Run: 2026-04-25-01KQ2GVMDQA014KA1AT79Y329G

Rory felt the air change before she saw anything—a shift in pressure that pressed against her eardrums, then released with a soft pop. The path through Richmond Park had led them between two ancient oaks whose branches intertwined overhead like clasped hands, and now the ground beneath her feet no longer felt like English soil. The grass had turned silver. Not frost—it was too warm for that, the late autumn air carrying the scent of honey and something floral she couldn't name. Each blade caught the strange light and threw it back in soft, shimmering waves that rippled outward as she walked. “Don't step off the path,” Nyx said. Their voice emerged from the shadow they occupied at her left shoulder, a whisper that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once. In the daylight of the park, their form had been barely visible—a dark smudge against the trees. Here, under the amber-gold sky that didn't belong to London, they stood in sharp relief, a humanoid cutout of deepest black with twin points of violet where their eyes should be. Rory's hand drifted to the Heartstone pendant at her throat. The crimson gem pulsed with warmth, steady as a second heartbeat. “Is this it? The Grove?” “The threshold.” Isolde's voice came from ahead, though Rory hadn't seen her move. The Half-Fae woman stood at the edge of a clearing, her silver hair falling in a waterfall past her waist, her pale lavender eyes fixed on something Rory couldn't yet see. “Beyond lies the heart. You must choose to enter.” Rory exchanged a glance with the third member of their group—Eva, who had insisted on coming despite Rory's protests. Eva's hand rested on the hilt of a blade she'd acquired from God knew where, her jaw tight. “Choose how?” Eva asked. “Willingly.” Isolde turned, and for a moment the light caught her face, revealing the faint, almost imperceptible points of her ears, the way her features seemed slightly out of focus, as if seen through water. “The Fae do not take guests by force. You must walk in of your own accord, knowing that time here moves to its own rhythm.” Rory thought of the flat above Silas's bar, the delivery schedule for Golden Empress, the stack of unread law textbooks she'd never opened. London felt very far away. She stepped forward. The clearing opened around them like a flower unfolding. Trees surrounded the space—not oaks, but something older, their bark smooth and pale as bone, their leaves a deep violet that rustled without wind. At the center stood a ring of standing stones, each one carved with spirals that seemed to shift when Rory looked directly at them. Between the stones, the air shimmered, and through that shimmer she caught glimpses of something else: towering spires of crystal, rivers of liquid light, figures that moved with inhuman grace before vanishing. “Don't stare too long,” Nyx said, their whisper carrying a note of warning. “The Veil is thin here. You might see things that aren't meant for mortal eyes.” “Then why are we here?” Eva's voice was sharp, her fear disguising itself as anger. “You said Isolde could help us find the rift. Help us close it before Belphegor's people find a way through.” Isolde smiled, and there was something ancient in that expression, something that reminded Rory of deep water and older forests. “I said I could show you the way. Whether you can walk it is another matter entirely.” She moved between two of the standing stones, and the shimmering air parted around her like curtains drawn aside. Beyond lay a grove that defied everything Rory knew about the world. The ground was carpeted in flowers—wild roses, bluebells, foxgloves, blooms that shouldn't exist in the same season, let alone the same soil. Their colors were too vivid, too saturated, as if someone had turned up the saturation on reality itself. Butterflies with wings like stained glass drifted between them, leaving trails of golden dust that hung in the air for long moments before dissipating. Above, the sky was a warm amber, like honey held up to sunlight, with no sun visible to source the light. It came from everywhere, soft and diffuse, casting no shadows. Except Nyx cast one. Rory noticed that—the Shade's shadow fell sharp and dark across the flowers, while the flowers themselves cast none. “The laws are different here,” Nyx said, as if reading her thoughts. “I am more solid than I am in your world. More real.” “And we're less,” Eva muttered. “Perhaps.” Isolde led them deeper into the grove, her bare feet leaving no impression on the flower-laden ground. “Mortals bring their own rules into Fae-touched places. The Grove accepts them, holds them in tension with its own. That tension is what makes it dangerous.” They passed a pool of water so clear that Rory could see every stone at its bottom, each one faceted like cut gem. The water didn't reflect the amber sky—it reflected a star-filled night, deep and infinite. She felt an almost overwhelming urge to reach out, to touch that impossible surface. “Don't,” Nyx said. “That water shows you what you most desire. Drink from it, and you'll never want to leave.” Rory pulled her hand back. “What happens if you never leave?” “You become part of the Grove.” Isolde had stopped beside a massive oak whose trunk was carved with the same spiraling patterns as the standing stones. “Your body takes root. Your memories become flowers. Eventually, even your name is forgotten, and you exist only as a story the Grove tells itself.” She pressed her palm to the oak, and the bark rippled like water. A door formed—not carved, but grown, the wood weaving itself into an archway that opened onto a path descending into darkness. “The way to Hel lies beneath,” Isolde said. “But the path is not what you expect. It will test you. It will ask you to prove what you're willing to sacrifice.” Rory felt the Heartstone pulse against her chest, warm and insistent. She thought of Evan's fists, of the flat in London that wasn't really home, of the growing certainty that something dark was moving beneath the surface of the world, and that she was somehow connected to it. “I'm willing,” she said. Eva grabbed her arm. “Rory, wait. You don't know what's down there.” “Neither do you.” Rory met her friend's eyes, saw the fear there, the protective anger. “But I know what's coming if we don't stop it. I've seen the reports from the Wardens. I've felt the Veil thinning. And I've got a pendant that someone gave me for a reason, a blade Isolde trusted me with, and a shade who could have killed me a dozen times but hasn't.” Nyx made a sound that might have been laughter, dry and rustling. “I reserve the right to reconsider.” “Noted.” Rory turned back to the doorway, to the darkness that waited beyond. The air that rose from it was warm, carrying the scent of roasting meat and something sweet, like caramelized fruit. It should have been comforting. Instead, it made her stomach turn. Belphegor's realm. Dymas. The domain of Gluttony. “One more thing,” Isolde said. She reached into the folds of her silver-white dress and produced a small vial containing what looked like liquid moonlight. “Drink this. It will bind your tongue from speaking any words the Prince of Gluttony could use to claim you. Names have power in Hel, Aurora Carter. Do not give yours away freely.” Rory took the vial. The liquid was cold against her lips, tasted of mint and something metallic, like old copper. It slid down her throat and settled in her chest like a stone. “The effect lasts three days,” Isolde continued. “When it fades, you must be beyond Dymas's borders, or find another way to shield yourself. I cannot give you more—the binding requires my blood, and I have already given more than I should.” A debt, Rory realized. Isolde was incurring debts to help them. That meant she expected something in return, eventually. But that was a problem for later. She stepped through the doorway. The transition was abrupt and complete. One moment she stood in the impossible grove, surrounded by flowers and amber light. The next, she was on a path that wound downward through rock that glowed with faint phosphorescence, green and blue veins of light pulsing like blood through stone. The air grew warmer with each step. The scent of roasting meat grew stronger, layered now with spices she couldn't identify—something sharp and floral, something rich and savory, something that made her mouth water despite herself. Behind her, she heard Eva's footsteps, Nyx's shadow-silent glide. “Welcome to Dymas,” Nyx murmured, and there was something like old grief in their whisper. “Try not to eat anything.”