AI The air in Richmond Park after midnight held a damp, earthy chill that seeped through Rory’s jacket. The map on her phone, a screenshot sent from an encrypted number, glowed in her hand, its blue dot hovering over a patch of woodland just off the main path. Her reason was simple, almost stupidly so: a parcel to deliver. A small, velvet-wrapped box for a “Ms. Isolde,” pickup at the Golden Empress, delivery to these coordinates. Yu-Fei had just shrugged, her face unreadable . “Special client. Pays extra for night drops.”
But the moment she’d stepped off the gravel path and into the tree line, the wrongness began.
It was quiet. Not peaceful quiet. An oppressive , swallowing silence . The distant hum of London’s night traffic vanished, cut off as if by a wall. Her own footsteps on the fallen leaves sounded too loud, too crisp. The flashlight beam from her phone carved a shaky tunnel through the blackness, illuminating gnarled roots and the skeletal fingers of winter branches. The coordinates led her deeper, away from any recognizable landmark.
She found the standing stones without really looking for them. One moment it was just trees, the next, three massive, twisted columns of ancient oak formed a rough triangle ahead, their bark silvered by the weak moonlight filtering through the bare canopy. They looked less like trees and more like petrified giants, hunched and watching. This was the place. The Fae Grove, the map had labeled it. A name that had seemed whimsical in the warm light of the restaurant kitchen. Here, it felt like a warning.
Rory stopped at the edge of the clearing the stones guarded. A circle of grass, improbably green and soft-looking, lay within. Wildflowers she couldn’t name dotted the expanse, their petals closed for the night. Or were they? She could have sworn a cluster of tiny blue blossoms near her foot shuddered, then stilled, as if her light had disturbed them. Impossible. It was January.
“Hello?” Her voice was swallowed by the grove, leaving no echo . It fell dead at her feet. “Delivery for Isolde?”
No answer. Just that dense, listening silence .
She stepped between two of the oak stones. The air changed instantly. It grew warmer, carrying a heavy, floral perfume—honeysuckle and something darker, like damp roses. The cold from the park was gone . Behind her, the view of the path and the trees had vanished, replaced by a shifting, misty gloom . The standing stones now formed a perfect ring around her, enclosing the clearing completely . An hour inside can be minutes or days outside. The codex entry flickered in her mind. She pushed the thought away. Focus on the job. Drop the package. Leave.
A flat, moss-covered rock sat in the center of the clearing. The designated drop point, according to the instructions. Rory approached, her sneakers sinking slightly into the unnaturally lush grass. The parcel was in her backpack. She shrugged it off, unzipped the main compartment, and pulled out the small velvet box. As she did, the silver chain around her neck shifted. The Heartstone pendant slipped out from under her collar.
It was warm. Not from her skin. A distinct, pulsing warmth radiated from the deep crimson gemstone. It hadn’t done that since… she couldn’t even remember. Her hand went to it, fingers closing around the smooth stone. The faint inner glow was visible now, a deep ember-light within the gem. When near a Hel portal, the codex had said. She dropped her hand, her throat tight. Just a coincidence. A geological thing. Static.
She placed the velvet box on the mossy rock. The moment it left her fingers, a sound cracked the silence .
A twig snapping, to her left.
She spun, phone light slashing across the flowers. Nothing. Just the dark trunks of the oak stones and the deeper blackness between them. An animal. A deer. Richmond Park was full of them.
She took a step back toward the way she’d come. Another sound. Not a snap this time. A soft, sliding rustle, like something dragging through long grass. It came from her right now. The light caught a tremor in the foliage at the base of one stone. A cluster of ferns trembled .
“Is someone there?” Her voice was sharper now, laced with a fear she couldn’t suppress. “I’ve left the package. I’m going now.”
The rustling stopped. The pendant throbbed against her chest, a slow, rhythmic beat that matched the sudden hammering of her heart. She was being watched. The certainty of it crawled over her skin. It wasn’t a vague suspicion; it was a physical pressure, a weight in the air behind her eyes.
She turned fully, aiming the light at the gap between the stones where she’d entered. The mist there had thickened, coiling like smoke. The path was gone .
A whisper .
Not a word. Just a breath of sound, sibilant and dry, that seemed to come from everywhere at once. It brushed against her ear. Rory froze, her blood turning to ice. She didn’t dare move her head. Her eyes scanned the edges of her vision, the periphery where the light gave way to shadow.
At the far side of the clearing, something moved. Not in the light, but in the darkness just beyond it . A suggestion of a shape, tall and impossibly slender, shifting between two of the oak stones. It was there for a fraction of a second, a vertical smudge of deeper night, and then it was gone . Her light jerked toward the spot, revealing only undisturbed flowers.
It was playing with her.
The cool-headed, logical part of her mind, the part that had gotten her out of bad situations with Evan, was screaming . This was wrong. This was more than a wrong address. The parcel, the grove, the stones, the warmth of the pendant—it was a set-up. But for what?
Another whisper , closer. This time it held a faint, melodic lilt , but the notes were all wrong, stretched and thin. It came from directly above her.
She looked up.
The canopy was gone . In its place was a vast, starless expanse of deep violet sky, tinged with green at the horizons like a sickly dawn. No moon. Just that empty, colored void. And hanging from the branches of the oak stones—no, not branches, from the very air—were delicate, silvery strands. They glistened in her phone’s light, a complex , shifting web that hadn’t been there a moment ago.
A soft *plink *.
A drop of something dark and viscous landed on the mossy rock beside the velvet box. Then another on her shoe. She looked down. More droplets were falling , a slow, sporadic rain from the silvery threads above. They smelled of copper and damp soil.
Her breath hitched. She had to move. Now.
She lurched backward, away from the rock, toward what she hoped was the original entrance. The mist swirled before her, refusing to part. The pendant was burning now, a hot, urgent brand against her sternum. Its glow painted her throat crimson.
The dragging rustle came again, faster this time, a frenzied skittering through the grass that circled her. Left, then right, then behind. She whirled, light swinging wildly, catching fleeting impressions: a shadow that stretched too long, a ripple in the flowers where nothing stood, a flicker of something pale and pointed withdrawing into the dark.
“Show yourself!” she yelled, the anger born of pure terror. “Take your damn package and let me go!”
The whispering ceased. The grove fell utterly silent once more, but the silence now was a held breath, a poised tension . The droplets stopped falling. The silvery threads overhead seemed to tighten.
From the mist directly in front of her, a figure resolved .
It was tall, willowy, dressed in tatters of shadow and moss. Its face was long and pale, with eyes like chips of black flint that reflected no light. It didn’t walk. It seemed to unfold from the air itself, one long, thin limb after another, until it stood between her and the way out. Its head tilted, bird-like.
The creature’s mouth didn’t move, but the voice filled Rory’s head, dry as fallen leaves and cold as the grave . “You brought the tribute. Good. But the stone… the stone you wear is not for you to hold, little thief.”
Rory’s hand flew to the Heartstone. Its pulse was a frantic drumbeat. “It was given to me.”
“Given?” The voice held a sound like breaking glass. “Stolen from the dark. It calls. It calls, and they listen.”
A second shape detached itself from the gloom near the stones, then a third. They were similar, yet subtly different—one hunched, one with too many joints in its arms. They formed a loose circle around her, cutting off any retreat. Their black eyes were fixed on the pendant.
The first one took a gliding step forward. “The tribute is accepted. The vessel must remain.”
She understood then. The package wasn’t the delivery. She was. And the pendant was the bait.