Run: 2026-02-19-01KHT10P8098JFV932NPGQJKP3

Branches tangled into a living arch above Aurora’s head, heavy with blooms no London garden ever dared grow, let alone in December. She hesitated, one foot inside the ring of ancient oaks, though dew chilled through the trainers she’d ruined running parcels across Hammersmith. Sunlight, cool and silver as watered silk, filtered sideways through the timber columns. Every birdcall seemed spun from crystal, every drift of wind smelled more honeyed than the last. “Isolde’s grove,” Nyx whispered, shape flickering between solid and sheer as they glided past the stones. Their violet eyes pulsed faintly, snaring light that shouldn’t exist. Shadows behind them spilled deeper than the shaded trunks would account for. “This place hungers for secrets.” Aurora followed, jacket snagging on ivy, each movement stirring a rain of golden motes from flower heads overhead. Her heart beat harder—nerves, not awe, or something between. No matter what Eva claimed, nothing this beautiful meant safety. A thin sigh slid through the grass. Behind her, Eva inched forward, jaw stubborn, making no secret of how the place unsettled her. “We don’t have to trust her, Rory. Soon as you say—” A flutter—petals spiralled down, then rose again of their own accord, swirling in a slow vortex. Something in the air shifted; time pinched, then stretched. The world outside—Richmond’s hum and the bark of distant traffic—vanished as though locked past glass. Aurora shivered, blinking at the standing stones. They rose from ferns in defiance of carving tools, bark scoured smooth by centuries, spiralled through with thin silver veins. Each stone twisted toward the next, closing the circle tight around them. Eva pressed closer, voice low. “Did…did we just lose a signal?” She jabbed her mobile, frown deepening when the screen flickered, then died. Nyx gave a sound that might have been a laugh, if a laugh could wear frost. “Nothing mortal works here. You enter the Grove, your world waits to exhale and leaves you suspended between seconds.” Their shape stretched taller, shadows sliding around knees, flickering in answer to a wind none of them felt. Aurora drew a breath—sweetness on her tongue, richer than honey, tinged sharp with bramble. “How far does it go?” “The boundary ends only when Isolde’s patience does,” Nyx replied, placing one insubstantial hand against an oak’s surface. Their shadow bled into the pale wood, vanished, reformed at their side. “Keep to the path, if you mean to return changed but alive.” Path. Aurora glanced down. Petals and moss, spring-green despite the season, formed a track winding from the stones deeper into a thicket of silver-barked trees. Wildflowers pressed in—columbine, star-shaped and blue, unfamiliar yellow blooms bristling with sweet scent. Underfoot, roots curled but yielded softly, like fur under pressure. Eva gazed upward, lips parted. “The sky isn’t moving,” she said, voice half-wonder, half-fear. Aurora looked. Beyond the branches, the sky glowed pearlescent, clouds pinned motionless, painted rather than real. Light shimmered, bent through unseen prisms, pooling in still shapes. A hum cut through, barely there; Aurora pressed her knuckles to her chest. The Heartstone pendant—always warm, now nearly hot—answered that silent vibration. She kept walking. For every dozen paces, something shifted—petal hues, tree shapes, the chirr of invisible insects rising and falling as if in conversation. Faint giggles skipped between the branches, echoing without source. Eva stopped, spinning in place, teeth bared in something too sharp for a smile. “This could go bad in a hundred ways, you know?” “We’re not here to play with faeries,” Aurora replied, words falling flat in the thick air. “We need what she knows.” An owl blinked from a branch, eyes spectral gold, head swiveling as they passed. A fox, pale as milk, darted between roots, vanishing as quickly as it appeared. The longer Aurora looked, the more the world shimmered at the edges, colours brighter and shadows blacker than life. Gravity drifted—sometimes, her steps skimmed the ground, shoes trailing dew that bled silver. Her fingers brushed a low bloom. Petals folded—then an eye blinked open between the leaves, sly and violet, then sealed itself out of existence. Nyx drew up short. “She waits.” The path terminated at a pool so still it gnawed at the eye, perfect as a polished mirror. Silvered lilies drifted in geometric patterns. At the far bank, a figure stood cloaked in silver hair, eyes cold lavender, skin refusing the rules of shadow and light. Isolde did not move. She seemed only incidentally present, gaze fixed on a knot of air above the water. Petticoats of spider silk and willow leaves whispered around her, their colour shifting with every blink. Eva bristled, but not in challenge—she drew back, tension turning her profile jagged. Nyx dipped their head, voice fluttering through the brush. “Seer. Between moon and dawn, seekers slip through—” “Words that tumble hold no weight,” Isolde countered, every syllable pitched to land in Aurora’s mind like cold rain. “Who asks, who bargains, who trades?” Aurora’s throat dried. She stepped forward, the Heartstone thumping at her throat. “Aurora Carter. I’m seeking knowledge. About the Veil. About rifts opening—” Isolde’s gaze flicked, briefly, to Aurora’s wrist—finding the scar—and then to her throat. “Iron-bound, but the wild feeds on your bones.” She inclined her head. “The answer you crave dissolves on tongue and teeth. Are you prepared to pay?” A ripple moved through the grass. The world trembled, spun slightly faster. Eva snapped, “We didn’t come to offer souls, if that’s what you mean.” Isolde’s smile surfaced, slow and nerve-pricking. “Souls are currency, for those who have not spent them already. The price need not be blood, nor breath. A memory. A name once spoken. A day never lived. What will you offer in trade for the taste of future storms?” Aurora swallowed. The back of her neck chilled as if an unseen hand pressed there. She considered—mother’s laugh. The echo of her father’s call. Last night’s dream, already fading. If she gave, what else might slide free from her grasp? She fingered the Heartstone, its heat flaring under her thumb. “Tell me what you know about the Heartstone. About Dymas. About why everything is shifting—why the Veil is weakening now.” No tremor slipped into the request. Each word fell clean, necessity hardening the edges. Isolde’s eyes narrowed—not with anger, but calculation. Her feet left no mark in mud as she circled the pool, reflection trailing behind instead of beneath. Breathing with the hush of midnight wind, she bent, scooped water, watched it drain through moon-pale fingers. “In Dymas, hunger reigns. Beneath the amber sky, your Heartstone grew around a promise broken and remade. When the Veil thins, appetite walks. To ask why is to trace rivers back to ocean. To know how—ah, that spares only branches, never the root.” She reached for Aurora, fingers hovering above the pendant. “Let me see, and I will bind with truth: one question answered, the cost a memory of safety.” Aurora hesitated. Eva inhaled too sharply, fists clenched. “Don’t,” Eva hissed. “You don’t need to be anyone’s pawn.” Aurora ignored her, shifting forward for Isolde’s inspection. “Do it.” Isolde’s hands hovered, cool magic radiating. The world flashed white—once, twice—before the burning in Aurora’s chest stilled. For a heartbeat, she stood at the threshold of elsewhere. The vision crashed in: a place of sunlight poured thick as syrup, feast-tables buckling under impossible fruit, laughter gorging itself across gardens where shadows prowled the paths. A sky the colour of melted gold. The Heartstone’s pulse hammered, and Aurora’s mouth filled with the taste of berries, rot, iron. Then she was back. Everything echoed too loud. She blinked, awareness snapped taut. Isolde offered the echo of a smile. “Now the map unwinds.” Nyx shifted, half-shadow, eyes lit candles in their featureless face. Eva reached out, steadying Aurora when her knees threatened to give. “What did she take, Rory? Do you remember?” Aurora—heart racing, memories sifting like flour—realised something missing, just out of sight. Not pain, but a hollow place where comfort once lived. She held the Heartstone tight, gaze fixed on Isolde’s otherworldly eyes. “Tell us what comes next.”