing faintly with foxfire. The bark of the oaks held patterns that might have been natural grain or might have been words in an alphabet she'd never learned. She caught glimpses of movement in her peripheral vision—quick darting shapes that vanished when she tried to focus on them. "Don't look directly," Isolde advised. "The sprites are shy. They'll show themselves if they wish, or not at all." The structure resolved itself as they approached. It was a bower, Rory realized, though calling it merely a bower seemed inadequate. Living wood had been coaxed into pillars and arches, creating a dome-like space at the grove's center. Inside, she could see a pool of water so still it looked like polished obsidian. The air around the bower shimmered with the same distortion she'd learned to associate with the Veil itself. "This is where I see," Isolde said quietly. "Where past and future blur, where truth wears all its faces at once." Rory stepped into the bower. The temperature dropped immediately, raising gooseflesh on her arms despite her jacket. The pool's surface remained undisturbed, yet she could see shapes moving in its depths—not reflections of the world above, but something else entirely. Scenes played out in the water like memories or prophecies. She saw a city burning, towers of black stone crumbling into rubble. She saw herself, older and scarred, holding a blade that wept crimson light. She saw Nyx, fully human again, screaming as shadows pulled them apart. "The pool shows possibilities," Isolde said, kneeling beside it. Her reflection didn't appear on the surface. "Not certainties. Every choice branches the path. Every moment births a thousand futures." Nyx crouched on Rory's other side, staring into the water with an expression she'd never seen on their shadowy features before. Hunger. Longing. "I see myself," they whispered. "Before. When I had a heartbeat." "You see what you need to see," Isolde corrected. "Whether it's memory or possibility or wish, the pool doesn't distinguish. That discernment falls to the viewer." Rory tore her gaze away from the disturbing visions and looked up at the bower's living ceiling. Stars glittered between the woven branches, though she knew it was still afternoon outside. Or was it? Time moves differently here, Isolde had said. She pulled out her phone on instinct, but the screen showed only static, the clock frozen at the exact moment she'd entered the grove. "Why did you bring us here?" Rory asked. "We came for answers about the Heartstone, about the rifts opening in London." Isolde smiled, and it was the saddest expression Rory had ever seen. "The grove reveals what you need, not what you seek. They're rarely the same thing. Look again." Rory looked. The pool's surface had changed. Now she saw the standing stones from outside, but wrong—broken and blackened, as if something had burst through them from within. She saw Dymas, its amber sky darkening to rust. She saw the Veil itself, that shimmering boundary between worlds, splitting like torn fabric. And she saw a figure standing at the center of it all, wreathed in flames that burned without consuming. The figure turned, and Rory's breath caught. It had her face.