AI Rory's boot sank into mud that had no right existing in Richmond Park. The ground should have been frost-hard, not sucking at her sole like wet sponge. She pulled free with a soft, ugly sound. The Heartstone pendant beneath her coat throbbed against her collarbone, hot and insistent, like a second heart that had forgotten whose chest it owned.
She'd come for a misdelivered envelope, one with Evan's looping, arrogant scrawl across the front. The address had led her past deer gates, past ponds, into this part of the park that her phone's map refused to render. Now the path behind her had dissolved into bramble and dark, and the envelope crumpled in her pocket like a dead leaf.
She pushed forward. Thorns scratched her palms, leaving thin lines that stung. The smell hit her then, jasmine layered over something sweeter, something that made her teeth ache with each breath. Not panic, not yet, just her body remembering old alarms, the ones Evan had trained into her across eighteen months of careful damage.
The clearing opened without warning.
Ancient oak standing stones rose in a rough circle, grey-green with moss, older than the park, older than London. Between them, wildflowers bloomed in shades she couldn't name, violet and gold and a pale blue that seemed to emit faint light of its own. Petals trembled though the air hung dead still, heavy as stagnant water.
Rory stepped closer. The pendant burned now, deep crimson visible through her shirt fabric. Near a Hel portal it always did this. She hadn't known one lurked in Richmond.
She checked her phone. Dead black screen, though she'd charged it full before leaving Silas's bar. Her watch had stopped at 11:47, though she was certain she'd walked for hours, or perhaps minutes. Time in these pockets stretched like old elastic, she knew that from Eva's stories, the ones Rory had dismissed as escape fantasies for people softer than she was.
She turned slowly . The stones stood near three metres high, carved with patterns that hurt her eyes if she stared, geometric spirals that seemed to sink into the wood rather than rest upon it . Wildflowers covered every inch inside the circle, soft and inviting, but she didn't cross. Something about the way they turned, subtly, towards her boots.
A sound came from her left. Not footsteps , more like wet leather dragging across stone. Rory snapped her head round. Nothing. Only flowers swaying in silent unison, though no breeze touched her dark hair.
"Right."
She said it aloud, voice thin, swallowed by trees.
"Lost in the woods. Classic."
She pressed her back to one of the stones. Bark was rough, warm, pulsing with a rhythm that matched the pendant's throb . She told herself geothermal heat, underground springs common to old land. She was cool-headed, intelligent, quick with logic. This was work for reason, not for the crawl that had started at her spine's base.
Then she heard breathing.
Not hers. Too slow, too wet, like air pulled through a drain clogged with rot. It came from everywhere, echoing between stones with an intimacy that prickled her skin.
Rory moved along the perimeter, boots silent on moss, keeping the circle in view. Her left wrist itched, the old crescent scar from a Cardiff fall, and she rubbed it with her thumb without thought. The breathing followed her pace, adjusting, learning.
At the far tree line, something shifted.
Too tall, bending at angles that made her eyes water. Half-hidden by shadow, but she caught long limbs ending in excess joints, a head tilting like a broken puppet examining dead prey.
Her mouth went dry. She reached for her phone, dead weight . She needed to run, but her feet rooted, mind racing through exits that all ended in dead ends. The pendant flared, casting red across grass, illuminating flowers that now leaned inward, towards the circle's centre, towards her.
She broke paralysis first. That was her gift, Eva always said, thinking when others froze.
Rory ran.
Boots pounded earth, but the grove expanded with each stride. Stones receded, then surged closer, rearranging like teeth in a shifting jaw. Air thickened, tasting of copper and old honey, clinging to her throat. Behind her, dragging accelerated, gaining rhythm, gaining purpose, close enough now that she smelt it, rot and iron and burnt sugar.
She tripped over a root that hadn't existed seconds prior. Hit ground hard, elbow jarring, breath leaving in a sharp grunt. Palm scraped hidden stone, and she tasted blood, copper-bright on her tongue.
Above, the sky was wrong. Stars arranged in patterns that hurt to parse, some sliding slowly across black in directions that mocked physics, leaving faint greenish trails like dying phosphor.
The breathing pressed against her neck, hot and rancid, carrying syllables that twisted her name through water.
Rory rolled, scrambling back, spine against cold oak. The shape loomed , featureless except for eyes reflecting her own terrified face, bright blue irises staring back from a face that had none.
The pendant blazed crimson, searing her chest through fabric. She clawed it out, silver chain biting her palm, holding it up like a ward she didn't understand.
The thing froze. Its head snapped towards the gem with a crack like splitting timber. For an instant she saw true shape, too many angles, limbs folding wrong, mouth opening wider than bone allowed, filled with darkness and small white flower-like teeth.
She didn't wait for explanation. She hurled the pendant into darkness between stones, towards where she prayed the path lay.
Light exploded, white and silent, swallowing grove and shape and sound. For one blinding moment she saw trees bending away, roots tearing free with screams that hurt her mind rather than ears, then darkness crashed back, heavier, absolute.
She lay in mud, chest heaving, pendant gone, silence pressing like deep water.
Then, from directly in front, arm's length away, her own voice whispered her name with perfect , awful intimacy, carrying her Cardiff lilt twisted into hunger.
Rory's heart skipped, then thundered back. She scrambled backward, hands finding nothing, eyes searching black for source absent.
The voice came again, closer, speaking words she hadn't said, laughing with a sound that was hers and not hers.
And in the darkness, something smiled with her teeth.