Run: 2026-02-19-01KHT07QJCRQCYPM58SVN2YVJY

The air shifted the moment they passed the standing stones. The humid haze of a London summer dissolved, replaced by a scent that smelled of ozone and rain on hot pavement, but sharper. Metallic. Aurora stopped, her boots sinking into grass that was too plush, too perfect. It wasn't the undulating dune grass of Richmond Park, but something stiff, bioluminescent. Tiny blue veins ran through the blades, pulsing with a slow, rhythmic rhythm. "Where are we?" Rory asked. She tugged the strap of her delivery bag higher, adjusting her grip. Her fingers brushed the pendant tucked into her shirt, cool silk against heated skin. Nyx materialized from the gloom beneath an overhanging oak. He had no solid form until fully formed, but the air around him grew heavy with displacement, like pressing a hand into warm water. The humanoid silhouette solidified, flickering into existence with a wet thump. He towered over her, approximately six feet of living darkness. Faint violet light sparked in his hollow eye sockets, the only warm things in the clearing. "Home," Nyx rumbled. His voice wasn't a whisper carried on the wind, but a gravelly shuffle of dead leaves. "Or the edge of it." Isolde stepped forward. Her silver hair flowed behind her like mercury water, untouched by the unnatural breeze. She wore a dress of woven wildflowers that didn't look like fabric at all. Pale lavender eyes scanned the perimeter, landing on Rory with a look of detached interest. "A pocket between breaths," Isolde said. Her speech was a melody, the cadence rolling off her tongue in patterns that made Rory's brain itch. "To the outside, this grove is a memory. To the inside, it is a womb." "Did Eva know about this?" Rory asked, keeping her voice low. "Avery?" Isolde tilted her head. "Avery knows the taste of honey, but she does not know where the bees keep their secrets. She walks in the sunlight, Rory. We walk in the cracks." Nyx stepped into the path ahead, his solid form flickering. He held up a hand, palm open to the air. "We aren't alone. The ambient magic is thick here. It sticks to your skin like honey." Rory reached up, clutching the Heartstone. The deep crimson gemstone beneath her shirt had been warm when they left the flat above Silas’s bar, but now it felt like a branding iron. It throbbed against her sternum, a frantic, syncing beat matching the blue veins in the grass. The heat was radiating outward, heating the skin of her neck. "This way," Rory said, ignoring the warning in Nyx’s posture. She pointed toward a narrow gap in the tree line where the amber sky was bleeding through, a splash of sunlight that looked wrong. It lacked the sharp angles of the real sun; it diffused into the air. Isolde sighed, the sound like rustling parchment. "Curiosity is a rope made of dry hemp. It snaps easily." They moved. The trees here didn't grow straight. They bent toward the group, their trunks twisting like grasping fingers, their bark smooth and obsidian. The canopy above blocked the sky, but the amber glow pulsed downward, casting long, distorted shadows. The silence was broken by a low hum. It wasn't mechanical, not like traffic. It vibrated in their teeth, a sub-bass frequency that made the ground vibrate beneath their soles. Rory walked faster. The pendant’s heat spiked, nearly burning her through her shirt. She needed to know why. The benefactor who gave her this artifact—the unknown someone who knew her scar, her escape, her life—had sent her here. The ground began to change. The grass turned from blue to vibrant green, then to purple, then to black stone. The path they walked upon unspooled, stretching impossibly long before them. "Isolde," Nyx said, his voice dropping an octave. "The wards are failing. The smoke is rising." Rory spun around. Behind them, the forest was turning gray. The vibrant flora withered, bleaching out until there was nothing but skeletal branches clawing at the empty air. The warm amber light was fading, replaced by a sickly, sulfur-yellow twilight. "To step through is to invite the rot," Isolde said, stepping directly into the yellow light. Her footprints evaporated as soon as they touched the stone. "But look. The wind has changed. It carries a savory scent. Roast meat. Spices." Rory stepped forward, her stomach growling in response to the smell. It was overwhelming. It smelt like a high-end banquet in a sealed room, mixed with the reek of burnt sugar and brimstone. The trees ahead were different. They weren't black oak. They were twisted vines, heavy with fruit that looked disturbingly like eyeballs. The ground was covered in deep, red earth. The air grew hot, a sweltering blanket pressing against them. The Heartstone surged, burning so bright Rory thought it might tear through her skin. She yanked the silver chain over her head, clutching the glowing gem in her right hand. It cast a terrifyingly clear light, cutting through the yellow haze. Rory gasped. Where the forest should have been, there was an orchard. Great, gnarled apple trees loaded with fruit the size of melons, glowing with a feverish orange light. But this wasn't Earth. In the distance, beyond the orchard, the sky was a deep, warm amber. It crackled with energy. And in the center of this landscape, rising above the trees, was a colossal tower made of stacked silver platters and dripping tallow candles. Below it, hundreds of figures—shadowy, hunched shapes—clashed together in a chaotic, violent feast. "That..." Rory’s breath hitched. "That’s Dymas." Isolde drifted to her side, her ethereal face pale in the red light. "I see the gluttony," she whispered, her voice trembling for the first time. "I see the Prince feeding his children." Nyx was next to them instantly, his humanoid form darkening until he looked like a void. He reached out, wrapping a hand around Aurora’s elbow. His grip was ice cold, harder than iron. "It shouldn't be accessible," Nyx snarled. The violet light in his eyes flared, turning a dangerous crimson. "The Veil is thinning too fast. Someone breached it." The Heartstone in Rory’s hand pulsed in time with a drumbeat that wasn't coming from the tower. It was coming from her own chest. The heat was overwhelming, a wave of nausea hitting her as the reality of the place sank in. "Rory, drop it," Nyx ordered, tugging her toward the trees. "Get back to the Grove. Now." But Rory couldn't move. The amber sky above them rumbled, a sound like thousands of stomachs growling. The orchard trees below rustled, the eyes on the fruit blinking open, fixing their gazes on the intruders. "This is why I was given this," Rory choked out, clutching the gem despite the pain. "This is what I have to do." Isolde stepped between them and the breach, her silver hair standing on end. She turned her lavender eyes to Rory, filled with a mixture of pity and calculation. "You fight a river with a teaspoon," Isolde said softly. "The tide is coming in, and the water is made of hunger."