AI Rory’s boots crunched through frost-stiff grass at the edge of Richmond Park, each step sending a thin, brittle sound into the trees. The city sat behind her like a held breath—distant tyres, a siren that never arrived, a smear of orange streetlight under low cloud. Ahead, the park went black, the trunks packed tight as rib bones.
Eva kept close, hands jammed into the pockets of her jacket, shoulders raised to her ears.
“You sure this isn’t just some weird bit of landscaping?” Eva’s voice came out flat, like she’d decided not to give the dark anything it could grab.
Rory slid her phone into her pocket without looking at it again. No signal. No bars. The screen had dimmed the moment they’d crossed the last lamp post.
“Landscaping doesn’t do that,” Rory muttered, and lifted the Heartstone pendant from under her jumper.
The gem sat against her palm like a living thing. Warm. Warmer than it had any right to be in this cold. A faint pulse beat into her skin—slow, steady, patient.
The path narrowed into deer track. Brambles snagged at Eva’s sleeve. Rory moved ahead, shoulder brushing wet leaves that threw off cold beads onto her neck. The pendant’s chain tugged, as if it wanted to lead.
A patch of darkness peeled itself away from the trunk of an oak and took shape beside Rory, long-limbed, taller than the hedges around them. Violet light glimmered where eyes might have been.
Eva jolted back, breath catching.
Rory didn’t flinch. Not this time. She kept her pace even.
“You promised you wouldn’t do the dramatic materialise thing,” Rory murmured.
Nyx’s silhouette shifted, edges blurring into smoke and pulling tight again, like a cloak in wind.
“Your friend’s heart sounds like a trapped bird,” their voice scraped past Rory’s ear, a whisper that belonged to draughts under doors.
Eva pressed her palm to her chest as if she could quiet it by force.
“Can it… hear that?”
Nyx’s head angled towards Eva. The violet glimmer held.
“Everything hears in places where the Veil thins.”
Rory’s stomach tightened. She kept the pendant in her fist and looked ahead, where the trees opened into a clearing that hadn’t been there a minute ago.
Ancient oak standing stones rose from the ground in a loose ring. Not neat, not arranged for tourists, but hunched and crooked, each one wrapped with pale lichen that looked like old frost . The stones stood taller than Rory, their tops jagged like broken teeth. A few had shallow cuts along their faces—marks that might have been runes or the scars of tools that had stopped working halfway through.
The air changed at the edge of the ring. It tasted like metal and crushed mint.
Rory slowed and lifted her free hand. A shimmer ran across the space between two stones—thin as soap film, catching no light until you stared straight at it and then it caught everything.
Eva leaned in, eyes narrowing.
“That’s… not fog.”
“It wasn’t fog,” Nyx breathed. Their outline softened, as if the shimmer pulled at them.
Rory swallowed and stepped closer. The pendant throbbed against her palm, heat blooming through her fingers, a warning and an invitation at once.
A figure stood on the far side of the ring as if she’d always been there. Silver hair fell straight down her back, bright even in the dark. Pale lavender eyes watched Rory without blinking. Her dress hung like mist caught on branches, the fabric shifting in colours that didn’t belong to winter.
Isolde Varga raised a hand. Her fingers looked too delicate to hold anything sharper than a teacup, yet moonsilver flashed between them—a slender dagger shaped like a leaf, its surface catching the faintest light and sending it back with a cold gleam.
Rory’s skin prickled. The blade’s presence cut through the night.
“You brought your shadow and your spark,” Isolde’s voice drifted over the stones. Not loud, not soft—present, like the ring itself spoke.
Eva stared.
“You’re… her?”
Isolde turned her head towards Eva with the calm of something that had watched centuries of people ask the same question.
“I was called that. Names break less than bones.”
Nyx’s shape leaned towards the shimmer. The edge of their form frayed where it touched, as if the boundary tasted them.
Isolde held the dagger out, hilt first, offering it across the ring to Rory.
“Cold iron hurts your kind, yes?” Rory’s eyes flicked to Nyx.
Nyx’s violet gaze stayed on the blade. Their outline pulled back from it, like a shadow retracting from flame.
Isolde’s lips curved. Not a smile. A notch of acknowledgement.
“This one belonged to a court that kept its promises sharp. Moonsilver. It cut through wards. It remembered demons.”
Rory reached for it. The hilt bit into her palm with cold that sank past skin and into bone. Her breath fogged.
Eva let out a thin noise.
“That’s not normal cold.”
Rory flexed her fingers around the grip. The blade felt balanced, too light, as if it wanted to move on its own.
“Is this a trade?” Rory asked, keeping her voice steady.
Isolde’s gaze drifted down to Rory’s fist still closed around the Heartstone pendant.
“It wasn’t purchased,” Isolde replied. “It was placed. Like bait.”
The pendant’s pulse doubled, then eased, like it had heard its own name.
Rory’s throat tightened.
“Then why hand me something that can cut wards?”
Isolde stepped closer to the shimmer, and Rory noticed the ground under her feet held no mark. Frost stayed smooth, undented.
“Because you were already walking,” Isolde answered. “Better shoes did not make the road kinder.”
Eva dragged in a breath.
“I don’t like this,” she muttered. “I don’t like any of this. Rory, we can go.”
Rory’s thumb traced the crescent scar on her left wrist out of habit, the old mark pale against her skin. Her other hand clenched around the pendant until the chain dug in.
“We came for answers,” Rory replied, and lifted her chin at Isolde. “You said you’d show us.”
Isolde’s eyes flicked to Nyx.
“And you brought a door that walked.”
Nyx’s silhouette stiffened.
“I was trapped,” their whisper sharpened . “Not built.”
Isolde tilted her head.
“All doors begin as walls.”
Rory stepped between them before the air could crack.
“Show us,” Rory repeated. “Or don’t. But stop speaking like you’re winding a clock.”
Isolde’s gaze held Rory for a beat, then she lifted her hand and placed her palm flat against the shimmer between the stones.
The Veil bent around her fingers. It didn’t tear. It didn’t ripple like water. It drew back like skin yielding to a blade. A slit opened, tall enough to walk through, thin enough to make Rory’s teeth ache.
Warm air rolled out, smelling of damp earth and flowers in full sun.
Eva blinked hard.
“It’s summer in there.”
Rory stared at the opening. The pendant burned now, a small coal in her fist.
“What happens to time?” Rory asked, and kept her feet planted outside.
Isolde’s eyes softened in a way that felt like pity and not comfort .
“An hour inside could be minutes outside,” Isolde replied. “Or days.”
Eva swore under her breath.
Nyx leaned towards the opening, the edges of their form smoothing as if the air inside welcomed them.
“This place tastes old,” they murmured. “Older than your city’s bones.”
Rory lifted the dagger slightly . The moonsilver caught the shimmer and threw back a faint glow, like moonlight trapped under ice.
She looked at Eva.
“Stay close. If we get turned around, grab my sleeve. Don’t let go.”
Eva’s jaw tightened.
“Don’t talk to me like I’m—” She cut herself off, took a step closer anyway. “Fine. Fine. I’m close. I’m practically inside your pocket.”
Rory stepped through first.
The Veil brushed her skin without touch. A pressure slid over her like a hand over wet paint, and for a heartbeat she felt every hair on her body stand up, each one its own antenna. Her stomach lurched like she’d missed a stair.
Then her boots sank into soft ground.
Not mud. Not grass. Moss thick as a mattress, springy underfoot, cool and damp through the soles. The air wrapped around her face with warmth that carried the scent of wildflowers and clean rain.
Behind her, Eva stumbled through with a sharp gasp.
“It’s—” Eva stopped and turned in a slow circle. “It’s bright.”
Rory turned too.
Light filtered down through branches that didn’t match the oaks outside. The trees rose tall and pale, bark smooth as bone, their leaves thin and translucent, catching the light and turning it green-blue. The canopy moved with no wind, a slow tide overhead. Between the trunks, flowers crowded the ground—bluebells beside roses, daisies beside blooms Rory couldn’t name, petals like curled glass and stamens that glowed faintly as if dusted with starlight.
The sound hit her next. Not birdsong. Not quite. A chiming threaded through the grove, like distant bells underwater, the notes bending as if they passed through different rooms.
Eva’s fingers tightened around Rory’s sleeve.
“Those flowers… they’re moving.”
Rory crouched and held the dagger away from her body, careful. A cluster of small violet blossoms leaned towards her breath. Not with wind. With attention. Their petals quivered , then settled, then leaned again, like something sniffed.
Nyx drifted through the opening behind them, their outline deepening in the grove’s light, shadow becoming richer, more solid.
Their violet gaze travelled over the trees.
“Living light,” they whispered. “It had weight .”
Isolde stepped through last and the slit in the Veil closed behind her, the shimmer snapping back into seamless air between stones. The clearing outside vanished, replaced by more grove—more pale trunks, more flowers, more wrong, beautiful abundance.
Eva spun and slapped her palm against empty air.
“No, no. Open it again.”
Isolde watched Eva’s hand press and press, leaving no mark.
“Doors did not obey panic,” Isolde replied.
Eva’s throat bobbed.
“Days,” she hissed. “You said days.”
Rory stood and turned, bringing the pendant up. The Heartstone glowed faintly from within, deep crimson like a drop of blood held to the sun. Its warmth pulsed against her skin, but the beat had changed—less warning, more… eager.
Rory moved deeper, tugging Eva with her. The moss gave without tearing. The flowers shifted aside from her boots, not crushed, not flattened, but making space as if they recognised a right of way .
“Rory,” Eva’s voice came thin, “tell me you’re seeing that.”
Rory followed Eva’s stare.
Between two pale trees, something hung in the air : a thread of water, suspended without falling, each droplet stretched into a bead that caught the grove’s green light. The strand twisted slowly , forming a loose spiral. No source. No sound of splash. It hovered like a question mark.
Nyx drifted close. Their shadow-hand reached out and stopped short of touching it.
“That wasn’t water,” they murmured. “That was time that forgot to run.”
Isolde’s bare feet moved over moss without bend or mark.
“Time did not forget,” she replied. “Time feasted.”
Rory’s grip tightened on the dagger.
“What does that mean?” She stepped closer to the spiral, and the pendant throbbed hot enough to sting. “Is this place feeding on us?”
Isolde’s lavender eyes flicked to Rory’s pendant, then to the trees.
“Everything fed,” she replied. “Everything was fed upon.”
Eva let out a harsh laugh that cracked at the end.
“That’s not an answer. That’s a riddle wrapped in—”
A sound cut through her words. Not a roar. Not a growl. A deep, slow exhale that rolled between the trees, like something huge breathing through a flute.
The flowers around Rory tilted away from the sound. The chiming in the air went thin, notes stretching out, then snapping back.
Nyx’s silhouette pulled taller, edges sharpening.
“Something noticed,” they whispered.
Rory lifted the moonsilver blade until it sat between her and the darkening line of trees ahead. The metal held its cold, a hard point in the warm grove. The pendant’s heat beat against her palm like a second heart.
Eva swallowed, still clutching Rory’s sleeve.
“Tell me that’s just… the grove. Tell me it breathes.”
Rory kept her eyes forward. Pale trunks stood in neat spacing until, deeper in, they began to lean closer together, their smooth bark marked with thin black lines that looked like scratches made by careful claws.
“It breathed,” Isolde murmured, gaze fixed ahead . “But not for air.”
Rory took one step. Then another. The moss gave under her boots with a faint sigh. The suspended spiral of “water” behind them shivered, and a droplet slid sideways, moving like a bead on invisible wire .
Nyx moved to Rory’s left, their shadow stretching across the moss, darker than any natural shade in this bright place.
“Your pendant,” they whispered. “It called to something.”
Rory glanced down. The Heartstone’s glow had strengthened, the crimson deepening as if it drank the grove’s light. The pulse ran quicker.
Isolde’s silver hair swayed though the air stayed still.
“Bait,” she murmured again, and looked at Rory like she watched a match hover over dry straw.
Rory pushed Eva behind her with an elbow and spoke without turning.
“Stay on me.”
Eva’s grip tightened until Rory’s sleeve bunched.
“Not letting go.”
Rory stepped into the denser stand of trees, the air cooling by degrees with each pace. The chiming faded, replaced by a low hum that felt more than it sounded. The flowers thinned. In their place, small stones appeared under the moss, smooth and pale, arranged in a line that curved deeper into the grove .
Rory followed the line, blade up, pendant burning in her fist, while the deep exhale came again—closer this time—and the pale trunks ahead pressed together like a crowd making room for something that wanted to pass.