AI The air in the grove smelled of damp earth and something sweet, like crushed berries and cold stone. Rory had never been to Richmond Park before, and following Isolde’s whispered directions through the mist had felt like sleepwalking . One moment she was on a muddy footpath, the next she was stepping between two moss-covered oak trunks that hadn’t been there a second ago.
Nyx flowed beside her, a solid silhouette one moment, a wisp of darkness slipping through tree-shadows the next. “The boundary is old,” their voice whispered, carried on a breeze that didn’t touch the leaves. “Older than the city. Older than me.”
“That’s comforting ,” Rory muttered, her hand going to the Heartstone pendant beneath her jacket. It was warm, a steady pulse against her skin.
The trees opened into a clearing. It wasn’t large, but it felt endless. Wildflowers in impossible colours—deep indigo, vibrant silver, a red that seemed to swallow the light—bloomed in chaotic profusion across the soft grass . In the centre stood a ring of ancient oaks, their trunks wider than cars, arranged with deliberate, geometric precision. They were the standing stones Isolde had mentioned, but living, breathing. The light here was wrong. It was the gold-tinged grey of a London twilight, yet the sky above was a clear, deep periwinkle, speckled with stars that were too bright, too close. No sun was visible.
“Time moves differently here,” Nyx observed, their violet gaze scanning the treeline. “Can you feel it? The air is… thick with it.”
Rory could. It was a pressure in her ears, a slight resistance against her skin as she took a step forward. Her feet sank into the mossy turf without a sound. She looked back. Her footprints were there, clear in the damp earth. She remembered Isolde left none. A shiver, unrelated to the cool air, traced her spine.
“She said to wait at the stones,” Rory said, more to hear her own voice than anything.
“She said many things. Most were puzzles.” Nyx glided forward, their form becoming more solid as they entered the ring of oaks. They reached out a hand of condensed shadow, but did not touch the bark. “The energy is concentrated here. A focal point.”
Rory followed, the sense of otherness deepening. The sound of the city was gone . Not just muted, but erased . In its place was a low hum, a vibration she felt in her teeth rather than heard. It was joined by the gentle chime of what sounded like glass wind chimes, though there was no wind. She traced the sound to clusters of crystal -like flowers that trembled on their own.
“Look at this,” she breathed, crouching down .
A stream cut through the clearing, its water so clear it was nearly invisible save for the distortion of the pebbles beneath. But the pebbles themselves glowed with a soft, internal light—pale greens and blues. She dipped her fingers in. The water was bitingly cold, colder than any winter stream, and it left a faint, shimmering residue on her skin that evaporated after a second.
“Don’t drink it,” Nyx whispered, suddenly right beside her. “Fae waters have memories. You might drown in one you didn’t live.”
Rory pulled her hand back, wiping it on her jeans. “Right. Noted.”
She stood and moved further into the grove, towards the far side where the flowers grew taller, forming a kind of natural archway. The humming grew louder. As she passed under the arch, woven from vines heavy with luminescent white berries, the atmosphere shifted again. The air grew warmer, carrying a scent like ozone after a lightning strike.
The ground opened up into a smaller, secondary hollow. And here, the wonder curdled into unease.
In the centre of the hollow was a pool, not of water, but of what looked like liquid mercury . Its surface was perfectly still, mirror-flat, reflecting the strange starry sky above. But the reflection was wrong. The stars in the pool were arranged in unfamiliar constellations, and they swirled with a lazy, deliberate motion. Around the pool’s edge, growing directly from the silvery soil, were fungi. They were tall, slender stalks with caps that pulsed gently with a bioluminescent purple light. Each pulse sent a corresponding ripple across the pool’s surface.
“A viewing pool,” Nyx said, their voice hushed . “A scrying mirror, tied to the Veil itself. This is a rift point. A thin place.”
Rory’s pendant was no longer just warm. It throbbed against her chest, a steady, insistent beat that matched the pulsing fungi. She pulled it out, letting the deep crimson gemstone rest on her palm. Its inner glow had intensified, casting a bloody light on her fingers. “It’s reacting.”
“It was forged in Hel. It senses its own kind of magic.” Nyx drifted to the edge of the pool, their form blurring at the edges as they peered into the shifting silver. “This place is a window. Or a door. Left deliberately open.”
“By Isolde?”
“By those who came long before her. The Fae do not build doors like mortals do. They cultivate them. They grow them.”
A sound echoed through the hollow—a melodic, discordant note like a plucked string on a broken instrument. It came from the pool. Rory watched, frozen, as the mercury-like substance in the centre began to swirl, not just on the surface, but churning downwards as if draining through an invisible hole . In the vortex, images flickered . A marketplace under an amber sky, crowded with figures that were too tall, too thin. The glimpse of a sprawling vineyard heavy with black fruit. A grand hall where a feast was in progress, the attendees laughing with mouths that held too many teeth.
Dymas. It had to be.
The vision lasted only a heartbeat before the pool smoothed over again, once more a perfect , disturbing mirror.
“We should not linger,” Nyx said, their usual whisper tense . “This is not a place for casual observation. It observes back.”
Rory agreed, but her feet felt rooted. The alien beauty of the grove was now undercut by a profound sense of exposure. The flowers, the crystals, the silent trees—they all felt like eyes . The wonder of the glowing stream and the chiming flowers was now inextricably linked to the unease of the scrying pool. This was a place of power, not peace. A crossroads.
She turned from the pool, forcing herself to walk back towards the main clearing. As she passed under the berry-vine archway, the temperature dropped back to the cool, neutral state of the grove. The humming receded to its background level.
Isolde was waiting for them by the great oak stones. She hadn’t been there a moment before. The Half-Fae seer stood perfectly still, her silver hair a waterfall in the non-existent breeze, her lavender eyes fixed on Rory. She left no imprint in the moss at her feet.
“You saw the pool,” Isolde said. It wasn’t a question.
“We did,” Rory replied, her voice sounding too loud in the quiet .
“A door must have a key. A window, a latch.” Isolde’s gaze drifted to the Heartstone pendant, still glowing faintly in Rory’s hand. “Or a beacon .”
Rory quickly tucked the pendant back under her shirt. The warmth was a comfort and a threat. “What does that mean?”
Isolde smiled, an expression that held no warmth . “A light in the dark can guide a friend home. It can also draw the hungry to the feast.” She stepped forward, and from within the folds of her simple dress, she produced a long, slender object wrapped in grey cloth. “You walked the between-place. You looked into the deep water and did not jump. A gift is owed.”
She offered the bundle. Rory took it, the cloth cool and smooth like silk . Unwrapping it, she caught her breath.
The blade within was leaf-shaped, forged from a metal that looked like captured moonlight . Moonsilver. It was cold to the touch, so cold it almost burned, and along its length ran a tracery of fine, elegant script that glowed with a soft blue-white luminescence. It felt light as a feather, balanced perfectly in her hand.
“A Fae-forged blade,” Isolde said. “It knows the taste of demon-essence. It can cut what other steel cannot. Wards, bonds, lies.” Her pale eyes met Rory’s. “Keep it close. The path ahead is not paved with petals.”
Nyx observed the exchange, their violet eyes narrowed . “A generous gift, Seer. What is the price?”
“All gifts have a price,” Isolde acknowledged, her gaze drifting back to the archway leading to the hollow. “The price is the path itself. The seeing is done. The walking begins.” She took a step back, and the shadows of the great oaks seemed to reach for her, weaving around her form. “The grove remembers you now, Aurora Carter. It will know your steps when you return. And you will return. The door does not close for those who hold the key.”
Before Rory could ask another question, Isolde faded into the dappled light and shadow, becoming one with the grove itself. She was simply gone.
The strange, starry sky above the clearing began to pale, shifting to the familiar muted grey of a London afternoon. The chiming of the crystal flowers ceased. The heavy, timeless feeling in the air lifted.
Rory looked down at the blade in her hand, then at the silent, watching trees. The sense of wonder was gone , replaced by a cold, hard certainty. They had been tourists in a sacred, dangerous place. They had poked at something ancient and vast. And something had, in turn, taken notice.
“We should go,” she said, her voice firm . She slid the cold dagger into her belt, the weight of it foreign and reassuring.
Nyx simply nodded, their form dissolving into the lengthening shadows of the oak stones as they made their way back to the boundary, to the world where time moved in a single, relentless line. The grove, and the silver pool within it, watched them leave.