Run: 2026-02-19-01KHT0RVCH5XHE17KPTG913097

The air in the clearing tasted of petrichor and honeysuckle, thick enough to drink. The ancient oak standing stones formed a perfect ring, their gnarled bark shimmering with a light that came from nowhere and everywhere. Inside the circle, the light was softer, muted like the hour before dawn, though the sky beyond the treeline was the deep indigo of a London evening. Aurora took a step past the final stone. Her breath caught. The grove was small, a perfect circle of moss and meadow. Wildflowers bloomed in impossible colors—indigo, silver, and a blue so deep it was almost black. They swayed in a breeze she couldn’t feel. The ground under her trainers was spongy and soft, giving off a faint, sweet scent with every step. No birds sang. The silence was absolute, yet not empty. It felt like the held breath before a symphony. “We’re not in Richmond anymore,” she whispered. From the corner of her eye, she saw a ripple in the air, a coalescing of shadow. Nyx stepped from the long, strange shade of a twisted hawthorn, their form solidifying from smoke into a defined silhouette. The faint violet glow of their eyes swept the clearing. “This is a threshold place. A pocket. The air here… it tastes of old magic. Starlight and sorrow.” Aurora’s left wrist tingled, the small crescent scar there feeling tight, as if the skin were new. The Heartstone pendant beneath her shirt gave a single, distinct pulse of warmth, like a sleeping creature stirring. It wasn’t the sharp warning it gave near Hel portals. This was different. A hum of recognition. “She said to follow the foxgloves,” Aurora said, her voice swallowed by the dense air. A path appeared. It wasn’t that it hadn’t been there before; it was that the grove had decided to show it to them now. A gentle curve of crushed silver petals led between two taller standing stones that leaned toward each other like old friends sharing a secret. They walked. The path descended slightly, the temperature dropping. The air grew colder, crisper, carrying the scent of frost and distant rain. The wildflowers gave way to a carpet of moss so green it seemed to glow from within. Tiny, luminescent fungi dotted it like fallen stars. “Time feels wrong here,” Nyx murmured, their whispery voice the only sound. “It stretches and contracts. Like breathing.” Aurora glanced at her watch. The second hand was motionless. She shook her wrist, tapped the glass. Nothing. It wasn’t broken; it was simply indifferent to the rules of this place. The path opened into another clearing, larger than the first. A still, black pool occupied its center, its surface a perfect mirror reflecting nothing—not the sky, not the trees, not their own faces as they approached. Around its edges grew tall, slender reeds that chimed softly against each other, a glassy, melanchodic music. On the far side of the pool, sitting on a low, flat stone, was Isolde. Aurora had seen her once before, in a vision granted by a demon’s artifact. The reality was more, and less. The woman was ageless, her skin pale as moonlight, her silver hair a waterfall that pooled on the moss around her. She wore simple robes the color of mist. Her pale lavender eyes were fixed on the blank surface of the pool. She did not look up. They circled the pool, their steps silent on the moss. As Aurora drew closer, she saw that Isolde left no impression on the soft ground, no indentation on the stone where she sat. Her footprints, if she made any, were not for this world. “You found the way,” Isolde said. Her voice was melody and memory, each word chosen with the care of a jeweller setting a stone. “Not all who seek the Grove are permitted to walk its paths. The stones turn some away. They walk in circles until they find themselves outside, with only the forgetting mist for company.” Aurora stopped a few feet away. Nyx lingered at her shoulder, a pillar of watchful shadow. “You said you had something for me. A gift.” Isolde’s gaze lifted from the water. Those lavender eyes held depths that made Aurora’s mind shy away. They saw too much. “A gift requires a meeting. An exchange of truths. You carry a stone of Hel against your heart. You travel with a creature of the between-spaces. Your story is written in tangled threads. I would see the pattern.” “I’m just trying to survive,” Aurora said. The words felt childish. “And to understand.” “Understanding is a dangerous feast. It fattens the mind and starves the soul.” Isolde’s hand moved, a slow, graceful motion. From within the folds of her robe, she drew a blade. It was slender, no longer than her forearm, shaped like a willow leaf. The metal was a cool, untarnished silver that seemed to drink the grove’s strange light rather than reflect it. A faint luminescence clung to its edge, visible only when she turned it. Isolde held it out, balanced across her palms. “Moonsilver. Forged in a court where lies are impossible and truths are weapons. It remembers the cold of the void between stars.” Aurora reached for it, then hesitated. “What does it do?” “It cuts.” A ghost of a smile touched Isolde’s lips. “It cuts what steel cannot. Wards. Bindings. The tethers of misplaced souls. It is particularly… disagreeable to the flesh of demons. A Fae-forged blade has a memory, and it remembers the ancient wars.” Aurora’s fingers closed around the hilt. It was shockingly cold, a chill that sank into her bones and settled there. The weight was perfect, balanced like a living thing. As her skin made contact, the faint glow along the edge brightened for a heartbeat, then faded to a soft, steady radiance. “It accepts you,” Isolde observed. “Interesting.” “Why give this to me?” “Because the Veil thins. Winter comes. The old gates grow hungry. You walk a knife’s edge between realms, Aurora Carter. A blade may help you keep your footing.” Isolde’s eyes drifted past her, to where Nyx stood. “And you, shadow-walker. Do you seek a gift as well?” Nyx’s form seemed to ripple, edges blurring. “I seek nothing from the Fae. Your gifts have strings. I am familiar with the cost of bargains.” “Wise. You are a bargain yourself, are you not? A soul caught in the act of becoming.” Isolde turned her attention back to the black pool. “My gift is given. My part is played. The path will lead you out. Remember—time here is a river with many currents. An hour spent in conversation may be a minute in your London, or a day. You should go.” Aurora slid the cold blade into the inner pocket of her jacket. It lay against her ribs, a line of ice. “Thank you.” Isolde did not respond. She was staring into the water again, her face a mask of serene absorption. The grove seemed to press in around them, the silence becoming a tangible weight. The luminescent fungi dimmed. The path back was not the same. The silver petals were gone. Now they walked on a bridge of exposed, twisting roots that glowed with a soft amber light. Above them, the canopy had closed, forming a tunnel of interlocking branches from which hung delicate, crystalline fruits that chimed like bells in a breeze Aurora still could not feel. Nyx flowed beside her, their form less distinct here, blending with the deep shadows between the glowing roots. “Her words were truth, and not-truth. A blade that cuts magical bindings. She knows of your entanglement with the demon prince. This was not a random kindness.” “I know.” Aurora’s hand went to the pendant under her shirt. It was quiet now, cool. “Nothing is random anymore.” Ahead, the tunnel of roots ended in a curtain of hanging moss. They pushed through. The air changed. The dense, sweet silence shattered into the distant roar of traffic, the smell of wet pavement and exhaust. They stood at the edge of a footpath in Richmond Park, under the ordinary dark of a cloudy night. A light drizzle fell, cold and real on Aurora’s skin. She turned. Behind them was only a dense thicket of hawthorn and bramble, impenetrable and dark. Her wristwatch gave a sharp tick, then resumed its steady sweep. An hour had passed. Nyx stood beside her, fully solid now, their violet gaze scanning the mundane trees. “The Grove is gone.” “For now.” Aurora touched the hard, cold shape of the Fae blade through her jacket. The wonder of the place was already receding, replaced by a sharp, specific unease. The gift was a tool. Tools were for specific jobs. She looked at the ordinary, rain-slicked path ahead, leading back to the city, to her flat above the bar, to her deliveries for Yu-Fei. The otherworldly beauty of the grove felt like a dream, but the weight of the moonsilver dagger against her side was utterly, chillingly real.