Run: 2026-02-19-01KHTX48MYE46WM19K6PD3GEZ4

The oaks towered against the night sky, their gnarled branches reaching like fingers frozen mid-grasp. Aurora stood at the boundary of the grove, where Richmond Park's manicured paths surrendered to something older, something that made her skin prickle despite the mild October air. She checked her phone. 11:47 PM. No signal, naturally. The screen's glow felt obscene against the darkness pressing in from all sides. "Right, then," she muttered, pocketing the device. The message had been clear. Isolde would meet her here at midnight. The Fae woman had information about the Heartstone, about why it had grown heavier in recent days, why Aurora woke some nights with the pendant burning against her sternum like a coal. She crossed the threshold. The change was immediate. The distant hum of London traffic ceased as though someone had pressed mute on the world. Wildflowers bloomed in impossible profusion between the standing stones, their petals luminescent in starlight that seemed too bright, too focused. The air tasted of honey and copper. Aurora's trainers crushed stems that released cloying sweetness. She'd been here twice before, always in daylight, always with Isolde guiding her through. The grove had seemed whimsical then, almost welcoming in its strangeness. Not now. The Heartstone pendant lay against her chest, warmer than her own skin. Not the warning pulse she'd felt near portals, but a steady, insistent heat that grew with each step deeper into the clearing. "Isolde?" Her voice fell dead, swallowed by the thick silence. The standing stones ringed a central space where grass grew in a perfect circle, untouched by the wildflowers that choked everything else. Aurora moved toward it, scanning the tree line for any sign of the Fae woman's willowy silhouette. Nothing. She pulled out her phone again. 11:51 PM. Only four minutes had passed, though it felt longer. Time moves differently here, Isolde had warned. An hour inside can be minutes or days outside. A branch snapped somewhere to her left. Aurora spun, but the darkness between the oaks revealed nothing. Just trees. Just shadows. The pendant pulsed once, twice, then returned to its steady warmth. "If that's you trying to be funny, I'm not laughing." Silence answered. Then, from her right this time, the soft whisper of something moving through tall grass. Too deliberate to be wind. Too quick to track. She backed toward the centre of the clearing, keeping the tree line in view. Her heart hammered against her ribs. The pendant hammered back, matching rhythm. A figure emerged between two oaks. Relief flooded through her. "About bloody time. I nearly—" The figure stepped into the starlight. Not Isolde. The shape was wrong. Too tall, limbs too long, proportions that her mind struggled to parse even as she stared directly at it. It wore the suggestion of a cloak, or perhaps its skin simply ended in ragged tatters that might have been fabric. Its head tilted at an angle no spine should allow. Aurora's hand found the pendant, gripping it through her shirt. The metal chain bit into her palm. "Who are you?" The thing didn't answer. It swayed, gentle as kelp in a current, though no breeze stirred the grove. Where its face should be, there was only shadow—deep, complete shadow that seemed to pull light into itself. Another figure materialized on the opposite side of the clearing. Same wrong proportions. Same impossible stillness combined with that underwater sway. Then another, and another, until seven of them ringed the standing stones, blocking every gap between the ancient oaks. The pendant burned now, properly burned, and Aurora yanked it out from under her shirt. The crimson stone blazed with inner light, casting red shadows across the grass. The figures recoiled slightly, that synchronized sway breaking into something more agitated. "Stay back." They didn't advance, but they didn't retreat either. One of them made a sound—not quite a voice, more like wind forced through a crack in stone. The others echoed it, creating a harmony that set her teeth on edge and made her eyes water. She turned in a slow circle, keeping them all in view. Seven of them. One of her. The pendant's heat intensified until she thought it might brand her palm. The figures began to move, not toward her but around the circle, maintaining their distance but shifting positions with fluid grace. As they moved, they wove between the standing stones, and Aurora realized with creeping dread that they were tracing a pattern. Some ritual. Some dance her arrival had interrupted or, worse, initiated. "I'm leaving. I made a mistake." She stepped toward the nearest gap in their circle. The two figures flanking it stopped swaying. Their featureless faces tracked her movement with unmistakable focus. The pendant pulsed three times, rapid fire. Warning. The same warning it gave near Hel portals. Aurora froze. "No. No, you're not—you can't be from Hel. This is a Fae grove. This is Earth." But the grove existed between worlds, didn't it? A pocket. An in-between place. And if the veil was thin enough to let Fae magic through... The figures resumed their movement, faster now, their circuit around the stones accelerating. The not-quite-voice rose in pitch and complexity, more of them joining the chorus. The sound resonated in her chest, in her skull, in the spaces between her thoughts. She ran. The clearing's centre. The only space they hadn't entered, the perfect circle of grass untouched by blooms. Aurora sprinted for it, pendant clutched in her fist, its light painting frantic red streaks across the ground. She made it three steps before something snagged her ankle. Not a hand. Not a root. Something cold and boneless and strong enough to yank her off balance. She went down hard, elbows taking the impact, chin cracking against a stone. The taste of blood filled her mouth. The thing around her ankle tightened, began to drag her backward. Away from the centre. Toward the swaying figures and their escalating chorus. Aurora twisted, kicked with her free leg. Her trainer connected with nothing—passed through the space where her attacker should be and met only frigid air that numbed her foot instantly. "Get off!" She grabbed a handful of earth and wildflowers, hurled it behind her. The clump sailed through empty air and scattered against the grass beyond. But the grip loosened for just a moment, and she yanked her leg free. On hands and knees, she scrambled forward. Made it to the centre. Collapsed in the perfect circle of grass. The figures stopped moving. The chorus cut off mid-note. Aurora pulled herself up, gasping, wiping blood from her chin with the back of her hand. The pendant hung from her fist, chain wrapped around her fingers, stone pointing outward like a talisman. Its light had steadied, no longer pulsing but glowing with constant crimson radiance. The seven figures stood at the exact positions they'd occupied when she first saw them, as though the last frantic minute had never occurred. That synchronized sway resumed, gentle and hypnotic. One of them extended what might have been an arm toward her. The limb stretched impossibly long, bones or tendons or something else entirely undulating beneath the surface. It reached the boundary of the grass circle and stopped, fingers or claws or whatever terminated that appendage hovering inches from Aurora's face. She didn't move. Didn't breathe. The hand withdrew, slow as syrup. All seven figures began to fade, dissolving from the edges inward until only their suggestion remained, then nothing at all. The grove returned to its previous silence, broken only by Aurora's ragged breathing and the frantic percussion of her heart. She checked her phone with shaking hands. 12:03 AM. Sixteen minutes. She'd been in the grove for sixteen minutes, and Isolde had never come.