Run: 2026-02-24-01KJ8WFRXNEKFBAWY3CZSTRH1E

The air in Richmond Park held the damp chill of a London afternoon, the kind that seeped through jackets and settled in bones. Rory pulled her collar tighter, her breath misting in the grey light. The black branches of winter trees clawed at a low sky. Nyx moved beside her, a solid presence one moment, a flicker at the edge of vision the next. Their form, a humanoid silhouette of condensed shadow, seemed to drink the weak daylight. The faint violet glow of their eyes was the only color in the monochrome landscape. “The stones should be just ahead,” Nyx’s voice was a whisper, a rustle of dry leaves that didn’t come from any mouth. “Isolde’s boundary.” Rory’s left wrist itched, the crescent scar a pale ghost against her skin. She touched the Heartstone pendant beneath her shirt. It lay cool and inert against her chest. No pulse of warmth here. This wasn’t a door to Hel. They pushed through a thicket of bare hawthorn, thorns catching on Rory’s sleeves. And then they saw them. Three ancient oaks, far older than any others in the park, formed a rough triangle. Their trunks were vast, gnarled columns, bark like folded slate. Between them stood stones—not hewn rock, but living wood, petrified into smooth, grey pillars twice Rory’s height. They were covered in spiraling patterns that seemed to shift if she looked at them directly. The air within the triangle shimmered. Not a heat haze, but a distortion like looking through old glass. The sounds of the park—the distant traffic, the caw of crows—muffled, replaced by a profound, waiting silence. “This is it,” Nyx murmured. Their shadowy form seemed to grow more substantial, the edges sharpening. Rory took a step forward. The grass under her boots changed. One foot was on the brittle, frost-touched grass of Richmond Park. The other sank into deep, emerald moss that released a sweet, earthy scent. She crossed the threshold. The world folded. The grey afternoon light vanished. Here, the sky was a perpetual twilight, a deep indigo streaked with the last fiery gold of a sunset that never quite ended. The air was warm and carried the perfume of a thousand flowers—honeysuckle, night-blooming jasmine, something spicy and unfamiliar. Rory spun slowly, her bright blue eyes wide. They stood in a clearing carpeted with moss so soft it felt like velvet. Wildflowers bloomed in impossible profusion: sapphire-blue blossoms that glowed with their own inner light, silver trumpet flowers that chimed softly in a non-existent breeze, crimson petals that unfurled and curled like living lace. “Time feels… thick,” Nyx observed. They reached out a hand of solid shadow towards a drifting mote of light. It danced away. “Slower. Or faster. I can’t tell.” Rory checked her watch. The second hand was motionless. She shook her wrist, held it to her ear. Nothing. “It’s stopped.” “Or we have.” A path of pale, luminous mushrooms led away from the clearing, winding between trees that were not oaks, not beeches, but something else entirely. Their bark was smooth and silver, and their leaves were clusters of tiny, tinkling crystals. The light in the grove came from everywhere and nowhere—from the flowers, from the crystal leaves, from the very air. They followed the path. The silence was not empty. It was full of subtle sounds: the chime of leaves, the whisper of growing things, the distant trickle of water. Rory’s boots made no sound on the moss. She looked down and saw her footprints pressed into the soft green, but when she lifted her foot, the moss sprang back, unmarked. She remembered the codex entry. *Leaves no footprints when she walks.* “She’s here,” Rory said, her voice hushed. The grove deepened. They passed a pool of water so clear it seemed not to be there at all, reflecting the twilight sky and the glowing flora. In its center, a single white lily floated, its petals perfect. Rory knelt, drawn to it. She reached a hand towards the surface. “Don’t.” The voice was melodic, clear as a bell, and came from behind them. Rory snatched her hand back and stood up, turning. Isolde Varga stood between two silver trees. She seemed woven from the twilight itself. Her hair was a waterfall of silver that reached her waist, moving as if in a slow current. Her eyes were pale lavender, seeing too much. She wore a simple gown of grey that shifted like mist. She was ethereal, ageless, and she left no impression on the moss where she stood. “The waters show truths,” Isolde said, her lips curving in a smile that held no warmth. “Not all truths are kind to the seeker. You carry enough of your own, Aurora Carter.” Rory stiffened. “You know me.” “I know the weight of the stone you wear. I know the shadow that walks with you is not your own. I know you fled a man with violence in his hands and seek a path with violence ahead.” Isolde’s gaze drifted to Nyx. “And I know the taste of a soul trapped between realms. It tastes of old magic and regret.” Nyx’s form flickered. “We were told you could provide guidance.” “Guidance is a stone in a shoe. It alters your path with discomfort. You seek a door into Gluttony. A place of feasts and slow damnation.” Isolde glided forward, her feet not touching the ground. She stopped an arm’s length from Rory. Her lavender eyes scanned Rory’s face. “You have the look of a card player. Do you know the game?” “Some,” Rory said, her cool-headedness a shield against the seer’s intensity. “Every entry into another’s realm is a gamble. The house always has an advantage. You need a card they cannot predict.” Isolde raised a hand. From the air itself, she drew a blade. It was a slender dagger, its blade shaped like a willow leaf, forged from a metal that looked like captured moonlight. It was cold—a deep, penetrating cold that Rory felt from a foot away. A faint luminescence clung to its edge. “Moonsilver,” Isolde said, offering the hilt to Rory. “Forged in the deepest glades of the Summer Court, cooled in the tears of a winter river. It does not like the touch of mortal hands, but it will tolerate yours. For a time.” Rory took the dagger. The cold bit into her palm, a sharp, clean pain that quickly faded to a steady chill. The weight was perfect. The blade seemed to hum, a vibration she felt in her teeth. “It can cut what other blades cannot,” Isolde continued. “Wards, bindings, the essence of certain… entities. Demons find its touch particularly disagreeable. Consider it a gift. An uneven piece for your game.” “Why?” Rory asked, hefting the blade. It felt alive. “Why give this to me?” “A prophecy is not a promise. It is a pattern in the weave. You are a loose thread, Aurora Carter. You may snag. You may break. You may, if pulled hard enough, unravel something greater. The blade is a tool. To mend or to sever? That choice will be yours.” Isolde turned her unsettling gaze to the shimmering pool. “The Veil is thin here. It is thin in Dymas, too, but for different reasons. There, they fatten souls on sensation until they forget the feel of their own skin. Your stone will guide you to a door. This,” she nodded at the dagger, “may guide you back out.” Nyx’s whisper cut the air. “What is the price?” Isolde laughed, a sound like crystal breaking. “The price is already paid in the receiving. The blade has a will. It may cut things you did not intend. It may yearn for its home. And it will always, always be cold.” A breeze stirred the crystal leaves, creating a cascade of delicate notes. The strange twilight seemed to deepen a shade. “You should leave now,” Isolde said, her form beginning to blur at the edges, merging with the mist between the trees. “An hour here is a minute outside. Or a day. Even I do not count the same way twice. Your shadow friend feels the strain of this place. This is not a realm for those caught between.” Rory looked at the Fae-forged blade in her hand, its faint glow a new source of light in the enchanted grove. The wonder of the place was now undercut by a sharp unease. The gift felt heavy, its purpose a riddle wrapped in a warning. Nyx was already moving back the way they came, their form less distinct, more diffuse. “She’s right. The edges of me are… fraying here.” Rory took one last look at the impossible flowers, the singing trees, the seer who was now little more than a silver shimmer in the air. She slid the cold dagger into her empty belt loop, the chill a constant reminder against her hip. She turned and followed Nyx back along the path of glowing mushrooms, the alien beauty of the Fae Grove at her back, the weight of a moonsilver blade at her side, and no footprints marking her passage out.