Run: 2026-02-19-01KHTX3R29PJQHWF3PWGB0B918

The air in The Fae Grove didn’t move. Rory stepped between the ancient oaks, their bark split with veins of silver that caught no moonlight, though the sky above Richmond Park had been clear. Her boots left no imprint in the moss. A silence sat like a hand over the clearing—thick, deliberate. She checked the pendant. The Heartstone pulsed once, slow, like something breathing beneath the earth. She shouldn’t have come alone. Eva’s voice echoed in her head: *You don’t go poking holes in places that don’t let light through.* But the note had been specific. Left folded in her delivery bag, tucked under a bundle of bok choy. No signature. Just handwriting like cracked porcelain: *Come to the Grove. Midnight. You have something that belongs to her.* Rory’s fingers brushed the crescent scar on her wrist. She hadn’t spoken the name Laila in two years. Not since the fire. Not since the hospital, where the doctors said she should have died, and the nurses crossed themselves when she woke. The wildflowers were wrong. They ringed the central glade in tight, perfect spirals—purple foxgloves, white starflowers, crimson poppies—none of which bloomed in December. They stood upright, uncrushed, untouched by winter. No frost. No decay. And they didn’t smell of anything. She exhaled. Her breath didn’t fog. A sound, then. Not a snap or a rustle. A *hum*, low and dissonant, like a cello string vibrating underwater. It came from behind her. She turned. Nothing. The oaks stood sentinel, their moss dangling too straight, too still. She stepped back. The moss didn’t yield. It felt like brushing against cold glass. The pendant warmed. Rory unclipped it from her coat, holding it in her palm. The crimson gem pulsed again—faster now, a soft throb of inner light. Shadows between the trees seemed to deepen. She took a slow breath. Focus. Assess. She’d handled worse than haunted woods. Worse than silence. Worse than ghosts. Then—music. A child’s music box. Faint. Distant. A lullaby her mother used to sing, warped into something hollow. *Hush now, don’t let them hear,* the tune slurred. *She’s coming back, and the trees will cheer.* Rory whirled, scanning the ring of standing stones. Nothing. No movement. No figure. But the stones—were they closer? No. Impossible. She backed toward the center of the clearing, where the flowers clustered thickest. The hum deepened. The air tasted of copper and wet stone. The pendant burned now, searing against her skin. She hissed, almost dropped it. When she looked down, the gem was brighter, its glow spreading like blood in water. A whisper, right against her ear: “*You left me in the fire.*” Rory stumbled forward, gasping. She spun. No one. Nothing but the perfect spiral of flowers, the silent oaks, the unblinking stones. Her heart hammered, but she kept her breath steady. Panic wouldn’t help. Panic got you killed. “Laila?” she said. The name broke the silence like glass. The music box stopped. The flowers trembled. Then, one by one, they turned. Petals swivelled, stems twisting with soft, wet pops, all turning inward—toward her. Dozens of faces made of bloom and thorn, all fixing on her chest, on the pendant. The air thickened. The silence pressed down, heavier than before. Rory clutched the chain. “I didn't leave you. I tried to—” A hand, cold as grave soil, brushed her neck. She lashed out, elbow cracking through empty air. Spun. Nothing. But the cold remained, coiled around her throat like a noose. She tore at it—nothing there. Only the pendant, now hot enough to blister, its light flaring like a failing bulb. “Stop,” she said. “I’m not your enemy.” The ground split with a sound like tearing parchment. At the center of the flower spiral, the moss peeled back. Not torn. Not uprooted. *Folded*, like fabric drawn aside. Beneath—darkness. Not soil. Not void. Something that *watched*. The pendant flared once, blinding. In that flash, she saw them. Figures, just at the edge of the trees. Not standing. *Hanging.* Slumped, limp, suspended from the oaks by thin silver threads, their faces hidden by drooping moss. Still. Silent. She couldn’t tell if they breathed. Then the light died. The clearing plunged into deeper dark. Not night. Not shadow. A dark that *clung*. A voice, not from one place but from everywhere—the trees, the stones, the flowers, the buried thing beneath: “*You wore her face.*” Rory backed away, boots scraping on unyielding moss. “I was protecting her. They were coming—” “*You wore it too long.*” The pendant jerked hard against her chest—*pulled*, like the chain was hooked to something inside the dark. She gripped it, fingers burning. The silver chain seared into her skin. The gem flared again, and in that pulse, she saw her reflection in the nearest standing stone. But it wasn’t her. Black hair, yes. Blue eyes, yes. But the face—softer. Younger. Smiling. A face she hadn’t seen in years. Laila. The reflection mouthed words: *You never let me go.* Rory tore the pendant off. The chain snapped. The Heartstone arced through the air and landed in the spiral of flowers. Silence. Then—movement. Every flower bent toward the stone. The petals stretched, elongating into thin, grasping fingers. The stems twisted, knitting together into sinew. The spiral writhed, rising like a vine-woven creature, pulling the pendant into its center. And from the dark beneath the moss, something exhaled. Rory didn’t wait. She ran. She didn’t look back. She didn’t need to. Behind her, the oaks groaned. The music box began again. And above Richmond Park, the moon blinked out.