AI The air in Richmond Park held the damp chill of a London evening, but the moment Rory stepped between the two largest oak standing stones, the temperature shifted. It wasn't warmer or colder, but different—a still, breathless quality that made the hairs on her arms rise.
Nyx flowed beside her, their form a solid silhouette of deepening twilight against the ordinary green of the park. Their faintly glowing violet eyes scanned the space ahead. “The boundary is thin here. Can you feel it?”
“I feel like I’ve walked into a photograph.” Rory’s voice came out softer than she intended. The light here was wrong. The sun had been a half-hour from setting, but here a perpetual golden-hour glow suffused the clearing, coming from no discernible source. It cast long, sharp shadows that didn’t move. The grass under her trainers was a vibrant, unreal green, threaded with wildflowers in violent bloom—foxgloves, bluebells, and poppies side-by-side, despite the season. The scent was overwhelming; honey, crushed herbs, and the dark, rich smell of wet earth.
“Time moves differently,” Nyx whispered, the sound like dry leaves rustling. “An hour inside could be minutes outside. Or days. There is no telling.”
“Helpful.” Rory took another step forward . The ground was spongy, silent. She looked back. The standing stones framed a perfect rectangle of ordinary, greying evening parkland, but it looked distant, like a painting viewed through the wrong end of a telescope. The sounds of distant traffic had vanished, replaced by a low, resonant hum she felt in her teeth. “So we find the Seer and we leave. Quickly.”
Nyx’s form shimmered, becoming momentarily transparent at the edges. “Quickly is a relative concept here.”
They moved deeper into the grove. The trees here were ancient oaks, but their trunks were twisted into shapes that spoke of centuries of strange, slow pressure. Their branches wove together high above, forming a cathedral vault dripping with moss and pale, bioluminescent lichen that shed a soft blue light. Rory reached out, her fingers hovering an inch from the bark of the nearest tree. It pulsed with a slow, warm rhythm, like a heartbeat.
“Don’t.” Nyx’s whisper was urgent. “This is a living place. Your touch is a question. It may answer.”
Rory pulled her hand back, curling her fingers into a fist. The small crescent-shaped scar on her left wrist itched. “Noted.”
A path of silvery, crushed stone appeared before them, winding between the trees. It hadn’t been there a moment ago.
“It seems we are expected,” Nyx observed.
The path led them to a small, still pool. The water was black and perfectly reflective, showing the impossible sky above—a tapestry of deep indigo and swirling, star-like motes of light that drifted like embers. Around the pool, flowers glowed with their own inner radiance, pulsing gently in time with the hum in the air. Rory knelt, drawn to the water’s edge. Her own reflection stared back, but her eyes looked older, tired in a way her twenty-five years shouldn’t account for. The deep crimson Heartstone Pendant at her throat gave a single, distinct throb of warmth against her skin. She frowned, touching it. It had never done that outside of a Hel portal.
“This is not Hel,” Nyx said, as if reading her thought . “But all boundaries are cousins. The Veil is stretched thin here, in a different way.”
A breeze stirred, though the air had been utterly still. It carried the scent of ozone and frost, and a single, silver leaf that spiraled down to land on the black water. The leaf did not float. It sank without a ripple, descending into the impossible depth.
“This way unsettles me,” Nyx admitted, their solid form flickering . “My nature is between, but this is a between that has rules. Ancient ones. I am… an interloper.”
It was the first time Rory had heard anything akin to uncertainty in the Shade’s whispery voice. It sparked a fresh thread of unease in her own gut. If a being made of shadow was nervous , what did that mean for her?
They left the pool behind. The grove seemed to deepen, the light growing more concentrated in patches, leaving pools of velvety darkness between the trees. In one such dark patch, Rory saw movement. A shape flitted between two trunks, too fast to define—a suggestion of slender limbs and eyes that caught the light like an animal’s.
“Did you see that?”
“I see many things,” Nyx replied. “Most are not for your eyes. Keep walking. Do not acknowledge them.”
The silver path began to slope downward, leading into a shallow dell. Here, the wildflowers grew taller, some as high as Rory’s waist, their blossoms wide and fleshy, turning slowly to follow their progress. The humming grew louder, resolving into something almost melodic—a single, held note sung by a chorus of unseen voices.
Then they saw the stones. A circle of nine, taller than a person, carved from wood so petrified it might as well be stone. They were covered in intricate , spiraling sigils that seemed to shift when looked at from the corner of the eye . In the center of the circle, a figure stood.
She was smaller than Rory expected. Her hair was a waterfall of silver that reached her waist, moving in a breeze that didn’t touch the rest of the grove. She wore simple robes of grey and green, and her feet were bare on the moss. She left no imprint.
Isolde turned. Her eyes were the pale lavender of twilight, and they held no pupils. They looked through Rory, around her, as if viewing multiple layers of reality at once .
“You have walked the shifting path,” the Seer said. Her voice was clear and musical, yet each word felt heavy, deliberate. “The shadow that walks beside you tastes of old magic and regret. A curious pairing.”
Nyx inclined their head, a gesture of respect or caution. “We seek knowledge, Seer.”
“All who come here seek. Few understand the price of the finding.” Isolde’s gaze settled on Rory’s throat, on the pendant. “You carry a stone that beats for a door. But you stand at a window. Why have you come to my grove, daughter of Cardiff?”
Rory found her voice. “I need to understand what’s happening to me. The doors, the… the things coming through. I was told you could see.”
“I see.” Isolde took a step forward. She made no sound. “I see a thread tangled in a web not of its making. I see a choice, written in blood and starlight. I see a blade that has not yet been given.” Her head tilted. “The answers you seek are not answers. They are directions. And directions require a map you do not possess.”
“Can you give me the map?” Rory asked, her practical nature wrestling with the surreal poetry of the Seer’s speech.
Isolde smiled, a faint, sorrowful curve of her lips. “A map is a fixed thing. This place is not fixed. Your time here is a riverstone, smooth and temporary.” She gestured to the pool they had passed. “You looked into the water and saw age. That was the grove looking back. It measures time in heartbeats, not hours. Yours beats quick and frightened.”
A wave of dizziness passed over Rory. She blinked, and for a second, the grove doubled—she saw the twisted trees as young saplings, bursting from the soil in a rapid, silent explosion of growth, then crumbling to dust in the same instant. She saw Nyx as a man, solid and human, his face contorted in a silent scream, before he dissolved into swirling shadow. She gasped, staggering back a step.
Nyx’s hand, solid and surprisingly cool, steadied her elbow. “The time-sickness. Do not fight it. Let the vision pass.”
Isolde watched, unblinking. “The shadow understands. This place peels layers. It shows what was, what might be, what is. It is uncomfortable for those who prefer a single, solid reality.”
“What do you want in return?” Rory managed, her head clearing though the world still seemed to vibrate at a slightly wrong frequency. “For your help.”
“The Fae do not trade in want,” Isolde said. “We trade in balance. A truth for a truth. A question for a question. A gift for a gift.” Her lavender eyes flickered to Nyx. “Your companion is a truth shaped like a question. They may pay a price simply by being here.”
Nyx’s form solidified, the violet glow of their eyes intensifying. “I am aware of the toll, Exile. My debt is my own.”
Isolde considered them, then nodded once. She turned and walked to the base of the largest petrified tree. From a hollow in its roots, she drew forth a long, narrow bundle wrapped in grey cloth. She unwrapped it with reverence.
The blade within was slender and leaf-shaped, forged from a metal that looked like liquid moonlight captured and frozen. It gave off a faint, pearlescent glow, and the air around it grew several degrees colder. Rory felt the chill from three paces away.
“This is moonsilver,” Isolde said. “Forged in a court I can no longer name, for a war that is not yet forgotten. It can cut through lies, through wards, through things that are and are not.” She held it out, hilt first, toward Rory. “A gift. For the journey you are already on.”
Rory stared at the weapon. “I don’t know how to use something like that.”
“It will know how to be used,” Isolde replied, her tone leaving no room for argument . “Take it. The giving is the first part of the balance.”
Hesitantly, Rory reached out. Her fingers closed around the hilt. It was colder than anything she had ever touched, a deep, penetrating cold that seared her skin without burning. The faint glow brightened for a moment, then settled into a soft, steady luminescence. It felt both impossibly light and terribly significant in her hand.
“A blade for a stone,” Isolde murmured, her eyes on the Heartstone Pendant again. “A weapon for a key. The balance begins.”
Above them, the impossible sky began to darken, the swirling motes of light blinking out one by one. The melodic hum in the air faded, replaced by a growing silence that felt like pressure .
“Your stone is leaving,” Nyx whispered urgently. “The way back will not stay open.”
Isolde took a step back, blending into the deepening shadows of the stone circle. “Remember, daughter of Cardiff. The grove has seen you. It will remember your heartbeat. When you stand before the door your stone beats for, you may hear its echo .”
The path of silver stones began to gleam more brightly, a guiding line back through the now-hostile dark of the towering flowers and watching trees.