Run: 2026-02-19-01KHTYKVXZ0WC59QH4VZPZXVNF

The ancient oaks loomed before them, their trunks twisted into impossible spirals that hurt to look at directly. Rory touched the Heartstone pendant beneath her shirt, its warmth pulsing against her chest like a second heartbeat. "This is it?" She glanced at Isolde, who stood beside her with that unsettling stillness the Half-Fae possessed. No footprints marked where she'd walked through the damp leaves. "The Grove reveals itself only when it chooses." Isolde's pale lavender eyes reflected something Rory couldn't name. "Step between the third and seventh oak when the wind stills." Nyx's form rippled at the edge of Rory's vision, their shadow-body flowing like smoke. "I sense... displacement. The Veil is thin here." "Thin?" Rory squinted at the space between the trees. The air shimmered, a heat-mirage effect despite the October chill. "Is that safe?" "Safety is an illusion mortals cling to." Isolde moved forward, her silver hair catching light that didn't exist in the overcast sky. "The Grove has accepted your presence. That is enough." The wind died. Complete stillness fell over Richmond Park, unnatural in its totality. Even the distant traffic sounds vanished. Rory's breath caught as the space between the oaks shifted, revealing a narrow passage that hadn't existed seconds before. "After you, then." She tried for levity, but her voice came out strained. Isolde stepped through first, disappearing as if walking through a curtain. Nyx followed, their form stretching and distorting as they passed the threshold. Rory hesitated, fingers closing around the pendant. The passage pulled at her. Not physically, but something deeper. She took a breath and walked forward. The world tilted. Colors blazed across her vision—hues that had no names, that shouldn't exist. The ground beneath her feet was soft moss, but also crystal, but also water. Her mind struggled to process the contradictions. She stumbled, catching herself against what might have been a tree or a pillar of starlight. "Steady." Nyx's whisper came from everywhere and nowhere. "Your mortal senses are adjusting." Rory blinked hard, and the world settled into something her brain could parse. They stood in a circular clearing perhaps fifty feet across. Wildflowers carpeted the ground in impossible abundance—spring daffodils blooming beside autumn asters, summer roses tangled with winter hellebores. The flowers swayed without wind, turning their faces to track movement like curious animals. Above, the sky was wrong. Instead of grey October clouds, aurora-like ribbons of color danced across a twilight that belonged to no earthly hour. The light they cast changed constantly—now silver, now gold, now shades that made her teeth ache. "Welcome to my Grove." Isolde stood at the clearing's center beside a pool of water so still it might have been polished obsidian. "Time moves as it wills here. We may speak without interruption." Rory took a tentative step forward. The moss beneath her feet felt too soft, too warm. A cluster of bluebells chimed as she passed, actually chimed, like tiny silver bells. She jerked back. "The flowers here remember their Fae origins." Isolde's lips curved in what might have been amusement. "They mean no harm. Merely curious about visitors." "Right. Curious flowers." Rory forced herself to move deeper into the clearing. The Heartstone's warmth intensified, spreading through her chest. "This place feels..." "Alive." Nyx's form solidified as they spoke, taking on sharper definition in the strange light. "Not merely inhabited. The Grove itself is aware." A sound like distant music drifted through the air—pipes or flutes, but played in harmonies that human instruments couldn't achieve. Rory's feet wanted to move to the rhythm. She planted them firmly, remembering Eva's warnings about Fae music. "You're wise to resist." Isolde approached the pool, her reflection wavering in ways that defied physics. "The Grove tests all who enter. It seeks to know your heart." "My heart's my own, thanks." But even as Rory spoke, she felt the Grove's attention like fingers trailing across her thoughts. Not invasive, exactly. More like being studied by something vast and patient. The clearing's edge drew her attention. Beyond the circle of strange light, shadows pressed close. Not darkness—something denser. The spaces between spaces that Nyx had mentioned. Trees grew there, but their shapes twisted into geometries that made her stomach lurch. "Don't stare too long into the between-spaces." Isolde's warning came soft. "mortal minds can lose themselves trying to understand what lies there." Rory turned away, focusing instead on the pool. Its surface reflected not the dancing sky above, but stars. Thousands of them, arranged in no constellation she recognized. As she watched, they moved, swirling into new patterns like living things. "The pool shows truth." Isolde knelt at its edge, careful not to disturb the water. "Past, present, future—all are one here. The Grove exists outside linear time." "That's why an hour here—" "Can be minutes or days in your world, yes." Isolde's reflection in the star-filled water looked younger, older, different. All versions at once. "The Grove chooses what time means within its borders." A flutter of movement caught Rory's eye. A butterfly landed on a nearby rose, but its wings were made of stained glass, throwing prismatic patterns across the petals. It regarded her with eyes too intelligent for an insect before lifting away on impossible wings. "Everything here is between." Nyx moved closer to the pool, their shadow-form reflecting as solid darkness against the stars. "Not quite Fae, not quite mortal. The Grove is a bridge." "A bridge to what?" But even as Rory asked, she felt the answer pressing against her awareness. The Grove connected everything—Earth, Fae, perhaps even the demon realms. A nexus point where all worlds touched. The music grew louder, more insistent. Rory found herself humming along before catching herself. The melody was inside her now, weaving through her thoughts. Beautiful. Terrible. Both. "The Grove is singing your story." Isolde's voice carried harmonics that hadn't been there before. "It knows why you've come, even if you don't yet understand yourself." Water that wasn't water lapped at the pool's edges despite its stillness. The flowers turned their faces toward Rory in unison, a garden of witnesses. The very air tasted of honey and metal and starlight. "I feel..." Rory paused, trying to articulate the sensation. Like standing at the edge of a cliff. Like the moment before lightning strikes. Like coming home to a place she'd never been. "You feel the possibilities." Isolde rose, and for a moment her form flickered—showing wings, showing armor, showing nothing at all. "The Grove exists in all states simultaneously. While you're here, so do you." The Heartstone burned against Rory's skin now, not painful but urgent. The pendant wanted something from this place. Or perhaps the Grove wanted something from it. The two powers circled each other like wary animals. "Your pendant bears the touch of Dymas." Isolde's eyes fixed on where the Heartstone rested beneath Rory's shirt. "Demon-craft and Fae magic rarely coexist peacefully. The Grove is... curious about this contradiction." Around them, the impossible flowers began to glow. Soft at first, then brighter, until the clearing blazed with bioluminescent light. Colors bled into each other, creating new spectrums. Rory's shadow multiplied, cast in directions that gravity shouldn't allow. "Is it safe to be here?" She had to raise her voice over the singing that wasn't quite music, wasn't quite wind. "Safe is not a word that applies to the Grove." Isolde's form was becoming less solid, more part of the strange light. "But you are protected. The Grove has accepted you as guest, not prey." The distinction mattered. Rory could feel the power here, old and wild and barely contained. This place could unmake her, scatter her across realities like dandelion seeds. But it chose not to. For now. "Show her." Nyx's voice carried urgency. "The Grove's patience is not infinite." Isolde nodded, gesturing to the pool. The star-filled water swirled, forming patterns that almost made sense. Almost. Rory leaned closer, drawn by a compulsion she couldn't name. In the depths, images formed. London burning with cold fire. Shadows moving through the streets with purpose. A figure in a crown of ice and starlight. The Heartstone, blazing like a small sun. Her own face, but wrong—eyes that held depths no human eyes should have. "What is this?" "Possibility." Isolde's hand hovered over the water, not quite touching. "The Grove shows what might be, not what must be. Your choices matter, Aurora Carter. More than you know." The images shifted. Now she saw the Veil itself, that barrier between worlds. It writhed like a living thing, shot through with cracks of brilliant light. Things pressed against it from the other side. Hungry things. Patient things. "The solstice approaches." Isolde's voice came from very far away. "The Veil weakens. What has been separated seeks reunification."