AI The wrought-iron gate to Richmond Park was locked. Aurora Carter slipped through the gap where the fence met the old stone wall, the metal cold and gritty under her palms. Her backpack, light with just a water bottle and a torch she hadn’t switched on yet, bumped against her spine. The Heartstone pendant lay against her sternum, a familiar weight beneath her jacket. It had pulsed once, a sharp, hot throb , as she’d passed the park’s main entrance half an hour ago. That was the reason she was here, trespassing in the dead of night. The thing had been quiet for weeks. Now it wasn’t.
She followed the memory of that pulse , a dull compass tugging her deeper into the park. The moon was a sliver, offering little light. The world was rendered in shades of charcoal and ink. Her footsteps on the gravel path were too loud. She moved onto the grass, the dew soaking through her trainers. The air smelled of damp earth and distant rain.
She found the standing stones not by sight, but by the sudden shift in the atmosphere . One moment she was in the ordinary, sleeping park. The next, the temperature dropped a few degrees, and the sound of the distant city traffic faded into a thick, cottony silence . She stood at the edge of the Fae Grove.
The ancient oak stones formed a rough circle, darker silhouettes against the night. Even in the low light, she could see the wildflowers that shouldn’t have been blooming in autumn—foxgloves and night-scented stock, their pale petals luminous. The clearing itself seemed to drink the moonlight, holding it in a soft, internal radiance. It was beautiful. It was all wrong.
Rory’s left hand went to the small crescent scar on her wrist, a childhood habit. The Grove had never felt like this before . Isolde’s place was supposed to be a refuge, a neutral pocket. Tonight, it felt like a trap waiting to be sprung .
She took a step inside the circle of stones.
The change was immediate. The silence wasn’t just absence of sound; it was a pressure against her eardrums. The flowers, which should have nodded in the faint breeze she’d felt outside, were perfectly , unnaturally still. As if holding their breath. She looked up. The stars through the canopy of ancient trees were too sharp, too bright, and they seemed to move when she tried to focus on one.
The pendant warmed against her skin. Not the gentle pulse of earlier, but a steady, low heat like a banked coal .
“Hello?” Her own voice was small, swallowed by the clearing. It didn’t echo . It just died.
Something rustled in the deep shadow between two of the largest stones to her right. A dry, skittering sound, like claws on bark. She snapped her head toward it. Nothing. Just deeper black.
She forced a slow breath. Cool-headed. Think. She was Rory Carter, who’d talked her way out of a mugging in Brixton and calibrated a broken delivery moped with a hairpin. This was just a place. A strange place, but a place.
She took another step forward, intending to reach the center of the clearing, to see if the pendant’s reaction intensified. The grass underfoot felt spongy, too soft. It gave way without a sound.
From her left, a whisper . Not words. A sigh, long and ragged, that seemed to come from the earth itself. She froze, every muscle locking. The sigh trailed off into what could have been the wind, but there was no wind.
Her eyes darted to the periphery. Movement. A flicker at the extreme edge of her vision, near the base of a stone. When she turned her head, it was gone . A trick of the light. Had to be.
The pendant’s heat increased. She pulled it out from under her jacket. The deep crimson gemstone held a faint inner glow, like a dying ember. It pulsed once, in time with the sudden, hard beat of her heart.
Another rustle, this time from behind her. Closer. It was followed by a soft, wet click, like a tongue against a palate. She didn’t turn. She stared straight ahead, at the wildflowers in the center of the Grove. They were wilting . As she watched, the vibrant purple of a foxglove deepened to bruised black, the petals curling in on themselves.
Time. The thought cut through her fear. Time moves differently here. An hour inside could be minutes or days outside. How long had she been standing here? Her watch was a useless circle of numbers on her wrist. The digits swam when she tried to read them.
“Is anyone there?” This time her voice was firmer, a demand. It fell into the silence and sank.
The response was a shuffle. A definite, dragging step from the ring of stones to her right. She turned, slowly . Nothing. Only the imposing , silent monoliths. But the space between two of them looked… narrower than before. As if they had leaned in toward each other.
A low hum began, a vibration she felt in her teeth more than heard. It came from everywhere and nowhere. The air grew thicker, harder to breathe. The scent of the wildflowers soured into the smell of rotting vegetation and damp stone.
She took a step back, toward the way she’d come. Her heel came down on something that crunched—a brittle stem, a fallen flower head. The sound was obscenely loud.
From directly ahead, in the exact spot she’d been staring at, a shadow detached itself from the greater darkness at the base of a stone. It was man-shaped, but wrong. Too tall, too thin, its limbs articulated at angles that made her stomach lurch . It didn’t move. It just stood, a hole cut out of the world.
Rory’s breath hitched. She could see it clearly, yet she couldn’t focus on any detail. It was a smear of absence. The pendant flared, a searing point of heat against her chest that made her gasp.
The thing took a step. It made no sound on the soft grass.
She stumbled back another step, then another. Her plan, her reason for coming, evaporated. Survival was the only algorithm running now. Find the exit. The gap in the stones where she’d entered was behind her and to the left. She kept her eyes on the standing figure, sidestepping.
It took another step. Its movement was fluid, unnaturally smooth, like oil spreading on water.
A whisper , this time from right beside her ear. A sibilant rush of air that formed a single, clear word.
“Stay.”
She flinched, whirling. Nothing there. But the whisper had been intimate, cold.
When she looked back, the figure was gone .
The relief was instantaneous and short-lived. The feeling of being watched didn’t diminish. It multiplied. It came from the stones, from the ground, from the air itself. She was not alone with one thing. She was surrounded .
A soft, rhythmic sound began. Tap. Tap. Tap. Like a fingernail on wood. It circled the clearing, moving from stone to stone. Keeping time with her pounding pulse .
The wildflowers were all black now, shriveled husks. The faint internal light of the Grove was dimming , shadows pooling and deepening. The standing stones no longer looked like oak . They looked like old, petrified bones .
The pendant was a live coal. Its crimson glow lit the hollow of her throat, casting a tiny, bloody spotlight on her chin.
She found the gap. The opening between two stones was still there, a slice of ordinary night beyond. She lunged for it.
The air in the exit thickened like syrup. Her movement slowed, as if she were pushing through deep water. She could see the normal path, the familiar trees of Richmond Park just ten feet away. They might as well have been ten miles.
The tapping stopped.
Behind her, from the center of the Grove, came the sound of inhalation. A long, drawn, rattling breath that sucked the warmth from the air.
She didn’t look back. She threw her weight forward, gritting her teeth against the resistant air. One foot crossed the threshold of the stones. The pendant’s heat spiked, painful.
The voice came again, not a whisper this time. It was dry, ancient, and hollow, echoing from multiple points around the clearing.
“The stone is not yours to bear.”
Her other foot cleared the stones. The pressure popped. She stumbled onto the normal grass, the sounds of the city rushing back into her ears like a tidal wave. The cold night air was a shock.
She spun, breathing ragged, looking back into the Grove.
The clearing was empty. The wildflowers were just pale shapes in the moonlight, untouched. The stones stood silent and still. Nothing moved.
But the Heartstone pendant against her chest still glowed with a faint, persistent crimson light. And it was warm.