AI Gravel crunched beneath the tires of the bicycle as Aurora skidded to a halt near the treeline. The rhythmic whir of the chain died, replaced by the imposing silence of Richmond Park. It was technically closed, the gates locked to vehicles hours ago, but the pedestrian turnstiles offered less resistance to someone desperate enough to trespass.
She swung her leg over the frame and leaned the bike against a moss-slicked fence post. Her breath plumed in the frigid air, white ghosts escaping her lips to vanish into the dark. It was colder than a London October had any right to be. A profound, bone-deep chill that ignored the layers of denim and wool she wore.
Aurora tugged the collar of her jacket up, fingers brushing the silver chain around her neck. The Heartstone Pendant sat against her sternum, no longer just a piece of jewelry. It thrummed. A erratic, feverish vibration against her skin, like a trapped insect beating its wings against glass. It had started an hour ago at the flat above Silas’s bar, waking her from a dead sleep, pulling her south across the river.
"Alright. I'm here."
Her voice sounded thin, swallowed instantly by the vast acreage of the park. She clicked on a small torch. The beam cut a pale tunnel through the gloom , illuminating wet grass and the gnarled roots of ancient oaks.
The beam swung left, catching the reflection of eyes.
Aurora froze.
A herd of deer stood fifty yards away in the bracken. Usually, the fallow deer were skittish, bolting at the snap of a twig. Tonight, they stood like statues carved from grey stone. A dozen pairs of eyes fixed on her, unblinking in the harsh LED light. They didn't graze. They didn't shift. They watched.
She lowered the light, breaking the staredown, and stepped off the path. The tall grass brushed against her thighs, soaking her jeans instantly. The map in her head—or rather, the magnetic pull of the crimson stone against her chest—led her toward the dense cluster of woodland that locals avoided after dusk.
The transition was subtle at first. The wind, which had been biting at her cheeks near the path, died completely . The ambient hum of the city—the distant roar of Heathrow planes, the low murmur of traffic on the A3—faded into a suffocating vacuum.
She reached the boundary. Massive oak standing stones, planted centuries ago or grown by design, formed a rough circle. This was the threshold of the Fae Grove. In the daylight, with Isolde, it was a place of vibrant, chaotic life.
Now, under a sliver of moon, it looked like a graveyard .
Aurora stepped between the marker trees.
The air pressure dropped. Her ears popped, a sharp crack inside her skull. The smell hit her next—not the earthy decay of autumn leaves, but something sickly sweet . Overripe fruit left to rot in the sun. Perfume masking gangrene.
"Isolde?"
The name hung in the stagnant air, refusing to travel.
She swept the torch beam across the clearing. The wildflowers were wrong. In the human world, flowers closed at night. Here, poppies and foxgloves stood wide open, their petals stretched back as if screaming . The colors were muted, drained of vibrancy, appearing as shades of bruised purple and clot-black in the artificial light.
The pendant scorched her skin. She gasped, grabbing the stone through her shirt, pulling it away from her flesh. The red gem pulsed with a violent, jagged rhythm. It wasn't guiding her anymore; it was warning her.
She wasn't alone.
Aurora killed the torch. The darkness rushed in, absolute and heavy. If she was hunting, light made her a target. If she was being hunted , it made her prey. She stood perfectly still, controlling her breathing, forcing her heart rate down. *Cool-headed. Think.*
A sound came from the left.
*Click.*
It was wet, like a tongue snapping against the roof of a dry mouth.
Aurora crouched, her boots sinking into the unnaturally soft earth. Her hand went to her pocket, gripping her keys. A pathetic weapon against magic, but the serrated edge of a house key was better than nothing.
*Click.*
It came from the right this time. Closer.
She pivoted, eyes straining to adjust to the low light. The shadows between the trees weren't empty. They possessed density. Shapes elongated and retracted, defying the laws of optics.
"Who's there?" Her voice was harder this time, edge honed by adrenaline. "I know this place. You don't want to mess with the guardian."
A lie. Isolde wasn't here. The Grove felt abandoned, or worse, usurped.
A laugh drifted through the clearing. It didn't come from a throat. It sounded like dry leaves skittering over pavement.
Aurora backed away, her heel catching on a root. She stumbled but caught herself, her hand slapping against the rough bark of a tree. The bark felt warm. It pulsed under her palm, syncing with the rhythm of the pendant. Flesh disguised as wood.
She jerked her hand back, wiping the residue on her jeans. A viscous, dark fluid stained her palm.
*Movement.*
At the edge of her peripheral vision, barely ten feet away. A figure stood by the foxgloves. Tall. Too tall. Limbs lengthened like pulled taffy.
Aurora turned her head slowly , refusing to make sudden movement.
The figure was gone .
The wildflowers where it had stood were crushed , the stems broken, bleeding a milky sap that glowed faintly.
She needed to leave. The pull that brought her here had dissolved into a trap. This wasn't a summoning; it was a lure. She took a step back toward the standing stones, visualizing the exit.
*Crack.*
A branch snapped directly behind her neck.
She spun, keys raised, the jagged metal glinting in the faint moonlight.
Nothing. Just the oppressive wall of trees.
But the smell was stronger now. The rotting fruit scent was mixed with something metallic. Copper. Old blood.
"Rory..."
The voice doused her in ice water. It wasn't a Fae whisper or a demonic growl. It was familiar . It belonged to Cardiff. To a small, damp flat and bruised ribs.
"Evan?"
The name slipped out before she could stop it. Her logic brain screamed *impossible *. Evan was in Wales, or Hell, or anywhere but a magical pocket in Richmond Park. But the cadence was perfect . The slight slur on the vowels.
"You look tired, Rory. Always running."
The voice came from everywhere. It leaked from the canopy above and seeped up from the roots below.
"Show yourself." She kept turning, putting her back to nothing, scanning the perimeter. The crescent scar on her wrist itch, a phantom pain from the glass shard years ago.
"Smart girl. Lovely girl. Stupid girl."
A shadow detached itself from the gloom between two oaks. It wore a human shape, but the proportions were wrong. The shoulders were too narrow, the arms dangling past the knees. It wore a hoodie—grey, zip-up, just like Evan used to wear. But the face was a blur of static, featureless and shifting.
Aurora didn't scream. She assessed. The distance to the boundary was twenty feet. The ground was uneven. The thing blocking her path was fast—she had seen it move before.
"You're not him," she spat. "You're just bad static."
The thing tilted its head. The angle was acute, the neck snapping with a wet crunch to rest the head on the shoulder.
"Static," it mimicked. The voice distorted, shifting pitch from Evan’s baritone to her own soprano. "Static. Static."
It took a step. The movement was jerky, missing frames of animation. One moment it was by the tree, the next it was five feet closer. No sound of footsteps . Just the *click-click-click* of that wet tongue.
Aurora hurled the torch. The heavy metal cylinder spun through the air, striking the figure in the chest. It didn't thud; it splashed, sinking into the grey hoodie as if the torso were made of tar. The light flickered and died inside the creature.
She ran.
She didn't run away from it; experience had taught her that predators liked a chase. She ran perpendicular, diving into the cluster of ferns to her right, banking on the dense foliage to break its line of sight.
The Grove shifted.
The trees she ran toward receded, stretching away like a dolly-zoom camera effect. The ground beneath her feet turned spongy, sucking at her boots, trying to hold her in place. The distance to the oaks didn't close. She was sprinting on a treadmill of moss and loam.
*Click.*
Right beside her ear.
She threw an elbow back, hard. Impact.
It felt like hitting a bag of wet sand . A cold shockwave traveled up her arm, numbing her shoulder. She stumbled, falling to her knees in the dirt.
Aurora scrambled up, gasping. The air was too thick to breathe now, like inhaling syrup. She looked at her wrist. The scar was glowing —a faint, sickly blue luminescence that matched the sap of the crushed flowers.
She looked up.
The figure stood over her. Up close, the "hoodie" wasn't fabric. It was grey skin, folded and textured to mimic clothing, complete with a zipper made of bone ridges. The face remained a blur, but where the eyes should be, two hollow pits opened.
"Rory," it said, using her mother's voice now. Soft. Disappointed.
Aurora gripped the Heartstone Pendant. It was burning hot, searing her palm.
"Whatever you are," she hissed through gritted teeth, "you have no idea who I deal with."
She shoved the burning red stone toward the creature’s face.
The creature didn't recoil. It paused. The static over its face cleared for a microsecond, revealing a reflection. Not of Evan, or her mother. It was a reflection of Aurora, but her eyes were black pits, and her mouth was sewn shut with silver wire.
The reflection smiled, tearing the stitches.
The ground beneath Aurora vanished.
She didn't fall down. She fell *through *. The texture of the world dissolved. The cold air of Richmond Park was replaced by a crushing, silent void. She tumbled through layers of darkness, the scream trapped in her throat by the sudden lack of atmosphere.
Then, impact.
Hard wood. The smell of varnish and stale beer.
Aurora gasped, her lungs convulsing as they pulled in oxygen. She rolled onto her back, coughing violently.
She lay on a wooden floor. Above her wasn't the sky or the canopy of the Fae Grove. It was a ceiling fan, spinning lazily .
She pushed herself up on shaking arms. She recognized the room. It was the staff room of the Golden Empress. The familiar red lockers stood against the wall. The schedule whiteboard had Yu-Fei’s neat handwriting on it.
Safe. She must have hallucinated. Passed out in the park and dreamed the fall.
Aurora stood up, brushing the dirt from her jeans. Her legs wobbled. She reached for the door handle to go out into the restaurant.
She stopped.
The silence was total. No clatter of woks from the kitchen. No phones ringing.
She looked at the whiteboard again. The handwriting was Yu-Fei’s, but the words were wrong.
*DON'T TURN AROUND * was written in red marker, over and over, filling every inch of the white space.
The hair on Aurora's arms stood up. The air smelled of rotting fruit and copper.
*Click.*
From inside the locker behind her.