Run: 2026-02-19-01KHTX58CK61TTP99P7VQR4E51

The ancient oak standing stones stood black against the deeper black of the Richmond Park night. Aurora Carter slipped between two of them, the silver chain of the Heartstone pendant cold against her neck. The transition was instantaneous, a subtle pop of pressure in her ears. One step on damp grass, the next on dry, fragrant earth. The air in the Fae Grove was still and warm, thick with the perfume of night-blooming flowers that had no right to exist in a London winter. She’d come back for answers. The pendant, a thumb-sized crimson gem that had been a silent weight for weeks, had begun to pulse with a persistent, low-grade warmth this afternoon, a slow heartbeat against her sternum. The last time it had done that, she’d been within fifty feet of a flickering tear in the air that smelled of ozone and rotting honey—a Hel portal, according to Silas. The Grove was a pocket dimension, a weak spot. If a portal was going to open anywhere she could observe it safely, it would be here. That was the theory, anyway. But the theory hadn’t accounted for the silence. The last time she’d been here with Eva, the Grove had been alive with sound—the rustle of unseen creatures, the whisper of wind through impossible leaves, the distant trickle of water. Now, there was nothing. The absolute quiet pressed against her eardrums. Her own breathing sounded obscenely loud. She forced it to slow, falling back on the cold, analytical detachment that had gotten her through law tutorials and Evan’s worse moods. *Observe. Catalogue.* The wildflowers, which normally glowed with their own soft bioluminescence, were dull. Their petals were closed tight, clenched like fists. The usual ambient light of the place was absent, leaving only the weak silver of a half-moon filtering through the canopy above, casting jagged shadows that seemed to stretch toward her. She moved further into the clearing, her trainers soundless on the moss. The Heartstone’s warmth intensified, not a pulse now but a steady, uncomfortable heat. She pulled it from under her sweater, holding the gem in her palm. Its faint inner glow, usually a soft crimson, was a dull, angry red, like a banked coal. A twig snapped to her left. Rory froze, her head turning slowly. Nothing. Just the dense wall of shadow between two gnarled trees. Her mind supplied the rational explanation—a fox, a badger, the normal inhabitants of the park bleeding through the boundary. But the Grove didn’t have normal inhabitants. She took another step. The moss gave way with a soft, wet sound that was somehow wrong. She looked down. The moss wasn’t just damp; it was glistening, black in the moonlight, and it clung to her shoe with a sticky resistance. She pulled her foot free with a soft *shluck*. A sound drifted from behind her—a long, sighing exhalation that was not her own. It was the sound of someone letting go of a breath they’d held for a very long time. It came from the direction of the standing stones, her only way out. “Hello?” Her voice was sharp, cutting through the thick air. It didn’t echo. The Grove swallowed it whole. No answer. Only the return of that profound, listening silence. She turned in a full circle, her heart hammering a frantic rhythm against her ribs. Every shadow seemed deeper, every shape between the trees suggestive. *There*, something pale and tall, standing just behind that oak. She blinked, and it resolved into a shaft of moonlight on silvery bark. *There*, a flicker of movement at the very edge of her vision, low to the ground. She spun, but only saw the closed flowers, their heads now seeming to tilt slightly away from her. *Paranoia. It’s just the isolation. The weird time dilation.* The Grove could make minutes feel like hours. She checked her watch. The digital face was a blur of meaningless symbols, the numbers melting into each other. She shook her wrist. The display cleared for a second—10:47 PM—then scrambled again into chaotic lines. Time wasn’t just moving differently here; it was broken. The wrongness was a physical weight now, a cold knot in her stomach that had nothing to do with the warm air. The pendant was burning. She tried to drop it, to let it fall back against her chest, but her fingers were locked around it. The deep crimson gem was throbbing in time with her pulse, but out of sync, a dissonant counter-rhythm. A soft, wet crunching noise came from her right. This time she didn’t call out. She dropped into a crouch, making herself small, her back against the rough bark of one of the standing oaks. The crunching continued, methodical, deliberate. Something eating. Or digging. She peered around the curve of the tree. In the center of the clearing, where the grass was usually brightest, a patch of darkness deeper than the surrounding night was spread like a spill of ink. It wasn’t a shadow. It absorbed the moonlight. And at its edge, she saw it. A shape, low and vaguely canine, but with too many angles, its fur the colour of the void. It was nosing at the ground, its head dipping, coming up with a mouthful of the glowing, clenched flowers. It didn’t eat them. It seemed to be… uprooting them. Silencing them. As it lifted its head, two points of refracted light caught the moon—not eyes, but reflections from something slick and dark where eyes should be. It turned its head, not toward her, but toward the space she had been standing in moments before. It sniffed the air, a long, liquid sound. Rory stopped breathing. Every muscle in her body went rigid. The analytical part of her mind shut down, overridden by a primal, shrieking signal that this thing was *other*, and it was aware of her. It took a step in her direction. Its movement was all wrong—a stutter, a blur, then it was three feet closer without seeming to cross the distance. The sound of its paws on the ground was the soft *shluck* of pulling free from sticky moss. She had to move. Now. Pushing off from the tree, she sprinted, not for the standing stones—the thing was between her and them—but for the densest part of the tree line on the opposite side of the clearing. Her flight was not quiet. Dry leaves, leaves that had been soft a second ago, crackled like gunfire under her feet. A noise ripped through the silence behind her. Not a growl. Not a howl. It was the sound of tearing canvas and breaking glass, a violent, jagged protest against the quiet. It was the sound of the thing giving chase. She didn’t look back. She crashed through a thicket, thorns tearing at her jeans and jacket. The world narrowed to the pounding of blood in her ears, the searing heat of the pendant fused to her palm, the need for cover. She burst into a smaller, secondary clearing, this one dominated by a fallen, moss-covered log. She threw herself behind it, pressing her body into the damp earth and rotting wood. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to mute the pendant’s glow with her clenched fist. The heat was unbearable. Silence returned. Not the first, oppressive silence, but a new, watchful one. The cicadas didn’t resume their song. The wind didn’t stir. The only sound was the frantic, ragged sawing of her own breath, which she fought to stifle. Minutes bled together. The burning in her hand began to subside, fading back to a warm pulse. Had it gone? Had it lost her? She dared to open her eyes, to lift her head just an inch above the log. The clearing was empty. The patch of consuming darkness was gone. The flowers remained clenched and dull. A wave of shaky relief washed over her. It had left. She had to get to the stones. Now. While she had a chance. She pushed herself up onto her knees. A warm, moist breath touched the back of her neck. It carried a scent of upturned earth, of decay, and beneath it, that faint, sweet rot of ozone and honey. The crunching sound was right behind her ear.