Run: 2026-04-24-01KQ04TD5NX9SEQJ4CFPHBRX36

Rory's bike locked to the Richmond Park gate an hour ago. The Heartstone Pendant seared a red welt against her collarbone by the time she reached the treeline. She unclipped it from inside her shirt and held it in her scarred palm. The deep crimson gemstone flickered with an inner luminescence, picking out a path between the ancient oaks. She followed. The grove breathed. That was the first wrong thing. When she stepped past the boundary stones—gnarled behemoths that looked less like markers and more like frozen giants—air entered her lungs with a weight. The scent of wildflowers clotted the breeze. Rory ran a thumb over the crescent scar on her left wrist. The skin there prickled. "All right, you stupid rock. You brought me here. Now what?" Her voice fell flat. It lacked echo. The silence ate the words whole. She moved deeper. She held the silver chain in one hand, the other brushing thigh-length grass that had no business growing in London. Not in December. Yet in this soil it thrived, slick and green and alive. There was no frost upon the blades. No snap of bare branches overhead. The oaks burned with leaves blacker than her hair, leaves that did not rustle despite the sway of their branches. She walked on grass that should have crackled underfoot. Her boots sank without sound, as if the earth pulled each footfall into damp cotton. The moon hung low, bloated and white. It cast the clearing in a light that bleached the color from her hands. One of the stones bore a knothole at the height of a man's face. Inside the hollow, something pale glistened. She did not stop to inspect it. The silver chain in her hand grew slick. She wiped her palm against her jeans and gripped harder. The pendant knew this place. It had pulled her across the park, past the pond, through bramble thickets that tore her delivery jacket. She had bled a little on the way. The cut on her shoulder itched. A twig cracked behind her. Rory spun. The path stretched back toward the stones, empty. The gap between them showed a smear of darkness where the park lamps ought to pulse. She counted her heartbeats. One. Two. Three. Nothing moved. "Badger." The sound died at her chin. She turned. The pendant hummed. It dragged her another three paces toward the center, where the wildflowers grew dense as snowdrifts. Purple heads nodded. White stems gleamed. Rory knelt. Her fingers brushed a petal. It felt like velvet laid over bone. The chill sank through her skin and settled in the joint. The moon did not shift. She checked her phone. The screen displayed 11:47. She entered the park at half eleven. The battery read forty percent. She had charged it before her shift at the Golden Empress. That was six hours ago. Forty percent drained in six hours? She could buy that. But the lock screen told a different story. The timestamp on Eva's last message—sent just before Rory had left the flat above Silas' bar—read 23:02. It was twenty minutes to midnight. It felt longer. Much longer. The backs of her eyes ached with exhaustion. Her calves burned from walking. She had been in this grove for minutes or half a lifetime. The stones watched her decide. Wrongness pooled in her stomach. Rory pocketed the device. The hum of London had ceased. No distant bus brakes squealed. No aircraft cut the clouds. The grove sat in a pocket of dead acoustics, a bell jar inverted over sacred ground. She listened for the river. Nothing. She listened for the wind. The black leaves waved, silent as ink in water. Even the cold had fled. Her breath should have steamed. It did not. The air held a temperature that matched her feverish skin, a closeness that felt less like atmosphere and more like a throat preparing to swallow. "Don't fold now, Carter." Then a click came. A tongue against teeth. It originated from her right. It originated from her left. It originated from the canopy above. A dry, insectile sound that multiplied, surrounded her. Another click answered. Then another. The rhythm matched no bird, no insect. It carried intent. It carried invitation. Rory's fist tightened on the pendant. The silver chain bit into her fingers. "One of you. Two of you. I don't care. Show yourself. I didn't come for a stroll." No answer. A flower brushed her ankle. No wind existed. Rory stepped back. Her boot crushed a stem. The snap was brittle. It echoed like a dry bone breaking. She froze. Her bright blue eyes raked the tree line. The black leaves shivered. All of them. At once. A ripple passed through the canopy like something vast exhaled beneath the bark. She drew breath. A footfall answered. Not her own. It came from the left, deep in the shadows between two sentinel oaks. Leather on grass. A heel turned in the earth with purpose. The shift of weight from one limb to another. Rory whirled. "Eva?" The name hung, unanswered. Eva had sent her to London. Eva had known something about the pendant's benefactor, had dropped hints in hurried texts. If Eva had walked these stones, she had not walked them alone. Or she had not walked out. But Eva was not here. Rory knew it in her teeth. This was not a friendly reunion. This was not human terrain. The pendant scalded her palm. She hissed, shook her hand, and the gemstone swung free on its chain. The crimson light intensified. It painted the wildflowers the color of dark wine. In that flush of red, Rory caught movement at the corner of her vision. A shape between the stones. Tall. Limbs too long for its height. It stood at the edge of the boundary and did not cross. She fixed her gaze on the spot. It had vanished. The space held only shadow and rough bark. "Fine. You want to dance? Let's dance." The words turned metallic on her tongue. The air thickened. The black leaves shook again, and this time she heard the giggle. It was not a child's sound. It warbled from everywhere and nowhere, a wet note that vibrated in her scarred wrist and her molars. The wildflowers stirred. Hundreds of heads turned toward her, stems creaking like old joists beneath a heavy boot. A second silhouette peeled away from the nearest oak. Then a third. They did not move like men. They did not blink. Rory's pulse hammered in her throat. She had fled Evan's fists. She had outrun debt collectors in Cardiff alleyways. She had survived by calculating odds, by spotting exits. Here, the math failed. The grove had no walls. The path had vanished. The exits were the oaks, and the oaks were wrong. Another footfall. Closer. She snapped her head toward the sound. The nearest figure stood twenty feet away, inside the circle. Darkness clung to it. Its head tilted at an angle that disconnected neck from spine. The limbs hung slack, fingers—if they were fingers— brushing the tops of the white petals without bending the stems. She tracked its silhouette against the moon. It had no shoulders, only a slope that connected neck to arm in one uninterrupted line. When it breathed, the grove breathed with it. Rory's throat constricted. She choked the fear down. It sat in her gut like a stone heavier than the one in her hand. She reached behind her. Her fingers closed around a loose stone, cold and slick with dew. She lifted it. The weight settled her grip. "I'm not prey." The figure tilted its head in the opposite direction. The giggle came again, this time at a spot behind her left ear. Warm air touched her neck. The pendant blazed white-hot. Rory spun, arm raised, stone ready.