Run: 2026-02-17-01KHMRBBJNRWXZ0TAJ8F6T7F69

The ancient oaks materialized first—impossibly tall and twisted, their bark silver-grey in the perpetual twilight. Aurora stepped through and her breath caught. The temperature dropped twenty degrees in the span of a heartbeat, and the air tasted of honey and rain that hadn't fallen yet. "Christ," she whispered, her London accent suddenly sharp in the stillness. Nyx flowed through the boundary like spilled ink, their form solidifying into something almost human—almost. The living shadow that had been trailing her through Richmond Park coalesced beside her, their faintly glowing violet eyes taking in the grove with an intensity that made Aurora's skin prickle. They'd been cautious about this venture, but when she'd insisted on finding Isolde, they'd relented. "The Veil is thin here," Nyx said, their voice like wind through a canyon, like something dragged across stone. "Can you feel it?" Aurora could. The ground beneath her boots didn't quite feel solid—not unstable, but present in a way that made her teeth ache. She lifted her hand and watched her fingers catch the strange amber-tinted light that seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere at once. The Heartstone pendant at her throat thrummed with warmth, a subtle pulse like a second heartbeat. "How long have we got?" "Time is negotiable here," came a voice like silver bells dipped in honey. Isolde emerged from between the wildflowers as if she'd always been standing there. The Half-Fae seer was precisely as Rory had imagined—ethereal, impossible, her silver hair catching light that didn't exist. Her lavender eyes held the weight of three centuries, and her feet, Aurora noted with a small jolt of strangeness, left no impression in the moss beneath her. "Isolde," Aurora said, forcing steadiness into her voice. "Thank you for—" "For what?" The seer tilted her head, and a thousand wildflowers bent toward her as if magnetized. "For welcoming you to the place between? For allowing the shade to cross the threshold unburdened? For what, exactly?" The riddle hung in the air like incense. Nyx shifted beside Aurora, their form flickering at the edges—a habit they had when uncertain. "For seeing us," Aurora said carefully. It wasn't an answer to the riddle, but it was the only truth she had. Isolde's smile was sharp and knowing. "Come. The thing you seek is deeper in. Not all paths lead where you think they do." She turned and began walking, her movements disconcertingly graceful, as though she floated rather than walked. Aurora and Nyx exchanged a glance—or rather, Rory cast a questioning look at the shadow beside her, unsure if Nyx could meaningfully exchange anything with anyone. They followed. The grove deepened impossibly. What should have been a small clearing in Richmond Park expanded into something vaster than geography should allow. Trees rose in spiraling formation, their trunks thick as cathedrals, their roots forming natural archways that glowed faintly phosphorescent. The wildflowers grew denser—Aurora recognized honeysuckle and nightshade alongside flowers she'd never seen before, blooms that shifted color as she watched them: purple to silver to a shade that didn't have a name. "The boundaries between places are thinner than most realize," Isolde said without turning. "What you call magic is simply the willingness to acknowledge that there are more rules than the ones you were taught." Nyx flowed alongside them both, their shadow-form stretching and compressing, adapting to the strange light. "How long has this existed?" they asked. Their voice held curiosity, genuine and unguarded—rare from them. "Since before your death, Aldric," Isolde said, and Nyx went very still. "Though the name you wore then is dust in a hundred graves. Yes, I know what you were. What you are. Even Shades cannot escape their own stories." The seer led them down a slope that curved away from the sky. Aurora realized with a start that they were descending, somehow, while the grove continued upward around them. The geometry made her head ache pleasantly. Her bright blue eyes struggled to adjust to light that seemed to come from the wildflowers themselves—a soft phosphorescence in deep blues and greens. "Why did you ask us here?" Aurora called out, her voice smaller than she intended. "Did I ask?" Isolde paused at what appeared to be a natural archway formed by two massive roots. "Or did you choose to come?" There was no good answer to that. Rory had come because the Heartstone had guided her, warm and insistent against her chest. She'd come because Nyx had grown concerned about the edges of the city, the places where the Veil showed its tears. She'd come because something in her blood recognized this place as important, as necessary. They passed through the archway and Aurora's breath caught again. The grove's heart was a clearing ringed with seven standing stones—ancient oaks, each one vast beyond reason. In the center, a pool of water so clear it seemed to not exist at all, reflecting not the amber sky above but something else entirely. A night sky, perhaps. Or a different version of the amber sky. In the water's reflection, Aurora could see figures moving—she blinked and they were gone. "The pool shows what was," Isolde said quietly. "What is. What might yet be. It depends entirely on who looks and what they're willing to see." "What should we see?" Aurora asked, though her hand already went to the Fae-Forged blade at her belt. The moonsilver dagger was cold as always, almost painfully so against her palm. "That is not a question with a riddle's answer," the seer said, and her tone held something Aurora hadn't heard before—something like genuine regret. "That is a question you must answer yourself." The Heartstone's pulse quickened. Aurora felt it acutely now—a thrumming urgency, a pull toward the pool. The amber sky seemed to deepen overhead, the light growing richer, warmer. She could smell cinnamon and something sweeter beneath it, something almost fermented. Her mouth watered. Nyx had gone very still, their form barely distinguishable from the shadows cast by the standing stones. "There's something else here," they whispered. "Something that watches." It was only then that Aurora realized—the wildflowers were all facing inward now, toward the pool. The grove held its breath. Even the wind, which had seemed constant, had stilled. The three of them stood at the threshold of something neither quest nor danger, but something beyond the binary of those things. "What is this place, really?" Aurora asked. Isolde turned to face her, lavender eyes full of starlight and sorrow both. "It is a door," she said. "And you've come to decide whether to open it."