Run: 2026-02-20-01KHY9YE50DSRATPG4MBY33TS2

Rory hefts her delivery bag onto a moss-caked oak standing stone. The fabric sticks to the damp green fuzz, leaving a smudge of soy sauce from the last order she’d dropped off at a Richmond townhouse. She yanks the Heartstone Pendant from beneath her delivery uniform’s collar. The silver chain bites into her neck. Its deep crimson gem pulses—faster than it ever has, warm enough to leave a faint pink stain on her chest skin. “I followed the pulse here,” she says, her bright blue eyes scanning the clearing’s wildflowers. They bloom in clumps of violet and gold, out of season for late November. The air doesn’t carry the usual London chill; it hums, thick with something she can’t name. Her left wrist tugs. She rubs the crescent scar there, a habit from Evan’s rages that still kicks in when her skin pricks with unease. “The grove’s time trickery’s already messing with me,” she says, checking her phone. The screen flickers—10:17 PM one second, 2:43 AM the next, then goes black. She shoves it back into her pocket. A sound splits the hum. Not a bird’s call—too high, too sharp, like a glass bottle shattering under a boot but without the echo. She spins. Nothing but wildflowers swaying, no wind to move them. “Just a branch falling,” she says, but her voice tightens. She steps deeper into the clearing, the delivery bag’s strap digging into her shoulder. The pendant’s pulse throbs in time with her heartbeat now. She pauses at a clump of gold wildflowers. A petal detaches, floats upward, then vanishes mid-air. “I shouldn’t have come alone,” she says, her fingers curling around the pendant. The warmth seeps into her palm, a faint comfort that warms the cold spot left by Evan’s last slap to her cheek. She shakes off the memory—focus on the pendant, focus on the pulse. Another sound. This time, it’s a murmur—words she can’t make out, like someone whispering into a cup. She turns. Her eyes lock on a gap between two oak standing stones. Something moves there—dark, straight, like her shoulder-length black hair, but it’s gone before she can blink. She steps toward the gap. The ground beneath her boots softens, like walking on rotting fruit. She yelps, yanking her foot back. Ooze sticks to her sole, clear and thick, but when she wipes it on a wildflower, the petal dissolves. “What the hell is that?” she says, leaning down to inspect the spot. The ground is dry now, no trace of the ooze. Her phone buzzes in her pocket—she yanks it out. The screen flashes a photo of Evan, then goes black again. She flings it into the wildflowers. The hum in the air rises. It’s no longer a faint thrum; it’s a pressure, pushing against her eardrums. She claps her hands over her ears. “Cut it out,” she says, her voice muffled. The pressure doesn’t let up. It creeps down her neck, wrapping around her throat like a cold hand. She gasps, yanking the pendant harder. The silver chain snaps. The gem clatters to the ground, rolling toward a clump of violet wildflowers. She chases it, her boots crunching on something that isn’t moss or dirt—something thin, brittle, like dried paper. When she reaches the gem, she freezes. The brittle things under her boots are letters—her letters, the ones she’d written to Eva before fleeing Cardiff. She’d folded each carefully, spilling her fears of Evan’s growing temper, her hatred of pre-law classes, her longing to escape the life her barrister father had mapped out for her. She’d thrown the stack into Silas’ bar’s fireplace after Eva had picked her up from the train station in London, watching the paper curl and turn to ash until the flames died down. There’s no way they could be here. “I burned these,” she says, her bright blue eyes widening. The ink on the torn pages smudges when she prods one with her boot, bleeding into the moss and turning it a faint red. A movement catches her left eye. This time, it’s not a flash—it’s a shadow, tall and thin, standing at the edge of the clearing. It doesn’t have a face. It holds out a hand, its fingers long and sharp, like thorns. She grabs the pendant. The warmth explodes, searing her palm. She hisses, but doesn’t let go. “You’re not real,” she says, stepping back. The shadow doesn’t move. It tilts its head, as if studying her. The hum in the air shifts. It turns into a laugh—high, childlike, but without joy. It echoes through the clearing, bouncing off the oak standing stones until the sound wraps around her like a blanket. “I didn’t come here to play games,” she says, her left wrist rubbing the crescent scar again. The shadow’s hand twitches. A thorn-like finger snaps off, falling into the wildflowers. The petal it hits turns black and crumbles. She turns toward the standing stones. They’ve shifted—what was a straight line before is now a circle, trapping her inside. The moss on their surfaces has turned black, oozing the same clear thick substance she’d stepped in earlier. The edges of the stones glow with a faint inner light, matching the pendant’s dormant flicker. “I need to get out,” she says, rushing toward the nearest stone. She slams her shoulder into it. The stone doesn’t budge. It hums, pushing her back with a force that makes her stagger. She falls into a clump of gold wildflowers. Their petals stick to her uniform, then dissolve, leaving ragged holes in the fabric where her skin peeks through. The shadow moves closer. It’s now ten feet away, its thorn fingers twitching. The childlike laugh starts again, louder this time, mixing with the hum until her head throbs. She fumbles in her delivery bag. She pulls out a wooden chopstick—left over from the last order, wrapped in a paper napkin stained with sweet and sour sauce. She snaps it in half, holding one piece like a knife. “I’m not going back to being afraid,” she says, her voice steadying. She’d fled Evan’s rage, hidden in Silas’ bar’s back room until Eva could sneak her out; she won’t flee this shadow. The pendant in her palm pulses again—slower now, but warmer, as if responding to her resolve. The shadow pauses. It tilts its head again, as if confused by the shift in her tone. A sound cuts through the laugh. It’s a door creaking—familiar, the sound of Silas’ bar’s back door when she slips in after her late delivery shifts. She spins. There’s no door, but a gap in the standing stones has opened, its moss turning green again, free of the oozing substance. “I don’t trust this,” she says, eyeing the gap. The shadow doesn’t move. It holds up its remaining thorn fingers, as if warning her. She fumbles with the broken silver chain around her neck, threading the pendant back through the frayed end until it sits snug against her chest again. The warmth seeps into her skin, calming the throb in her palm. She glances at the gap, then at the shadow. The wildflowers at the shadow’s feet turn black one by one, crumbing into ash. “I didn’t come here blind,” she says, her bright blue eyes locking on the shadow’s blank face. She’d researched Fae-touched locations after the pendant first pulsed, scouring old books from Silas’ bar’s back shelf. She knows the grove’s time trickery can trap those who lose their focus. The shadow’s head snaps to the side. It stares at the gap in the standing stones, as if noticing it for the first time. The childlike laugh dies. The hum in the air dims to a faint thrum again. She steps forward, the broken chopstick still clutched in her hand. The shadow’s thorn fingers twitch. It takes a single step back, its form flickering like a candle flame in a draft. “I’m leaving,” she says, moving toward the gap. The shadow doesn’t stop her. It watches, its tall thin form fading into the wildflowers as she nears the standing stone’s edge.