Run: 2026-02-20-01KHY8CNZB9C9H8M41FFFE1T27

Rory slipped through the gap between two gnarled oak standing stones, her scuffed delivery boots crunching over a carpet of clover and poppies that shouldn’t bloom in London’s mid-January frost. She’d fled her flat above Silas’ bar an hour prior, the Heartstone Pendant’s faint crimson glow burning through the thin cotton of her Golden Empress delivery uniform shirt, its silver chain digging into her collarbone with every hurried step. The note tucked in her jacket pocket—scrawled in ink that shifted from black to green when she blinked—had led her here: Richmond Park’s hidden Fae Grove, the only place her unknown benefactor had named as a reference for the pendant’s erratic pulses. She’d grabbed the note after her last delivery, when an old woman in a frayed wool shawl had stared at the pendant peeking out of her shirt and mumbled, “The Grove calls for the stone-bearer,” before slamming her door without taking her order of sweet and sour pork. She’d wiped the oozing sauce from the doorstep with a napkin, her face burning with the same embarrassment she’d felt when Evan had yelled at her for misplacing his keys, and driven off, the note crinkling in her pocket. She fidgeted with the small crescent scar on her left wrist, the old childhood accident’s memento catching the faint moonlight that filtered through the Grove’s canopy, and scanned the clearing. No distant wail of police sirens. No hoot of an owl. No faint rumble of traffic from the park’s perimeter. The Grove swallowed sound whole. She pressed a hand to the pendant under her shirt, its warmth flaring until she flinched. "Whoever left the note—show yourself." Her gaze darted to the nearest standing stone, its bark grooved with faint, unrecognizable runes she hadn’t spotted on her first glance. She’d studied the Grove’s lore during her Pre-Law lulls in Cardiff, had laughed off Eva’s warnings about Fae-touched pockets of Earth as childhood fantasy—until the pendant had started pulsing so fiercely during that last delivery that she’d dropped the styrofoam container. She’d read that an hour inside the Grove could stretch to a day outside; she’d already missed her next shift, Yu-Fei would be furious, but that was the least of her worries. A wet rustle snaked through the wildflower beds to her left. She spun, her jacket flapping around her hips, but saw only a cluster of daisies bending as if pushed by a wind that didn’t stir her hair. "The pendant’s been screaming since dawn. I didn’t come here to play games with Fae tricks." She unzipped her jacket, yanking the pendant from under her shirt. Its crimson gem—roughly the size of her thumbnail—glowed brighter now, its pulse matching the thud of her heart, and the warmth seeped into her palm until she had to curl her fingers to keep from dropping it. The scar on her wrist tingled again, and she brushed her thumb over it, the rough skin a reminder of the day she’d fallen from her father’s bicycle in Cardiff’s city center, of her mother’s frantic shouts as she’d wrapped the wound in a linen handkerchief stained with her father’s barrister ink. Another sound cut through the silence: a high, thin whine, like a child’s wind-up toy stretched too tight. It wove through the Grove’s canopy, fading before she could pinpoint its source. She stepped toward the daisy cluster, her boots sinking into the soft earth more than they should have, and knelt. The daisies’ petals were sticky, coated in a clear substance that glistened like sap but smelled of iron—same as the blood she’d spilled when Evan had grabbed her wrist too hard during a fight. She pulled her hand back, her stomach twisting. "I don’t have time for this. Silas will notice I’m gone soon—he’s got a habit of checking the flat’s fire escape when I’m out late, muttering about how I’ll get mugged by park vagrants." A flash of movement caught her peripheral vision: a shadow stretching from the farthest standing stone, its length doubling in a heartbeat before vanishing. She stood, her knees cracking, and scanned the clearing again, the pendant’s glow illuminating more wildflowers—tulips, sunflowers, lilacs—all blooming in chaotic profusion, their scents mixing into a cloying cloud that made her throat tight. She’d never been prone to panic, had stared down Evan’s raised fist without flinching, but now a cold thread of unease coiled in her stomach, tight enough to make her breath catch. She pulled out her phone, its screen flickering before dying completely. She’d charged it fully before leaving the flat; the Grove’s time distortion must have stripped its battery in seconds. "Time’s not just different here—it’s hungry." She turned back to the standing stones, her hand hovering over the runes on the nearest one. The bark was warm, almost hot, and the runes shifted again, this time forming a single word: Hel. She’d read about Hel portals in the benefactor’s scattered notes, knew the pendant’s pulses signaled their proximity, but she’d never expected to find one hidden in a London park, tucked between oak stones and winter-blooming wildflowers. The wet rustle returned, closer this time, and she spun, her jacket catching on a wildflower stem that snapped with a sharp crack. Nothing stood behind her, but the earth at her feet was dotted with small, circular indentations—like the prints of a bare foot with too many toes, each pad coated in that same iron-scented sap. "I can see your tracks. You’re not Fae—Fae leave no marks in their own groves. They’re too busy preening over their tricks to care about leaving evidence." She stepped over the indentations, her boots crunching on a patch of sunflower heads that had wilted and turned to dust in the time it took her to blink. The pendant’s warmth flared again, and she pressed it to her scar, the heat seeping into the old wound until she gasped. The high whine returned, louder now, and it was joined by a rhythmic tapping—soft, wet, like a finger drumming on a waterlogged log. She realized the tapping matched the thud of her heart, speeding up when she breathed faster, slowing when she forced her breaths to even out. She’d learned that trick with Evan—controlling her breathing to keep him from seeing her fear. "You’re feeding off my pulse. That’s why the pendant’s glowing—you’re drawing energy from the same source, leeching off whatever’s making it pulse." She clutched the pendant tighter, her knuckles white, and stepped toward the center of the clearing. A cluster of poppies bent without wind, their petals opening to reveal tiny, black eyes that blinked once before closing. She flinched, her left wrist slamming into a standing stone, the scar splitting open a tiny crack, a drop of blood falling to the earth. The tapping stopped. The rustle stopped. The whine stopped. She stared at the drop of blood, which soaked into the earth and vanished, leaving a small, glowing crimson patch that matched the pendant’s color. The patch pulsed once, in time with the pendant’s now-faint thud. "My scar’s blood—you wanted that. You’ve been baiting me to break the old wound open, to feed whatever’s hiding under this earth." She knelt again, her fingers brushing the glowing patch. The earth beneath her fingers shifted, and a faint, guttural murmur rose from the ground—too low to make out words, but thick with malice, like the sound Evan had made when he’d realized she was leaving him. She pulled her hand back, her skin crawling, and stood, the pendant’s glow dimming for the first time since she’d entered the Grove. Another flash of movement caught her peripheral vision: a figure with too-long limbs, its body covered in wildflower petals, stepping behind a standing stone. She didn’t see its face, but she saw the glint of a silver chain around its neck—identical to the pendant’s chain, the same thin links that had dug into her collarbone during her hurried drive to the park. "You have one too. You’re the benefactor—you sent the note to draw me here, to feed off my scar’s blood and my pulse, to wake whatever’s in that Hel portal." She stepped toward the standing stone, her boots crunching over the dusted sunflower heads. The Grove’s silence returned, heavy and oppressive, and she realized she couldn’t hear her own heartbeat anymore. The pendant’s warmth was gone, its crimson glow fading to a faint spark. She’d relied on that glow to guide her, to warn her—now she was blind to whatever was hiding in the Grove’s shadows. She reached the standing stone, her hand hovering over its bark. The runes shifted again, this time forming a question: Stay? She hesitated, her gaze darting to the spot where the figure had vanished. The wildflowers around her began to wilt, one by one, their scents fading until the Grove smelled of nothing but damp earth and iron. She thought of Silas’ bar, of Yu-Fei’s sweet and sour pork, of Eva’s late-night calls checking in on her—all the small, safe things she’d built for herself after fleeing Evan. She thought of the scar on her wrist, of the pendant’s faint spark, of the figure with the matching chain. "Answer my questions first. Why did you send the note? What is the pendant for? What do you want with a Hel portal in a London park?" Her voice echoed through the clearing, bouncing off the standing stones until it faded into the silence. She waited, her hand still hovering over the runes, the scar on her wrist throbbing with a cold pain that had nothing to do with the old wound. The wildflowers at her feet turned to dust, their stems crumbling into the earth, and the glowing crimson patch vanished, leaving no trace of its existence. A faint, wet rustle started up again, this time right at her heel.