Run: 2026-02-17-01KHNG4118YB2GT1QFF0NTKKA9

The path vanished behind them. Rory stopped, turning to look over her shoulder. Where the gap in the standing stones had been—a narrow passage between two ancient oaks—no longer existed. Instead, there was only forest. The ordinary kind. Oak and ash and bracken, the familiar green-brown mess of Richmond Park in late autumn. "That's not concerning at all," she said. Beside her, Nyx flickered. Their form had been不稳定 lately, the shade struggling to maintain solidity in this place where the barrier between realms grew thin. Now they rippled like water disturbed by a stone, violet eyes dimming and brightening in uneven rhythm. "The grove does not permit retreat." Their voice came as it always did—a whisper riding wind that wasn't there. "Not until it decides you have stayed long enough." "Comforting." Rory touched the Heartstone at her throat, feeling its familiar warmth. The pendant had been pulsing since they'd crossed through the standing stones, its crimson glow steady now rather than the frantic throb that had accompanied her through the rift in Dymas. Here, it simply... hummed. Like a heartbeat keeping time with something vast. The air tasted different. She noticed it now—that first breath through the threshold had been a revelation, but she'd been too focused on the disappearance of the path to catalog what her lungs had already registered. Sweetness. Not flowers exactly, though wildflowers carpeted the ground in impossible abundance. Something older. The scent of growing things that had no name in the mortal tongue. "We should keep moving." Eva's voice came from behind her. Rory turned to find her friend standing very still, face tilted upward, auburn hair lifting in a breeze that didn't exist. "There's... something here. I can feel it watching." Eva had always been sensitive to things others couldn't see. Rory had chalked it up to imagination when they were children in Cardiff, then to coincidence when they'd reconstituted their friendship in London. Now, watching Eva's eyes track movement in the canopy above—movement Rory couldn't see—she reconsidered. "Multiple somethings," Nyx murmured. "The grove is alive, Eva Marchetti. It watches all who enter." "I'm British now," Eva said absently, still scanning the branches. "Use my married name." "You've been here two months." "And I've already gotten a deed to a flat and a parking permit. That's practically citizenship." Despite everything, Rory felt the corner of her mouth twitch. Even here—even in this impossible place where the laws of physics seemed more like suggestions—Eva made her laugh. They moved forward. The grove revealed itself in layers. At the edges, it had looked like a clearing. A simple space where the ancient oaks formed a rough circle, their roots plunging into earth carpeted with wildflowers that should have died months ago. Daisy and primrose, lavender and something blue that shifted between cornflower and midnight depending on the angle of light. The light. Rory noticed it then—the illumination came from everywhere and nowhere. Not quite sunlight. Not quite moonlight. Something in between, something that had no source because it didn't need one. Deeper in, the flowers grew taller. She had to part them with her hands as she walked, their petals soft as silk against her fingers. They reached her waist now, then her shoulders. The trees thickened around them, oaks giving way to species she didn't recognize—trunks spiraling upward in corkscrew patterns, bark the color of old bone, branches that curved like fingers grasping at the amber-rose sky. The sky. She'd been so focused on the ground she'd forgotten to look up. The canopy should have blocked any view, but instead there was only that strange luminous expanse, clouds drifting across it in shapes that almost formed pictures. A horse. A ship. A woman's face, eyes closed, mouth open in what might have been a scream or might have been a song. "Time moves differently here," Nyx said, following her gaze. "In the Fae Courts, you could watch stars wheel through their entire lives. Here, the effect is milder. An hour inside may be minutes outside. Or days." "How many days?" Eva asked. Nyx's silence was answer enough. They walked for what felt like an hour. The flowers eventually receded, thinning to scattered blooms, then disappearing entirely beneath their feet. The ground changed too—becoming softer, almost spongy, like walking on moss that had never known the weight of footsteps. The first unease came with the sound. It started low, beneath hearing. A vibration in her chest, a thrumming that matched the Heartstone's rhythm. Then it rose, becoming almost musical—a chord built from notes that shouldn't exist, frequencies that made her teeth ache and her eyes water. "It's the grove," Rory said. Her voice came out strange, muffled, as though the air had thickened. "Singing." "To what?" Eva's hand found hers, squeezed tight. "I don't know." The singing grew louder. Or perhaps they were walking toward its source—the distinction felt meaningless in this place where direction was a suggestion and distance a memory. The trees around them began to change again, their bark darkening, their branches intertwining overhead until the amber sky disappeared completely. They were in a tunnel. No—a corridor. No— A cathedral. Rory stopped, and felt the others stop with her, Nyx flickering violently beside her, Eva's grip on her hand becoming almost painful. The space opened before them, vast beyond comprehension. Ceilings rose beyond sight, held up by columns of living wood thattwisted together in patterns that hurt to follow. Bioluminescent fungi clung to every surface, casting everything in pale blue-green light. The air here was warmer, heavy with the scent of honey and overripe fruit, and somewhere in the distance—impossibly far, impossibly close—water dripped in a rhythm that almost matched a heartbeat. And in the center of it all, sitting on a throne of woven branches and growing vines, was a woman. She was beautiful in the way that storms are beautiful. That forest fires are beautiful. Her silver hair reached the ground, pooling around her bare feet—which left no impression on the moss beneath them—and her eyes were pale lavender, nearly white, fixed on something none of them could see. "Isolde," Nyx whispered. "The Seer." Rory had heard the name. Everyone who'd stumbled into the hidden corners of London's supernatural underworld had heard the name. Isolde Varga, half-Fae, exiled from Courts that would have killed her for sharing visions with mortals. She'd retreated to this pocket of twisted reality, this impossible space where the Veil grew thin enough to touch. "Isolde," Rory called out. Her voice sounded small in the vastness, but the woman—the seer—turned her head. Her smile was gentle. Her words, when they came, were riddles wrapped in silk. "The shadow-walker returns. The bearer of hearts walks with her. And you—" Her lavender eyes found Eva, held her gaze with an intensity that made the air feel thin. "You carry a question you haven't learned to ask yet." Eva opened her mouth. Closed it. Looked at Rory, helpless. "We're looking for a way to close a rift," Rory said. She stepped forward, feeling the pendant pulse warmly against her chest. "A tear in the Veil. In Dymas." Isolde's smile didn't waver. "Dymas. The realm of excess. The kingdom of the hollow-bellied." She rose from her throne, movements flowing like water, like smoke, like things that had never learned to be solid. "You carry iron and silver, shadow and stone. You have walked through kingdoms of gluttons and shades. And now you stand in the space between worlds, asking the impossible." "Can you help us or not?" The seer laughed—a sound like wind through autumn leaves. "I can show you what you seek. Whether you survive the showing is another question entirely." She extended a hand. Long fingers, pale as birch bark, nails the color of moonlight. Rory looked at Nyx. At Eva. At the pendant pulsing steadily against her heart. She took the seer's hand.