Run: 2026-02-19-01KHT0KHQD8C7FEWCN51ZTTP4V

The standing stones emerged from the morning mist like teeth rising from pale gums. Aurora stopped at the tree line, her breath catching. She'd walked through Richmond Park dozens of times since moving to London, jogged past these very oaks without a second glance. Now the ancient trunks seemed to lean inward, branches intertwining overhead to form a living archway that hadn't existed moments before. "You see it." Nyx's voice drifted from somewhere behind her left shoulder, a whisper that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. "The Grove reveals itself only to those who carry the right invitation." The Heartstone Pendant pulsed against her collarbone, warm through the fabric of her jacket. Aurora pressed her palm flat against it, feeling the steady throb like a second heartbeat. "I thought Fae magic and Hel artifacts didn't mix," she said. "They don't." Nyx shifted, their form solidifying enough that she could see the faint violet glow of their eyes in her peripheral vision. "Which makes your pendant's reaction... interesting." Aurora didn't like that pause. In the three weeks since Nyx had attached themselves to her shadow — quite literally — she'd learned that their pauses carried weight. Meanings within meanings. The Shade had been human once, centuries ago, and sometimes that humanity surfaced in the smallest hesitations. She stepped forward. The grass beneath her feet changed texture immediately, shifting from the damp spring turf of the park to something softer, denser. Moss, she realized. Thick emerald moss that seemed to glow faintly from within, each step leaving no impression, no mark of her passage. "The Seer's territory," Nyx murmured. "Tread carefully. Time moves strangely here." "You mentioned that. An hour inside could be—" "Minutes. Days. The Grove operates on Fae logic, which is to say, no logic at all by mortal standards." The archway of oaks opened into a clearing that shouldn't have fit within the boundaries of the park. Couldn't have fit. Aurora stopped again, her mind struggling to process what her eyes insisted was real. Wildflowers carpeted the ground in swaths of impossible color — blues that shifted to purples as she watched, yellows that brightened to golds and then dimmed to amber. They moved without wind, swaying in patterns that suggested communication, a language written in petal and stem. The air smelled of honeysuckle and something sharper underneath, metallic, like the moment before lightning strikes. "It's..." She couldn't find the word. "Dangerous," Nyx supplied. "Beautiful things in Fae spaces often are." "I was going to say overwhelming." "That too." She walked deeper into the clearing. The standing stones she'd glimpsed from outside now ringed the space at irregular intervals — not stone at all, she realized as she approached the nearest one. Petrified wood. Ancient oaks turned to mineral, their bark patterns still visible, frozen in gray-brown crystal. She reached out to touch one and felt warmth emanating from its surface, a steady pulse that matched the rhythm of her pendant. "Don't." Nyx's shadow fell across her hand, impossibly cold where the stone radiated heat. She pulled back. "Why?" "These mark the boundary between here and elsewhere. Touch them, and you might find yourself stepping through without meaning to." "Through to where?" The Shade didn't answer. Their form rippled, becoming less solid, and Aurora understood that meant discomfort. Questions they couldn't or wouldn't answer. She moved on, circling the clearing's perimeter. A stream appeared from nowhere, its water running silver-clear over stones that glinted with colors she couldn't name. No source visible, no destination — it simply existed, burbling softly, the sound almost like laughter. Almost like words, if she listened closely enough. She didn't listen closely. That seemed like another trap. "The flowers are watching," she said quietly. "Everything in Fae spaces watches. The trees. The stones. The air itself. They report to their masters." "And Isolde? Is she their master?" "Isolde is... complicated." Nyx materialized more fully beside her, their humanoid silhouette taking clearer shape. In the Grove's strange luminescence, she could almost see features — the suggestion of a nose, the hollow where eyes should be filled with that violet glow. "She was born of both worlds. Belongs to neither. The Grove tolerates her presence because she poses no threat to its deeper purposes." "What purposes?" "I don't know. I've never been permitted this deep before." That admission sent a chill down Aurora's spine. Nyx had existed for nearly four centuries, slipping between shadows, gathering secrets. If they'd never penetrated the Grove's inner reaches... "Why now? Why me?" "Your pendant, perhaps. Your bloodline. Your stubbornness in refusing to die despite several excellent opportunities." The whisper carried something that might have been humor. "The Fae value interesting things. You've become interesting." "Lucky me." She followed the stream's edge, noting how the moss gave way to small white pebbles that clicked musically under her boots. Each step produced a different note, and she realized with a start that she was composing something as she walked — an accidental melody that hung in the air behind her. The clearing's center held a single tree, different from all the others. Silver bark, leaves that glinted like mirrors, branches reaching upward in a spiral pattern that drew the eye and held it. Aurora stopped several meters away, unwilling to approach closer. The tree felt aware in a way the watching flowers didn't. Active rather than passive. "The heart of the Grove," Nyx said. "I can go no further." She turned. The Shade had stopped at the stream's edge, their form wavering like a candle flame in wind. "What do you mean?" "Shadows cannot exist where that light falls." They gestured toward the tree, and Aurora noticed for the first time that it cast no shadow of its own. The silver leaves reflected light in all directions, illuminating even the spaces that should have been dark. "You'll have to meet the Seer alone." "You didn't mention that part." "Would you have come if I had?" Fair point. She wouldn't have. Aurora crossed the stream, the cold water soaking through her boots instantly, so frigid it burned. She gasped, stumbled, made it to the far bank with her teeth clenched against the shock. When she looked back, the stream seemed wider than before. Deeper. Nyx was barely visible through the silver light that suffused everything now, a dark smudge against the impossible colors of the Grove's outer ring. "The Seer will find you strange," the Shade called, their voice somehow still a whisper despite the distance. "Answer her questions truthfully if you can. Never promise anything. Never accept gifts without understanding their cost." "Comforting advice." "I've never aimed to comfort." She turned toward the silver tree and walked forward. The flowers parted before her now, bowing away to create a path she hadn't seen before. White stones gave way to a mosaic of colored tiles, geometric patterns that shifted when she wasn't looking directly at them. The air grew warmer as she approached the tree, heavy with a scent like summer storms and old books. A woman sat among the roots. No — she'd always been there. Aurora simply hadn't been able to perceive her until now. The realization came with a wave of dizziness, her mind rebelling against the retroactive rewrite of her own memory. Isolde Varga looked exactly as the stories described, and nothing like Aurora had imagined. Silver hair cascaded past her waist, but it wasn't simply silver — it held every shade the word could encompass, from bright chrome to tarnished pewter, shifting as she breathed. Her eyes, when she raised them, were the pale purple of twilight, of lavender fields, of bruises just beginning to heal. "You carry something that doesn't belong to you," the Seer said. Her voice chimed like bells, each word arriving a heartbeat before or after her lips moved. "And you seek something you cannot name." Aurora's hand moved to the pendant again. "I was told you might have answers." "Answers." Isolde smiled, and it was like watching the moon rise — gradual, inevitable, coldly beautiful. "Such small words humans use for such vast things. You want answers. You need revelations. You fear truths." She rose, unfolding from the roots with inhuman grace, and Aurora noticed she wore no shoes. Her feet touched the mosaic tiles without sound, without impression. "Which shall I offer? The choice shapes the cost." "I need to know what this is." Aurora lifted the pendant, let it catch the silver light. "Who gave it to me. Why." "Three questions. Three prices."