Run: 2026-02-17-01KHNFT718DPE2B23WCWPW1C62

The air in Richmond Park tasted different after dark, carrying the damp chill of the Thames and the sweet, cloying scent of rotting leaves. Rory pulled her leather jacket tighter, the familiar weight doing little to ward off the unease pooling in her stomach. She’d made this delivery for Yu-Fei a dozen times before, a sealed, fragrant package for the reclusive client who only ever requested after-hours drop-offs at the specific coordinates she’d been given. But it had never felt like this. The park was too quiet, the silence thick and watchful. Her phone’s GPS had flickered and died five minutes ago, the screen glitching into static before going black. A low battery, she’d told herself, though she’d charged it fully before leaving the flat above Silas’s bar. Now, navigating by the weak light of a half-moon veiled by fast-moving clouds, she relied on memory. The path seemed to have shifted, familiar trees now looming like silent, judging sentinels. Then she saw them: the standing stones. Three ancient oaks, their trunks gnarled and impossibly thick, forming a rough triangle in a small clearing she was certain hadn’t been here on her last trip. This was the place. The coordinates were right, but the geometry was all wrong. The air within the grove was several degrees warmer, carrying the intoxicating perfume of night-blooming jasmine and other flowers she couldn’t name. Wildflowers, their petals pale and luminous in the gloom, carpeted the ground, blooming with a vigor that defied the late autumn chill. The Fae Grove. Eva had whispered stories about places like this, pockets where the world wore thin. Rory had always dismissed them as her friend’s fanciful nonsense. A prickle of heat against her collarbone made her jump. Her hand flew to the source—the Heartstone pendant. The deep crimson gem was warm to the touch, pulsing with a soft, rhythmic heat she’d never felt before. It wasn’t a comforting warmth; it felt like a warning, a tiny panicked heart beating against her own. She took a hesitant step into the clearing, the crunch of her boots on the path outside giving way to an unsettling silence. The sound of her own breathing seemed loud, too loud, in the hushed air. “Hello?” she called out, her voice swallowed by the dense foliage. “Delivery for Isolde?” There was no answer. Only the gentle rustle of leaves in a wind she couldn’t feel. She set the insulated bag down at the base of the central oak stone, as per instructions. Her task was complete. She should leave. Now. But as she straightened up, a sound froze her in place. It was a faint, melodic humming, a tune without a clear source that seemed to weave through the trees themselves. It was beautiful and ancient, and it made the fine hairs on her arms stand on end. It was coming from everywhere and nowhere at all. She turned slowly, her bright blue eyes scanning the shadows between the trees. Nothing moved. The flowers seemed to sway, though the air was utterly still. A twig snapped to her left. She spun toward the sound, her heart hammering against her ribs. “Is someone there?” The humming stopped. The silence that followed was deeper, heavier than before. It was a listening silence. *Get out*, a voice in her head screamed, the same cool, logical part of her that had devised her escape from Evan. This was not a place for logic. This was a place for stories, and in stories, people who wandered into fairy rings didn’t come back, or came back wrong. She took a step back toward the path, but the tree line seemed to have receded, the darkness between the trunks now impenetrable. The path she’d come in on was gone, swallowed by a wall of thorny brambles that definitely hadn’t been there a moment ago. A cold dread, sharper than any fear she’d felt in a Cardiff courtroom or a London alley, began to seep into her bones. There it was again. Movement. A flicker of something pale and slender darting behind a tree at the edge of her vision. It was too tall to be an animal, too fluid. She caught a glimpse of what might have been a long, pale hand, fingers too slender, before it vanished. “I’ve left your food,” she said, forcing her voice to remain steady. She was Rory Carter. She was cool-headed. She solved problems. “I’m just going to go now.” The only answer was a soft, sighing laugh that seemed to ripple through the leaves above her. It was a sound of gentle, mockery. The Heartstone burned against her skin, its pulse frantic. The faint inner glow of the crimson gem cast a tiny, bloody light on the silver chain. It was reacting to something. Something close. A shadow detached itself from the base of one of the oak stones. It wasn’t a trick of the light; it uncurled, rising to a height that dwarfed her own five-foot-six frame. It had the shape of a man, but its proportions were subtly off—limbs too long, shoulders too narrow. It stood perfectly still, observing her from the deeper darkness it inhabited. Rory’s breath hitched. She couldn’t move. Every instinct told her to run, but her feet were rooted to the spot, as if the wildflowers had grown around her ankles. She could feel a presence behind her now, too, a cold spot in the warm air. She was surrounded. The thing in the shadows took a single, silent step forward. A sliver of moonlight caught the side of its face. It was beautiful, achingly so, with sharp cheekbones and lips curved into a faint, cruel smile. But its eyes… where eyes should have been were only pools of deeper shadow, empty and hungry. It wasn’t human. It was something else. Something that belonged in Eva’s stories. The humming started again, this time from right beside her ear. She flinched, but there was nothing there. The sound was inside her head, a maddening, lovely melody that promised secrets and forgetting. It promised to make the fear go away if she would just stop fighting. If she would just stay. *No.* The thought was a spike of pure will. She clutched the warm pendant, the heat a anchor in the shifting wrongness of the grove. She thought of her father’s earnest lectures on the law, her mother’s patient corrections of her Welsh grammar, the solid, real world of arguments and deadlines and part-time jobs. With a gasp that tore from her throat, she wrenched one foot free, stumbling backward. The thing in the shadows tilted its head, its smile widening, revealing needle-sharp teeth. It didn’t move to stop her. It didn’t need to. The thorns were still there. The path was still gone. She was trapped. The grove had her. Time itself felt syrupy and slow, an hour stretching into what might have been a lifetime. The beautiful, terrifying creature took another step, its movement utterly silent on the flower-strewn ground. It raised one of those long, pale hands, not in threat, but in invitation. And Aurora Carter, who prided herself on her quick, out-of-the-box thinking, could think of absolutely nothing at all.