Run: 2026-02-19-01KHTYNWGQKNHMW102FS5BC4Q6

The grove should not have been this quiet. Rory stood at the boundary where ancient oaks twisted into the semblance of standing stones, their bark ridged and scarred like old monuments. Past midnight, and Richmond Park pressed against her back—all that ordinary darkness she'd left behind. Before her, wildflowers bloomed impossible in December, their petals luminous in moonlight that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once. She'd come because Isolde had asked. A simple message, slipped under her door at the flat: *Meet me at the grove. Midnight. Come alone.* The Heartstone pendant pulsed warm against her sternum, but wrong. Not the steady heat that signaled a Hel portal. This was irregular. Stuttering, like a failing heartbeat. Rory stepped through the oak threshold. The city sounds cut off mid-breath. No distant traffic hum, no wind through branches. Just silence thick enough to chew. Her trainers made no sound on the moss-covered ground. She looked down, watching her own feet sink slightly into the carpet of green, but the impact produced nothing. Not even the whisper of disturbed grass. She stomped deliberately. Nothing. "Isolde?" Her voice fell dead two feet from her mouth, swallowed by the grove itself. The clearing spread before her in a rough circle, perhaps fifty feet across. Wildflowers—she couldn't name half of them—grew in spiraling patterns that hurt to follow, drawing the eye inward toward the grove's heart where moonlight pooled like spilled mercury. The oak boundary loomed at the edges, but when she tried to count the trees, the number kept shifting. Seven. Nine. Twelve. Seven again. Rory moved toward the centre, one hand drifting to the pendant. The silver chain had gone cold against her skin, though the stone itself continued that stuttering pulse. Warm. Cold. Warm. Cold. Something flickered at the corner of her vision. She spun. Nothing but oaks and flowers and that sourceless moonlight. The pendant lurched hot, then icy. "This is bollocks," she muttered, but again her words died before they could echo. The grove drank them down. She'd been in the Fae Grove before. Three times, always with Isolde present to guide her through whatever strange business the woman conducted between realms. Time moved differently here, yes—she knew that. But it had never felt hostile. Never felt like the air itself was watching. Another flicker. This time to her right, near one of the oaks that may or may not have been there moments ago. Rory didn't turn. Instead she watched from the edge of her peripheral vision, keeping her head still. Movement thrived in the periphery, lived in the spaces where direct attention couldn't reach. A shape detached from the oak. Tall. Too tall. It moved wrong, joints bending in directions that made her hindbrain scream. But when she snapped her head around, there was only tree trunk and shadow and those impossible flowers. Her breath came faster now, misting in air that hadn't been cold a minute ago. The pendant burned, then froze, then burned. The rhythm accelerated. "Isolde, if this is some kind of test—" Nothing. Not even the dead sound of her own voice this time. Her words simply never were. Footsteps. Behind her. No—to her left. No. All around, circling. Soft footfalls in the soundless moss, which should have been impossible. Rory turned in place, scanning the oak boundary. The trees had multiplied. Dozens now, pressing closer. The clearing had shrunk to thirty feet across. Twenty. The pendant went supernova-hot. She yanked it away from her skin, holding it by the chain. The crimson stone's inner glow had gone violent, pulsing so fast it appeared almost solid. In its light, she saw them. Figures. Standing between every oak. Still as the trees themselves, watching. She couldn't make out features—they seemed to be made of the same not-quite-moonlight that filled the grove. But she could feel their attention like pressure against her skull. Rory's cool-headed analysis kicked in, overriding the panic. She catalogued: humanoid shapes, roughly her height. Seven of them. No—nine. They multiplied when she wasn't looking directly at them. They didn't breathe. The flowers near their feet had stopped glowing. The clearing was fifteen feet across now. She backed toward the centre, that pool of mercury-moonlight. The figures didn't move, but the oaks did, branches creaking in that absolute silence, reaching. The wrongness of it—sound swallowed but visual movement allowed—made her stomach clench. The pendant burned so hot the chain cut into her palm. One of the figures tilted its head. The motion was smooth, too smooth, like watching something move underwater. Then another mimicked it. Then all of them, a wave of synchronized wrongness rippling through the grove. Ten feet across. The oaks' lower branches brushed the top of her head. Rory spun, looking for the way she'd entered. The boundary had sealed. Unbroken ring of ancient wood and watching figures and flowers that had gone dark as graves. The pendant's pulse matched her racing heart now. In its crimson light, she saw the figures take a step forward. Perfectly synchronized. Their feet made those impossible footsteps in the silent moss. Another step. The clearing was eight feet across. She could smell the oak now, that deep wood scent, but wrong—like furniture polish and formaldehyde. The figures raised their arms in unison. Slowly. Reaching. Six feet. Rory clutched the pendant, its heat the only real thing in this place. Think. Out-of-the-box. What did she know? The grove existed between realms. Time moved differently. Isolde had called her here. But had she? That message, slipped under her door—had she actually checked who sent it? Four feet. The branches tangled overhead, weaving a cage. The figures stepped again. Close enough now that she should see faces in that not-light. But there was nothing. Blank voids where features should be. Absences shaped like people. The pendant went arctic cold. Everything stopped. The figures froze mid-reach. The oaks halted their creeping advance. Even the air seemed to crystallize, though Rory could still move, still breathe, still feel her pulse hammering against her ribs. In that crystallized moment, she heard it. The first real sound since she'd entered the grove. Breathing. Not hers. Not the figures'—they had no breath to give. Something else. Something that had been here all along, beneath the silence, beneath the wrongness. Breathing. Slow and steady and patient. And very, very close.