AI The orange smudge of London's light pollution died at the edge of Richmond Park, swallowed by an unnatural, ink-thick gloom . Aurora Carter pulled her jacket tighter, the nylon rustling like dry leaves. Frost crunched under her boots, a sharp, rhythmic sound that felt too loud for the stillness of the midnight trees. She checked her phone. The screen flickered, the clock digits spinning in a frantic, nonsensical blur before the display went black.
"Great. Fantastic start, Rory."
She shoved the dead device into her pocket and gripped the Heartstone Pendant through the fabric of her coat. The crimson gem burned against her palm, a steady, rhythmic heat that matched the quickening thump of her own blood. She didn't want to be here. The flat above Silas’ bar was warm, smelling of stale hops and old wood, a sanctuary compared to the skeletal reach of the winter oaks. But the message left on the Golden Empress’s delivery app hadn't been a food order. It had been a coordinate and a name she couldn't ignore.
The ancient oak standing stones loomed out of the fog like the ribs of a buried giant. This was the boundary.
Rory stepped between the two tallest pillars. The air didn't just change; it transformed. The biting London chill vanished, replaced by a humid, heavy warmth that tasted of damp earth and nectar. The frost on the ground dissolved into a carpet of lush, impossible wildflowers. Petals of violet and gold stared up at the moon, thriving in the dead of a British winter.
She stood still, her breath hitching. The silence here wasn't the absence of sound. It was a physical weight , a velvet curtain draped over her ears.
"Isolde? You here?"
Her voice didn't echo . It fell flat, absorbed by the blooming moss. She took a step forward, then another, moving deeper into the pocket of the Grove. The trees inside were different—gnarled, twisted into impossible knots, their bark smooth and grey like sun-bleached bone.
A twig snapped.
The sound came from behind a dense thicket of fern to her left. Rory spun, her hand flying to her left wrist, thumb brushing the small crescent scar there—a nervous tic she’d never quite shed.
"I have the Heartstone. If this is some kind of test, I'm over it."
Nothing answered. Not even the wind. The leaves on the trees remained perfectly motionless, yet she felt a draft against the back of her neck, a thin needle of cold air that smelled of copper and ozone.
She turned back toward the center of the clearing. The Heartstone began to pulse . Through her layers of clothing, the crimson light bled through, casting long, rhythmic shadows across the flowers. It wasn't a gentle warmth anymore. It was a Warning.
Rory walked faster. The Grove felt larger than it had from the outside. The standing stones she’d just passed were gone , replaced by an endless corridor of those bone-grey trees. She checked her wrist. Her watch hummed, the second hand ticking backward in a steady, mocking cadence.
Something moved in the corner of her eye. A flash of something pale, low to the ground.
She whipped her head around. Only the ferns remained, their fronds heavy and still.
"I see you."
The lie tasted like ash. She saw nothing but shadows that seemed to stretch toward her, elongating as if the moon were moving at triple speed across the sky. Then came the sound. It wasn't a snap or a rustle. It was a wet, sliding noise, like a heavy coil of rope being dragged over silk .
It started behind her, then circled, the sound dampening and rising as it moved through the undergrowth. Rory didn't run. Running invited the hunt. Instead, she reached into her collar and pulled the pendant out, letting the silver chain swing. The crimson gem was glowing fiercely now, a strobe light of blood-red intensity that revealed the world in jagged bursts.
Red. White trees. Black.
Red. Moving shadows. Black.
Red.
There.
Ten feet away, between two split trunks, a face stared back. It wasn't a human face. It was a mask of pale, stretched skin with no eyes, only deep indentations where the sockets should be. It stood as tall as a man but lacked the rigidity of a skeleton. It swayed, its movements fluid and boneless, mimicking the rhythm of the Heartstone’s pulse .
Rory’s heart hammered against her ribs like a trapped bird.
"I’m just here for the delivery. Whatever Silas promised, I don’t have it."
The creature didn’t speak. It tilted its head, the motion slow and deliberate. It mimicked her voice, the sound coming not from its mouth—which remained a sealed slit—but from the air around her.
"Just here for the delivery," her own voice whispered back, stripped of its Welsh lilt , sounding hollow and wrong.
Rory backed away, her boots treading on the soft, fleshy heads of the wildflowers. The sliding sound returned, louder now, coming from multiple directions. More of them. The periphery of the Grove was thick with those pale, swaying shapes. They didn't approach; they just watched, their eyeless heads tracking her every movement.
The Heartstone grew hot, nearly scalding her skin. The silver chain felt like a branding iron .
"Stop it."
She stumbled over a root that hadn't been there a second ago. The ground felt different—less like earth, more like something living. Pliant. She looked down. The flowers weren't blooming ; they were feeding . Their roots were wrapped around something white and porous beneath the soil. Bone. A field of it.
The sliding noise accelerated. One of the shapes stepped out into the pulsing red light. It was closer now, only five feet away. It had long, spindly fingers that ended in blunt, skin-covered tips. It reached out, not to strike, but as if it wanted to touch the glowing pendant .
"Don't touch me."
Rory’s voice cracked. She dug into her pocket and pulled out her heavy brass keys, the only weapon she had.
The creature froze. It opened its mouth—a vertical tear in the skin—and emitted a high-pitched hum that vibrated in Rory’s teeth. The other shapes joined in. The sound rose in a dissonant harmony that made the crimson light of the stone flicker and dim.
The air in the Grove thickened. The smell of nectar turned into the stench of rotting peaches. Rory’s vision swam. The trees seemed to lean inward, their boughs interlacing to form a cage of white bone against the dark sky.
She turned to run, but the path she’d taken was gone . There was only the clearing, the flowers, and the circle of pale, swaying things.
The Heartstone gave a violent, final throb , the heat so intense she dropped it. The pendant fell into the bed of violets, burying itself in the petals. Immediately, the flowers began to wilt, turning black and shriveled where the crimson light touched them.
The creatures shrieked—a sound like metal tearing. They recoiled from the dying flowers, their boneless bodies contorting in the dark.
Rory dived for the pendant, her fingers screaming as they brushed the hot silver. She scrambled to her feet, the chain wrapped around her knuckles.
"Out. I need to get out."
She chose a direction and bolted. The sliding noises followed, faster now, desperate. The pale shapes lashed out, their long fingers brushing the sleeves of her jacket, leaving behind streaks of translucent slime that glowed with a faint, sickly phosphorescence.
She didn't look back. The bone-grey trees blurred into a wall of monochromatic terror. The Heartstone was a lead weight in her hand, pulling her toward something. Not an exit, but a rift .
The air grew cold again. The smell of London—exhaust fumes, damp pavement, and grease—pierced through the cloying floral scent.
Rory saw the oak stones ahead. They were dark, silent, and solid. She threw herself toward the gap between them.
Behind her, the humming grew into a roar. The ground heaved. A pale hand, larger than the others, gripped the heel of her boot.
"No!"
She kicked back, her heel connecting with something that felt like wet clay . The grip loosened just enough. She lunged forward, falling onto the hard, frozen grass of Richmond Park.
The transition was a physical blow. The humidity vanished, replaced by the biting December wind. Rory lay on the ground, gasping, her lungs burning with the sudden intake of cold air.
She turned her head. The standing stones stood behind her, silent and indifferent. There was no Grove. No white trees. No pale, eyeless things. Just the dark silhouettes of regular oaks and the distant, comforting hum of a car engine on the A3.
She looked at her hand. The Heartstone was cool now, its crimson depths dark and dormant.
A soft rustle came from the grass a few feet away.
Rory froze. She didn't move her head, only her eyes.
A single violet wildflower, vibrant and pulsating with a faint, inner gold light, sat in the middle of the frost-covered lawn. It shouldn't have been there. It couldn't survive the cold.
As she watched, the flower tilted its head toward her, as if listening .
From the darkness of the trees beyond the stones, her own voice whispered, so low it was almost a thought.
"Delivery."