Run: 2026-02-17-01KHNF8RGNXYYD2CH55H8DV3BD

The path vanished three turns ago. Aurora pressed her palm against the rough bark of an oak that had no business being so wide, so ancient, its roots buckling the earth into ridges like frozen waves. Behind her, Nyx moved in that strange way of theirs—not quite walking, more like shadow unspooling and respooling, their form flickering between solid and smoke whenever the light changed. "You said it was just past the oak circle," Aurora said. "We've passed seven oak circles." "Eight," Nyx corrected, their voice carrying thatwind-carried quality, like the words were being whispered from somewhere far away. "You counted the one made of moonlight twice." She hadn't. She was certain she hadn't. But the grove was doing something to her sense of time, her sense of direction, and she was beginning to suspect her sense of reality too. The Heartstone Pendant lay warm against her chest—not the nervous warmth of proximity to a Hel portal, but something gentler, like the gem was responding to the magic saturating the air. They had entered Richmond Park at dusk. That had been... she checked her phone. The screen showed 6:47 PM, the same time it had shown when they'd passed through the tree line. The battery icon blinked once, twice, then stopped blinking altogether. "The clock's broken," she said. "Time moves strangely here." Nyx's violet eyes—faintly glowing, always faintly glowing—turned toward her. "It has been perhaps an hour. Perhaps a day. The Grove doesn't abide by the rules of your world." Our world, Aurora thought. But she didn't correct them. Nyx had been dead for centuries, bound to a half-existence that made them something other than human but not quite whatever dwelt in Hel. Perhaps the Fae Grove felt like home to them in a way it couldn't to her. The trees began to thin. What emerged stopped her breath. The clearing opened before them like a secret finally told, a space that shouldn't exist tucked between the ancient oaks. The standing stones rose in a perfect circle—orange-brown bark transformed into something that looked like stone but felt like living wood when she'd touched one earlier, warm beneath her fingertips, almost humming. And the flowers. God, the flowers. They grew in impossible abundance, wildflowers of every variety blooming in defiance of the late November chill. Lavender and poppy, roses that should have been dormant, bluebells that had no business being open, all carpeting the ground in layers of color that shifted as she watched—blue bleeding into purple bleeding into gold. The air smelled of honey and rain and something else, something that made her think of starlight. "Beautiful," she breathed. "Trap," Nyx said, but without conviction. They drifted closer to the nearest standing stone, their shadow-hand trailing across its surface. "The Fae make beautiful things. It is their nature." "Everything's a trap with you." "Not everything. Merely most things." Aurora stepped into the clearing, and the ground beneath her feet felt wrong. Soft, too soft, like walking on moss that breathed. With each step, the flowers seemed to part for her, then close behind her, as if the grove was remembering her path. She heard it then. Music. Or something like music. Notes that didn't belong to any instrument she knew, weaving through the air in patterns that made her think of mathematics, of geometry, of the spaces between stars. It came from everywhere and nowhere, from the flowers themselves perhaps, or from the standing stones, or from the silver sky that had replaced the London grey. The sky. She looked up and her steps slowed to a stop. It wasn't night. It wasn't day. It was something else—a perpetual soft glow that had no source, that cast no shadows, that made everything look like a memory of itself. And in that sky, something moved. Distant shapes, vast and slow, like whales through an ocean of milk. "What are those?" "Fae," Nyx said. "Or their cousins. Or their dreams. The Grove exists between worlds. What you see may be real, or may be a reflection of something real, or may be a lie so beautiful you believe it anyway." "Helpful." "I am always helpful." She walked deeper, drawn toward the center of the circle where the standing stones gathered closest. The music grew louder, or maybe it just grew more insistent, pressing against her awareness like a hand against glass. The Heartstone Pendant pulsed now, a steady rhythm that matched her heartbeat or perhaps had replaced it, she couldn't tell. And then she saw her. The woman sat on a fallen log at the center of the grove, utterly still, silver hair pooling around her like liquid mercury. She was beautiful in the way a glacier is beautiful, in the way a blade is beautiful—something to be admired from a distance, something that could kill you and look stunning doing it. Her eyes were pale lavender, and when she looked at Aurora, it felt like being seen in a way she hadn't been seen in years. Not just her body, not just her face, but everything underneath—the fear she'd carried since Evan, the guilt about leaving Cardiff, the quiet hope she didn't let herself feel. "Rory." The woman's voice was music and riddle, each word carrying three meanings. "You came." "I—" Aurora stopped. "You know my name." "I know many names. Yours is written in the stone of paths not yet taken." The woman rose, and her feet—bare, pale as birch bark—left no impressions in the soft earth. "I am Isolde. You sought me." "I need—" Aurora touched the pendant, its warmth suddenly炙热, burning. "I need to know what this is. What it means. It started pulsing after I delivered to that address in Whitechapel, and then there was the rift, and Nyx said—" "Nyx said many things." Isolde's pale eyes shifted to the Shade, and something passed between them—recognition, perhaps, or old acquaintance. "The Wardens have been busy. The Veil grows thin, and winter approaches." "The solstice," Aurora said. "It's in a few weeks." "The solstice." Isolde nodded, and her silver hair moved like water. "The Barrier weakens. Rifts open. Things slip through. You hold a piece of Dymas against your chest, child. A gift from a benefactor you have not yet met, for a journey you have not yet begun." "What journey?" But Isolde only smiled, and the smile was sad and strange and knowing. "All journeys begin with a single step into the unknown. You have taken many such steps already. Here is a truth for your trouble: the pendant will lead you to what you seek, but what you seek is not what you need. The blade will protect you from what hunts you, but it cannot protect you from yourself." "That's not—" Aurora frowned. "That's not an answer." "It is the only answer that matters." Isolde stepped closer, and her presence was overwhelming, ancient, vast—a being who had lived centuries and seen civilizations rise and fall like tides. She reached out and touched Aurora's cheek, and her fingers were cold, so cold, like holding ice. "You carry a shadow with you. Literally. They will be important. The Courts have eyes everywhere, and the Lords of Hel are hungry. Be careful what you promise, Rory Carter. Be careful what you desire. In the Grove, in Hel, in the spaces between—intention is currency, and debts come due." The clearing seemed to darken, just for a moment, the impossible silver sky pressing down. The music had stopped. The flowers stilled. Even Nyx had gone quiet, their form flickering uncertainly. Then Isolde laughed—a sound like wind chimes, like distant bells—and the warmth returned, the light returned, the wonder of the place rushing back like a held breath finally released. "But enough darkness. You came seeking answers, and I have given you what I can. The rest—" she gestured at the grove, at the impossible sky, at the standing stones humming with ancient power, "—the rest you must find yourself. That is the only way anything is ever truly learned." Aurora wanted to argue, wanted to push, wanted to demand more. But her voice caught in her throat, and the pendant pulsed once, twice, and she understood—perhaps not fully, but enough—that this was all she would get. For now. "Thank you," she said finally. Isolde tilted her head, silver hair catching light that had no source. "Thank me by surviving what comes. The Hel rifts are not random, Rory. Someone is opening them. Someone wants something from this world, and they have already begun to reach for it through the people you love." The words landed like stones in still water. "What do you mean, the people I love?" But Isolde was already fading, her form becoming translucent, transparent, until she was nothing but a shimmer in the air and a final whisper: "Watch the shadows, Rory. Trust the shadow. And beware the winter solstice—the Veil will be at its weakest, and what waits on the other side has been waiting a very long time." Then she was gone, and Aurora stood alone in the Grove with a Shade and a pulsing gem and the weight of a warning she didn't fully understand. "We should go," Nyx said quietly. "Before the Grove decides to keep you." "I thought you said it was a trap." "Everything is a trap." They drifted closer, their shoulder nearly brushing hers—an unusual gesture from the usually distant being. "But some traps are worth walking into. And some warnings are worth heeding." Aurora looked back at the clearing one last time. The flowers had begun to move again, swaying in a wind she couldn't feel. The sky pulsed with those distant shapes. And somewhere, far away, the music had started again—strange and beautiful and utterly alien. She turned toward the path that had reappeared between the trees, and she walked. The Grove let her go easily, as if it had been expecting her to leave all along. They emerged from the tree line into what should have been darkness but was instead the pale grey of a London morning, frost on the ground, her breath misting in the cold. Her phone lit up. 7:23 AM. Saturday. December 2nd. They had been inside for twelve hours. Or twelve minutes. Or no time at all. "Merry Christmas," Nyx murmured, their form solidifying as they stepped into the pale winter light. "I believe you have a dinner reservation to cancel." Aurora laughed, and the sound was strange in her ears—too light, too normal, after everything. "Yeah," she said. "I think I do." She started walking toward the city, toward whatever was coming, toward the solstice and the shadows and the warnings she didn't yet understand. The Heartstone Pendant pulsed against her chest, steady as a heartbeat, warm as a promise. Behind her, the trees closed ranks, and the Fae Grove vanished between one blink and the next.