Run: 2026-02-17-01KHNEY4YFHEZC8SH8MK41BKD9

The ancient oaks of Richmond Park pressed close in the darkness, their branches forming a canopy so thick that even the full moon's light barely penetrated. Aurora pulled her jacket tighter against the October chill and checked her phone again. No signal. Of course there wouldn't be, not this deep in the park after closing time. She'd climbed the fence an hour ago, following the cryptic instructions that had arrived at the Golden Empress that afternoon: *The Grove knows your name. Midnight. Come alone if you want answers about the pendant.* The Heartstone lay heavy against her collarbone, its usual faint warmth now pulsing like a second heartbeat. She'd worn it every day since finding it on her doorstep six months ago, wrapped in brown paper with no return address. Just her name in spidery handwriting and the pendant itself, beautiful and inexplicable. Aurora swept her torch beam across the path ahead. According to the map she'd memorized, the standing stones should be just beyond the next rise. Her breath misted in the cold air as she climbed, dead leaves crunching beneath her boots with a sound like breaking bones. At the crest of the hill, she stopped. The torch beam caught them first—massive oak trees arranged in a perfect circle, their trunks so wide it would take three people holding hands to embrace them. But these weren't quite trees. The bark had been carved, or perhaps grown, into intricate patterns that seemed to shift when she wasn't looking directly at them. The pendant grew warmer. Aurora stepped between two of the oak-stones and immediately noticed the change. The air felt different here—thicker, older, charged with something that made her teeth ache. The October wind that had been tugging at her hair suddenly stilled. Even the distant sounds of London traffic vanished as if someone had closed a heavy door. Inside the circle, wildflowers carpeted the ground in impossible abundance. Bluebells and foxgloves and flowers she couldn't name bloomed side by side, their colors vivid even in the torch light. Their perfume was cloying, too sweet, with an undertone of decay. "Hello?" Her voice came out smaller than intended. "I'm here. About the pendant." Nothing answered but the flowers seemed to lean toward her, their faces tracking her movement like tiny satellites. Aurora's hand went instinctively to the Heartstone. It was properly hot now, almost burning through her shirt. She took another step into the grove and the world tilted. For a moment, she could have sworn the stars overhead were arranged in entirely different constellations. The moon hung too low, too large, its light the wrong shade of silver. A branch snapped somewhere behind the standing stones. Aurora spun, torch beam slicing through the darkness. "Who's there?" The flowers rustled though there was still no wind. Their whisper sounded almost like words, almost like her name drawn out into syllables she'd never heard before. *Au-ro-ra-car-ter-mal-pho-ra.* She backed toward the center of the grove, heart hammering. This had been stupid. Meeting an anonymous message writer in an isolated location after midnight—what had she been thinking? Her mother would have called it another example of her impulsive streak. Evan would have said worse. Another crack, this time to her left. Aurora whirled again and caught a glimpse of movement between the oak-stones. Not quite a person, not quite anything her eyes could process. The shape slid away before her mind could make sense of it, leaving only the impression of something tall and wrong. The pendant burned hotter. She yanked it out from under her shirt, hissing at the heat against her palm. The crimson stone glowed like an ember, casting red light across the impossible flowers. "Beautiful, isn't it?" The voice came from directly behind her. Aurora's scream caught in her throat as she spun. A woman stood in the center of the grove where nothing had been a second before. She wore a dress that might have been made of cobwebs and starlight, her skin pale as bone, her eyes the color of winter ice. When she smiled, her teeth were too sharp, too many. "I've been waiting for you to find your way here, Malphora." "That's not my name." Aurora's voice shook. She tried to step back but her legs wouldn't cooperate. The flowers had grown while she wasn't watching, their stems now twining around her ankles. "Isn't it?" The woman tilted her head at an angle that made Aurora's neck ache in sympathy. "Names have power here. Aurora Carter is what your parents called you, yes. But Malphora is what you are." The pendant pulsed in time with Aurora's racing heart. She forced herself to breathe slowly, to think. Quick out-of-the-box thinking, that's what Eva always said about her. There had to be a way out of this. "The message said you had answers about the pendant." "I do." The woman glided closer, her feet never quite touching the ground. "It called you here because it remembers. Because you need to remember." "Remember what?" The woman's laugh sounded like glass breaking in reverse. "What you did. What you took. What you owe." The flowers climbed higher, their stems now wrapped around Aurora's calves. Their thorns pressed through her jeans, not quite breaking skin. The torch flickered and went out, leaving only the pendant's crimson glow. In that red light, the woman's face changed. Features shifted like melting wax, becoming something older, hungrier. "You don't remember yet. But you will. The Heartstone always brings them back." "Brings who back?" "The ones who ran. The ones who thought they could escape their debts by hiding in human skin." The creature wearing a woman's shape leaned close enough that Aurora could smell its breath—sweet rot and copper and burned roses. "Did you really think crossing the water would save you? Did you think taking a new name, a new life, would make us forget?" Aurora's mind raced. She'd lived in Cardiff her whole life until six months ago. Her parents were boringly normal—her dad arguing cases, her mum teaching Year 3. There were photo albums, school records, a whole paper trail of Aurora Carter existing. But the pendant burned against her palm like it recognized something she didn't. "I don't know what you're talking about." The words came out steadier than she felt. "I'm nobody. I deliver Chinese food and live above a bar." "For now." The creature's smile widened impossibly. "But the Heartstone woke when you touched it, didn't it? Recognized what sleeps inside you. That's why you're here, in the Grove that exists between what is and what was." The flowers had reached Aurora's waist. Their whispers grew louder, more insistent. She caught fragments of words in a language that hurt to hear, syllables that wanted to reshape themselves on her tongue. Time felt strange, syrupy. How long had she been standing here? Minutes? Hours? The moon hadn't moved but that meant nothing in a place where wildflowers bloomed out of season. "What do you want?" Aurora forced the question through numb lips. "Want?" The creature laughed again. "Oh, little Malphora. It's not about what I want. It's about what you owe. Blood calls to blood. Power calls to power. And you..." It reached out one too-long finger to touch the pendant. "You carry the heart of someone who broke a covenant." The moment the creature's flesh met the stone, images flooded Aurora's mind. A vast hall made of twilight and thorns. Her own hands—but not quite, the fingers too long, the nails like glass—signing something in blood on bark. A promise made. A trust betrayed. Running through a forest that wasn't quite Earth, wasn't quite anywhere, clutching something precious and stolen. Aurora gasped and jerked back, breaking the contact. The images faded but left echoes, like trying to remember a dream. "Beginning to see?" The creature circled her slowly. The flowers parted to let it pass. "You can't run from what you are. The Heartstone won't let you. It will burn hotter each night, call louder each day, until you return what was taken." "I didn't take anything!" But even as Aurora said it, she felt the lie stick in her throat. Somewhere deep inside, beneath the life of Aurora Carter, something else stirred. Something that remembered. The creature stopped directly in front of her. "Three nights. That's what the old laws grant. Three nights to remember on your own before we come to collect. The Heartstone will guide you, if you let it." "And if I don't?" This time when the creature smiled, Aurora saw rows upon rows of teeth spiraling back into an impossible throat. "Then Evan will be the least of your worries, little runaway. Human pain is nothing compared to what waits for oath breakers in the Bright Lands." The flowers suddenly released their hold, stems retracting so quickly Aurora stumbled. The creature began to fade, its edges blurring into moonlight and shadow. "Three nights, Malphora. Use them wisely." Between one blink and the next, Aurora stood alone in an ordinary clearing in Richmond Park. The standing stones were just ancient oaks again. The wildflowers had vanished, leaving only frost-brittle grass. Her torch flickered back to life as if it had never gone out. But the Heartstone still burned against her palm, and when Aurora looked at her wrist, the old crescent scar seemed to glow faintly in the darkness. She ran then, crashing through the underbrush, scrambling over the fence, not stopping until she reached the night bus on the main road. As she collapsed into a seat, Aurora caught her reflection in the window. For just a moment, her bright blue eyes looked winter-pale, and her fingers seemed a fraction too long. Three nights. The words echoed in her head as London rushed past outside. Three nights to remember what she'd forgotten. Or what she'd made herself forget.