AI The first thing that went wrong was the silence . Rory had trekked through Richmond Park’s dark bracken for forty minutes, the distant hum of London’s orbital motorway thrumming under her boots the whole way, a familiar white noise that had kept the dark from feeling too thick while she navigated rutted deer paths. But the second she stepped over the first gnarled oak standing stone, the hum cut out. Not faded—vanished, like someone had flipped a switch on the entire world outside the treeline. She froze, her scuffed black delivery boots caked in the grease from Golden Empress’s weekend dumpling rush, the pair she’d worn for a year and refused to replace, sinking an inch into moss that was too soft, too green for mid-November. Over her head, oak branches laced together to block the moon, and when she fumbled her phone out of her leather jacket’s pocket, the screen flickered once then died, no battery icon, no lock screen, just black. That was the second wrong thing. She’d charged it that morning, had even checked it ten minutes prior to confirm the what3words address Eva had sent her years ago, the one she’d only worked up the courage to follow now: Isolde’s grove, the Fae-touched clearing they’d joked about as kids, a place no monster could find you. Eva had laughed when she’d sent it, called it just an urban legend, but the note that came with the Heartstone had said the same thing. The note had been tucked under her doormat two weeks prior, the same day Evan had banged on her flat above Silas’ bar for an hour, screaming her name through the letterbox until Silas had chased him off with a baseball bat. The note had read, Go to the grove in Richmond. It will keep him away. Taped to it was the pendant, a deep crimson gem the size of her thumbnail strung on a fine silver chain, warm even through the envelope it came in. She’d clipped it around her neck that night, had slept with it under her pillow, and for a week Evan hadn’t come around. Until last night, when she’d seen his shadow leaning against the bus stop across from the Golden Empress, and she’d known it was time to go. She rubbed the crescent scar on her left wrist, a childhood tic, the pale thin mark peeking out from the cuff of her jacket. She’d gotten it falling off her bike at seven, but Evan had grabbed that wrist so many times, hard enough to leave bruises ringed around the old scar, that it ached now whenever she was scared . The grove was supposed to fix that. The grove was supposed to make the fear go away. She shone her small plastic flashlight, the one she kept in her jacket for late delivery runs, its beam faded but steady, ahead, and the clearing opened up in front of her, just as the note had described. Wildflowers bloomed under her feet, bluebells and poppies and clover, their colors vivid even in the faint flashlight beam. It was November. Nothing bloomed in London in November, not wild, not in a dark park at midnight. That was the third wrong thing, big enough that she almost turned back, almost ran for the oak stone and the distant hum of the city she’d left behind. But then the Heartstone stirred under her sweater, a faint pulse of warmth against her sternum, and she thought of Evan’s face, of the way he’d looked when he’d spotted her outside the restaurant, and she stepped further into the clearing. The mist rolled in ten minutes later, or what she thought was ten minutes. She’d checked her smart watch when she’d first entered the clearing, it had read 11:02 PM. When she checked it again, it flickered , jumped to 2:14 AM, then 3:07 PM the previous Tuesday, then stuck on 11:02 PM again, the second hand stuttering back and forth like it was fighting to move. Time moves differently there, Eva had said once, when they’d gotten stoned on Rory’s childhood bedroom floor as teens and binged weird Fae lore videos. An hour inside can be a day outside, or a minute, no way to tell. Rory had laughed at her then, called her a hippie, but now the words made her throat go tight. She was standing in a grove that didn’t obey any of the rules she knew, and she was alone. She heard the first crunch behind her, a dry leaf breaking under a boot, and she spun, flashlight beam cutting through the thin mist. Nothing. Just trees, just wildflowers, the oak standing stones glinting at the edge of the clearing. Deer, she told herself. Richmond Park is full of deer. It’s just a deer. But deer didn’t wear boots. The next sound was worse: the soft stick of her front door lock turning, the same noise that had woken her up three months ago, when Evan had stolen her spare key and let himself into her Cardiff flat. The sound was coming from a bramble bush ten feet to her right, and she fumbled for the pepper spray Silas had pressed into her hand after he’d chased Evan off, her fingers shaking as she wrapped them around the plastic canister. The Heartstone was burning now, hot enough to seep through her sweater, and she pulled it out from under the fabric, the crimson gem glowing so bright it cast a red shadow over her palms, pulsing in time with her racing heart. She saw the first movement at the edge of the clearing, a flicker of dark that was too tall to be a deer, too thin to be a person. She blinked, and it was gone. Then she heard her name, soft, carrying over the wildflowers. “Rory.” It was Evan’s voice . The same low, rough tone he used when he was pretending to be calm, right before he got angry. She backed up, her heels hitting the thick trunk of the central oak that grew in the middle of the grove, her flashlight shaking so bad the beam bounced off the treetops. “Rory. I know you’re in there. I just want to talk. I miss you.” The voice got closer, and she made out the shape of him, standing just inside the line of boundary stones. Same brown leather jacket, same messy brown hair, same exact height, exactly as she remembered him. But his arms were too long, his fingers dragging on the mossy ground, and when he turned his face toward her flashlight beam, there was nothing there. No eyes, no mouth, just a smooth blank expanse of pale skin, the voice pouring out of it anyway. She made a small, broken sound in her throat, and then another voice, Eva’s, soft and warm, coming from another shape that materialized to the first one’s left. “Rory, what are you scared of? It’s me. Come out, let’s go get ice cream like we used to.” That shape was Eva, right down to the neon pink hair she’d dyed the month prior, but its face was blank too, its legs bending the wrong way when it shifted its weight . Then her mum’s voice, soft Welsh lilt , wrapping around her: “Aurora, love, it’s cold out there. Come home. Your dad made lamb stew.” A third shape, her mum’s curly grey hair, her favourite wool coat, face blank, stepping closer. The Heartstone burned so bad it felt like it was branding her chest, and she remembered the fine print on the note, the line she’d thought was just nonsense scribbled at the bottom: It keeps out what you run from, but it pulls in what haunts you. The grove didn’t keep Evan away. It trapped her in here with him, with every ghost of every person she’d ever feared, every warped version of the people she loved that had ever hurt her, even by accident. The shapes were moving closer, slow, like they were wading through mud, but they were gaining , their blank faces turned toward the glow of the Heartstone. Rory’s brain raced , the quick out-of-the-box thinking that had gotten her through every bad situation she’d ever faced kicking in, cutting through the panic. The note had said the Heartstone pulsed faintly when near a Hel portal. It wasn’t leading her deeper into the grove’s sanctuary . It was leading her out. The gem blazed brightest when she turned away from the boundary stones where the shapes were, toward the small stone altar she’d missed earlier, half hidden by poppies at the clearing’s core. She ran, her boots slamming into the moss, the shapes’ screams rising behind her, Evan’s voice warping into something inhuman, Eva’s breaking, all of them chasing her. She skidded to a stop in front of the altar, the Heartstone flying off its silver chain in her rush to land in her palm, and she pressed it to the cold stone. The glow exploded, bright white light cutting through the mist, and the screams cut off, the shapes freezing mid-step at the edge of the clearing. She didn’t wait to see what happened next. She turned and ran, straight for the oak stones, her lungs burning, and she slammed through the boundary, the hum of the motorway hitting her so hard she stumbled, collapsing into the bracken on the other side. She lay there gasping for minutes, her body shaking, before she fumbled for her phone. It turned on instantly, the lock screen reading 11:17 PM. Seventeen minutes had passed since she’d crossed into the grove. She looked back over her shoulder, and the oak standing stones were just ordinary trees, no clearing, no wildflowers, just the dark of Richmond Park stretching out behind her. The Heartstone lay in her palm, cool again, the crimson gem dim, the faint inner glow the only sign it had ever burned. She clipped it back around her broken chain, shoving it under her sweater, and pushed herself to her feet, her legs wobbly. The grove hadn’t been a sanctuary . It had been a test, or a trap, she didn’t know which. But she’d gotten out. She started walking back toward the park entrance, the hum of the city wrapping around her, the scar on her wrist throbbing softly , and for the first time since she’d fled Evan, she didn’t look over her shoulder. She knew whatever was in that grove couldn’t follow her. And she knew she’d never go back.