AI The iron gate groaned, a rusted, screeching protest against the silence of the outer perimeter, before swinging wide enough to admit my shoulder. I stepped into the Fae Grove, the boundary marked by those jagged, ancient oak standing stones that seemed to vibrate against the soles of my boots . My breath hitched, not from the cold, but from the sudden, jarring pressure that settled against my eardrums. It was a vacuum, a hollow space where the ambient hum of London had been brutally excised and replaced with the thrumming, rhythmic pulse of something ancient and hungry.
I reached for the Heartstone pendant tucked beneath my sweater. The deep crimson gem hummed against my collarbone, warm, insistent, and vibrating with an intensity that made my teeth ache. I was supposed to be alone, but the air here was thick, heavy, and tasted of ozone and rotting, sweet lilies.
"You're late, Aurora."
The voice didn't come from behind me. It resonated from the gnarled bark of a hawthorn tree to my left, the syllables dripping like wet honey. I spun, my hand darting to the strap of my messenger bag, though I knew the contents were useless against what lived in the creases of this map.
"The tube was delayed," I said, my voice sounding too loud, too human in the oppressive stillness.
"Time behaves differently in the Grove, little delivery girl." A shadow detached itself from the gloom behind the central monolith. It was tall, impossibly thin, and draped in tatters of moonlight and cobweb. It possessed no face, only a vertical slit that widened as it shifted toward me. "Outside, you have all the time in the world. Here, you have only what you bring with you."
I took a step back, the toe of my boot catching on a exposed, pulsing root that looked disturbingly like a flexed tendon. My bright blue eyes darted to the periphery, tracking the unnatural motion of the wildflowers. They weren't swaying in the wind; they were swiveling , their bright, toxic petals following my movement like thousands of tiny, blind, sightless eyes.
"I have the payment," I said, ignoring the thudding beat of my heart against my ribs. I reached into my pocket, fingers brushing the crescent-shaped scar on my wrist. The skin there always prickled when the barrier between worlds grew thin. "The benefactor said this was sufficient."
"Sufficiency is a matter of perspective."
The creature glided forward, leaving no footprints in the thick, silver moss. Each movement was a hitch, a stutter-step blink-blink that made my balance falter. My head swam. The scent of copper filled the air, thick and metallic, sharp enough to coat the back of my throat. I swallowed hard, grounding myself. Keep the distance. Don't let it circle.
"The Heartstone." It tilted its featureless head toward my chest. "It glows for you. Has he told you why yet?"
"He hasn't told me anything."
"Of course not." A sound erupted from the slit in its face, a dry, rattling hiss that mimicked human laughter. "He needs you tethered. A compass points true when the needle is magnetized. You are the magnet, Aurora. Poor, doomed, lovely Carter."
I backed into one of the standing stones. The granite was freezing, searing through the back of my coat, but the sensation anchored me. The pendant grew hotter, the inner glow intensifying until it cast a crimson, pulsing light across the nearby ferns. They withered instantly beneath the beam, turning to grey ash before my eyes.
"I didn't come for a lecture." I gripped the chain of the pendant, yanking it free from under my knit fabric. "I came for the information on the Hel portals. My father is looking into the legal ramifications of the property transfers in Cardiff. He’s pushing too hard, and the people he's sniffing after don't like witnesses."
"Brendan Carter." The creature circled, its movements becoming fluid and predatory . "A barrister playing in the mud, hoping to find a clear path through the brambles. He thinks the law protects him."
"It protected him until now."
"Now is a very small point in time."
It stopped abruptly. The air between us crystallized . My peripheral vision flickered with black spots, the edges of the grove darkening as if someone were pulling a heavy, velvet curtain over the reality of the park. Something moved in the canopy above, something large enough to displace the leaves, skittering with a wet, clicking sound. I didn't look up. Rule one: do not look at what you cannot fight.
"You want to know where they bleed," the creature whispered, now inches from my ear. I felt no breath on my skin, only the biting, unnatural chill of a grave . "The portals aren't locations, Aurora. They are wounds. And wounds tend to fester when you stop picking at them."
"Give me the location."
"Look down."
I obeyed, my gaze dropping to the dirt near my feet. The soil was shifting , parting like dark, liquid ink to reveal a pulsing, geometric pattern etched deep into the earth. It was a map, but not of London. It was a cartography of intersections, marked by pinpricks of violent, sickly green light. Every point connected back to a single nexus, and as I stared, the truth settled in my gut like lead.
"The bar," I breathed. "My building."
"Silas has been a gracious landlord, hasn't he?" The creature hovered, the slit in its face widening to reveal a flash of serrated, jagged teeth. "He keeps the cellar locked for a reason. He keeps the residents fed for a reason."
A sharp, high-pitched ringing erupted in my ears, drowning out the rustle of the leaves. The pendant pulsed violently, a rhythmic flare of crimson that matched the frantic tempo of my pulse . I glanced down at my wrist; the crescent scar was pulsing with a faint, iridescent light, mirroring the map in the dirt.
A twig snapped, but not from the creature in front of me. Behind the standing stone, just out of my direct line of sight, a heavy, dragging footfall punctuated the silence . Then another. A slow, systematic approach.
"It seems you have someone following your scent, little bird."
"There's no one else allowed in the Grove," I snapped, my hand instinctively going to the small, concealed blade held in a sheath against my thigh.
"Laws are for those who live in the light," the creature hissed, backing away toward the darkness of the trees. "Those who live in the folds have no such restrictions. Run, Aurora. The stones are waking up, and they represent quite a hungry, restless crowd."
The ground beneath me shifted again, not with the fluid movement of before, but with the sudden, violent tremor of an earthquake . I stumbled, my boot skidding on the wet, slick moss. The silence of the grove vanished, replaced by a cacophony of whispers—thousands of voices, dry and papery, rising from the earth itself. They weren't human. They were the sound of old, dead leaves grinding together, and they were all screaming my name.
I turned to bolt toward the gate, but the air in front of me warped. The space shimmered , the visual image of the iron entrance tearing like a piece of burnt, fragile parchment to reveal a swirling, abyssal void beyond. Something was coming out of that tear—not a shadow, but a shape, hunched and elongated, fingers dripping with a thick, viscous, black ichor. It slammed into the ground, its head snapping up to fix me with eyes that reflected the burning, crimson glow of my own pendant.
I stood frozen. The Heartstone erupted with a blinding, searing light. The creature began to wail, a sound that shattered the stillness, and the trees around us bent, their branches clawing at the sky.
"Rory!"
The voice was human, terrified, and distorted by the interference of the grove. I whipped my head to the side, seeing a flicker of movement near the oaks. It was him. Evan. His face was a bruised, battered ruin, and he stood staring at me through the gap in the thorns.
He shouldn't be here. He was supposed to be in Cardiff.
He didn't run to me; he pointed at the ground between us where the earth was beginning to boil, obsidian glass pushing up through the soil as if the very crust of the world was turning inside out. My heart hammered. The portal wasn't just in the bar. It was everywhere. And it was opening now.