Run: 2026-02-25-01KJBDH6YHHDBQKRE3070RW12W

Rory stepped through the boundary line marked by the ancient oak standing stones, and the air in Richmond Park shifted instantly. It was no longer the damp, autumnal chill of November. It was warm, heavy with the scent of crushed petals and something metallic, like blood drying on a penny. She adjusted the silver chain around her neck, feeling the weight of the Heartstone against her sternum. It was pulsing now, a rhythmic heat that pressed against her skin like a feverish thumb. She checked her watch. The second hand ticked lazily, one beat for every three seconds of real time. She had entered the grove ten minutes ago. Outside, it had been five minutes. But the light here was wrong. The sun had dipped below the horizon, yet the clearing remained bathed in a violet twilight that had no source. Rory frowned, her straight black hair falling into her eyes. She brushed it back, the movement making the crescent-shaped scar on her left wrist prickle with phantom sensitivity. She wasn't here by accident. Silas had warned her about time in this pocket. The Fae Grove wasn't a place on a map; it was a tear in the fabric, a pocket where the rules of physics bowed to something older. She needed to find the Hel portal before the discrepancy collapsed the space between inside and out. If she stayed too long inside, the days outside might bleed into weeks, or vanish entirely. She crouched beside a bush of wildflowers. They were in full bloom, bright blues and fiery oranges, defying the season. She plucked a stem, snapping it. No sap. Just a dark, thick fluid that smelled of ozone. She dropped it, wiping her fingers on her trousers. Her rational mind, trained by years of Pre-Law study and late-night shifts at the Golden Empress, tried to find a logical explanation. A biological anomaly. A localized temperature spike. The pendant flared hotter. Rory stood, pulling her jacket tighter. The silence of the Grove was absolute. There were no owls, no rustling foxes, no distant hum of the A304. The silence had a texture to it, pressing against her eardrums. Then she heard it. A scrape, like dry leaves being dragged across stone. It came from behind the central cluster of oak stones. She turned slowly, her bright blue eyes scanning the gloom. Nothing moved. Just the shadows, long and stretched by the violet light, twisting against the bark of the trees. Rory took a step toward the stones. She was twenty-five, smart, and cool under pressure, but the hair on her arms was standing up. This was not just unease; it was the primal recognition of being hunted. She looked down at her wrist, her fingers tracing the small scar. A grounding mechanism. *Don't panic,* she told herself. *Rationalize the data.* The pendant was the compass. It pulsed when it was close to a Hel portal. The warmth was increasing. The rhythm was becoming erratic, faster than her heartbeat. A sound broke through the silence. Not a scrape this time. A whisper. It wasn't in the air. It was in the back of her mind, like a radio tuned to a frequency just below hearing. She spun around, scanning the treeline. The wildflowers seemed to have grown. In the last thirty seconds, the patch of blue near her left boot had spread, creeping over her laces. She pulled her foot back, shaking the earth. The flowers didn't wilt. They watched. The petals were arranged in symmetrical patterns that felt geometric, mathematical. The time displacement hit her. She looked at her watch again. It was spinning. The hands moved counter-clockwise. She tapped the glass. Still spinning. An hour inside could be minutes or days. How long had she been standing here? She took a breath, the air thick and sweet, cloying. She needed to move toward the source of the heat. The pendant. She began to walk through the center of the clearing, her boots sinking into moss that felt like velvet. She tried to count her steps to mark the distance. One, two, three. The shadows lengthened, reaching for her heels. There. A movement at the edge of her vision. She turned her head sharply. A shadow detached itself from an oak trunk. It was human-shaped, but wrong. The proportions were too tall, the limbs too elongated. It stood perfectly still when she looked, but when she looked away, it shifted. A millimeter closer. Rory stopped. She forced her breathing to slow. This was the trap. Panic was the currency the Fae realm traded in. She had learned that rule in London, watching how the world tried to consume her. She had to be sharp. She reached for the Heartstone, gripping the crimson gem. It was burning now, scalding against her palm. The inner glow was visible through the thin skin of her hand. A low hum vibrated through the ground, rattling the teeth in her jaw. The wildflowers shivered, their stems bending toward her. The whisper in her mind grew louder, distinct words now, though she couldn't quite make them out. It sounded like her name. *Rory. Rory. Rory.* It wasn't her father or her mother. It sounded like something that wanted to be her. She realized with a jolt of cold nausea that the perimeter had moved. The standing stones were no longer where she had entered. She was walking in a circle. The time loop wasn't just temporal; it was spatial. The Grove was a mouth, and she had just swallowed the bait. The shadow stepped forward, out of the violet light into the dim grey of the clearing floor. It had no face, just a smooth expanse where features should be. It reached a hand out, fingers elongating like willow branches. Rory backed up, her heel hitting a stone. The pain was sharp, real. Solid ground. *It's real,* she thought. *I am here.* She pulled the pendant tight against her chest, letting the heat radiate through her bones. The stone recognized the entity. The pulse stopped. It lay cold and still. The thing in front of her tilted its head. It wasn't hostile. It was curious. That was worse. It knew her. It had been waiting. Rory scanned the treeline. She had to find a way out. If the time was wrong, the door was closed. But the watch on her wrist ticked forward. One second. Two. Three. She had one minute. Or one day. She looked at the entity, then at the watch. She had to choose. Run into the dark where the flowers waited, or stand and face what came next. The air grew colder, the scent of ozone fading into rot. The thing took a step. The ground beneath it turned to black water. Rory tightened her grip on the stone. She didn't scream. She didn't run. She watched the hands on the watch, counting the seconds as they slipped away, knowing the silence in the Grove was the only thing louder than the truth. She was alone. She had never been alone. She stepped forward, into the water. The watch stopped ticking. The flowers bloomed in a circle around her head.