Run: 2026-02-20-01KHY9WWTQPA0K0EB8CNWNEZHB

Rory’s last delivery bag thudded against the counter of the Golden Empress at 10:17 PM, soy sauce seeping through a torn corner to stain the cuff of her black wool coat. Yu-Fei Cheung looked up from wiping down the wok, her brow furrowed. “You’re distracted again,” she said, her English thick with Cantonese accent. Rory plucked the Heartstone Pendant from beneath her shirt, its silver chain digging faintly into her collarbone, and pressed the thumbnail-sized crimson gem to her left wrist—where the crescent scar from her childhood tree fall still caught the neon sign’s flicker. “Just a long day,” she lied, her cool-headed tone hiding the way her fingers trembled. The pendant pulsed, warm as a living thing, fiercer than it had all week. For three nights, she’d tracked its thrumming to the edge of Richmond Park; tonight, she’d stop guessing. She pulled her straight shoulder-length black hair into a loose ponytail, bright blue eyes scanning the empty London street for any sign of Evan—though he’d been gone since she fled Cardiff, the ghost of his hand on her arm still made her jolt at sudden shadows. The walk to Richmond Park took 22 minutes, or so her phone said; by the time she ducked through the iron gate, the wind had picked up, whipping snowflakes into her eyes and muffling the distant hum of traffic. She’d read old forum posts about a hidden clearing in the park, marked by oak standing stones, where wildflowers bloomed out of season—posts that had made her snort until the pendant’s pulse had led her here. The first oak stone loomed ahead, gnarled and split at the top, its bark so thick it looked like petrified skin. She ran a hand over it, her fingers catching on a splinter and a faint carving she’d missed at first—twisted runes that looked like the ones her Welsh mother had drawn in the margins of her poetry books. She knelt, brushing snow off the stone, and froze. Beneath the snow at its base, a cluster of scarlet poppies bloomed, their petals glossy as fresh blood. That’s impossible, she thought, her intelligent mind racing to find a logical explanation—artificial flowers, a prank, a mistake in her perception. But when she plucked one, the sap oozed onto her finger, thick and sweet, and the wildflower’s scent mixed with a faint, rotting smell that made her gag. This is the Fae Grove, she realized, the name from a half-remembered story her mother had told her as a child—Isolde’s grove, a pocket between worlds. She stepped between two stones, and the world shifted. The wind died. The snow stopped mid-fall, hanging in the air like frozen stars. She pulled out her phone to check the time—11:23 PM—then blinked, and when she checked again, it was 11:17 PM. The wildflowers spread out before her, a carpet of daisies and lavender and poppies stretching to a clearing where the oak stones formed a circular boundary. The rotting smell grew stronger, mixing with the sweet scent of the flowers, and she realized it was coming from the center of the clearing. The pendant’s pulse quickened, its faint inner glow flaring until the crimson gem looked like a smoldering coal against her skin. She walked deeper into the clearing, her boots crunching on a mix of snow and dewy grass, and stopped when she heard it: a child’s laugh. Not the bright, bubbly sound of the kids who’d run through her mother’s classroom, but a thin, metallic thing, echoing off the oak stones like a bell that had rusted shut. She spun, bright blue eyes scanning the trees, but saw nothing—only a flicker of pale movement at the edge of her vision, too fast to be a rabbit, too thin to be a deer. “Just wind,” she muttered, pressing her palm to the crescent scar on her wrist. The memory of the tree fall hit her: 7 years old, climbing the oak in her Cardiff backyard, Evan (then her neighbor’s son) yelling at her to jump, her hand slipping, the branch slicing her wrist open. Her father, the Irish barrister, had sewn the wound himself, his hands shaking even as he quoted Yeats to calm her. She’d forgotten Evan had been there until the laugh curled into a whisper—Aurora. She flinched. No one called her Aurora anymore, not since she’d left Cardiff. Rory was the name Eva had given her, the name she’d claimed when she started at the Golden Empress, the name that didn’t tie her to Evan’s fists or her father’s disappointed sighs. The whisper came again, closer this time, *Aurora*, and she saw it: a pale figure standing between two oak stones, its form too tall, too slender, its face hidden by a curtain of black hair that looked just like hers. The figure didn’t move, but the rustle of its clothes was too loud, too deliberate—nothing like the wind. Rory’s cool-headedness kicked in. She tried to call Eva, but her phone had no signal, the screen now frozen, the time stuck at 11:17 PM. She turned back to the clearing, the wildflowers now seeming to lean toward her, their petals glowing faintly in the dark. The pendant’s warmth spread up her neck, a warning, and she remembered its behavior: it pulsed near Hel portals. She’d researched Hel portals last night, reading about rifts between Earth and the realm of the dead, hidden in Fae-touched places. The figure was guarding something. She took a slow step back, her boot catching on a poppy stem. The figure’s head twitched, and a single bright blue eye peeked out from behind its hair—just like hers. Rory’s breath caught. She pressed the Heartstone Pendant harder to her scar, and the gem’s pulse flared so hot it burned. She thought of her mother’s stories, of the oak standing stones marking the Grove’s boundary, of time moving differently inside. She’d been here for 20 minutes, she guessed, but when she glanced at the park gate through the stones, the snow had stopped falling—outside, the sky was starting to lighten, like dawn was breaking. An hour inside can be minutes or days outside, she remembered. She had to get out. She scanned the oak stones, looking for a crack, a gap, anything. The figure moved forward, its steps silent, and Rory spotted it: a thin split in the largest stone, just wide enough for her to squeeze through. The pendant’s glow reflected in the snow, making the ground look like a field of blood, and she ran, the gem’s pulse dimming as she neared the crack. She threw herself through it—snow hitting her face, the wind returning, the distant hum of traffic filling her ears. She rolled to her knees, gasping, and checked her phone: 1:49 AM. Three hours had passed outside, but she’d felt like 20 minutes. She stood, brushing snow off her coat, and looked back at the oak stones. They were gone, hidden by a wall of snow-covered trees. The pendant’s pulse was faint now, a distant thrum, but she could still hear the whisper—*Aurora*—floating on the wind. She pressed the gem to her scar, her bright blue eyes scanning the trees for any sign of the pale figure. It was gone, but she knew it was still watching; she could feel its gaze on the back of her neck, cold as Evan’s hand when he’d grabbed her by the scar after she’d tried to leave him. She turned and walked back toward London, her boots crunching on the snow, the memory of the figure’s blue eye burning in her mind. The rotting scent still clung to her clothes, mixing with the soy sauce stain on her cuff, and she found herself rubbing the crescent scar again, the childhood pain blending with the fear coiling in her gut. She’d come back, she decided. She’d find out who gave her the pendant, who was in the Grove, and what the Hel portal was hiding. But for now, she needed to get back to her flat above Silas’ bar, to lock the door twice, to make a cup of tea that would go cold before she drank it, and to forget the sound of her old name on a non-human tongue. By the time she reached the bar’s back entrance, the sky was pale gray, and Silas was unlocking the door to set up for the day. He glanced at her, his brow furrowed. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” he said. Rory forced a smile, her cool-headed facade slipping just a little. “Just a long walk,” she said, but when she touched the Heartstone Pendant beneath her shirt, it pulsed once—faint, warm, a reminder that the Grove wasn’t done with her. She slipped up the stairs to her flat, locked the door, and leaned against it, her bright blue eyes closed. Somewhere outside, the pale figure was waiting. Somewhere inside the Grove, the Hel portal hummed. And somewhere, the unknown benefactor who’d given her the pendant was watching, too.