Run: 2026-09-02-01M1H9GM4T3HZ0V34XP60BRZMB

Rory leaned the bicycle against the Richmond Park gate and read the text again. Eva's words sat in a cracked green bubble: If I'm not at the café by midnight, go to the oak stones in the Grove. Bring the Heartstone. Come alone. The timestamp read 11:03. The phone now read 12:04. No signal. She slipped the phone into her jacket pocket and touched the pendant beneath her shirt. The crimson stone warmed against her skin. The silver chain carried no heat at all. She pushed the gate. The iron swung without a sound. That stopped her hand. Richmond's gates always complained; she had delivered within the park twice and heard the hinges squeal. She kept her fingers on the cold bar and listened. No traffic along the road. No bus brakes. No wind in the high branches. The city had stepped back and left a hole shaped like the park. The air tasted of cold metal. Her breath made no fog, though December had bitten her cheeks raw on the ride over. She noticed that too. A strand of black hair stuck to her lower lip. She wiped it away with her thumb. Rory stepped inside. The path lay pale under a thin moon. Oaks spread black limbs over it, and between their roots wildflowers stood in thick knots. White petals. Black centres. Red throats. They had no right to bloom in December, yet they lifted as her wheel passed. At the edge of her sight, a white flower head turned. Then another. They tracked her passage with no wind to blame. She left the bicycle against a tree and walked. A sound followed her. A bicycle spoke ticking. She turned. The path behind held nothing. The ticking went on for three steps after she stopped, then ceased. "Right." Her voice fell flat. The grass drank it. She took the pendant from under her shirt. The stone, thumbnail-small, held a dim red glow in its depths. It pulsed against her palm. Each beat sent warmth up her wrist. The crescent scar there tightened, though no mark had touched it. She drew a breath and kept walking. The trees opened. Twelve standing stones rose in a rough ring. They looked old enough to have worn out their purpose. Their surfaces carried the grain of oak, deep grooves and knots, yet they stood with the weight of rock. Within the ring, wildflowers grew so thick they made a pale carpet. They faced the centre, not the moon. A shadow slipped over the grass between two stones. Rory snapped her gaze to it. The grass lay empty. The shadow appeared again beside the next stone, longer than the object casting it. Silas had refused to speak much when she asked about the Richmond grove. He had wiped the same spot on the bar and told her the place took hours and gave back nothing. She had called him dramatic. She did not call him that now. Rory stopped at the boundary. "Eva?" The name left her mouth and returned from the far side of the stones. "Rory." Her hand closed around the pendant. The voice had Eva's pitch. It did not carry Eva's breath, her little habit of swallowing before a second word. It came out smooth, cut from tape. Rory checked the phone. No signal. The clock read 12:04. She watched the numbers change to 3:19, then back to 12:04. She turned the phone over. The case held nothing. The screen kept its impossible hour. She pressed the record button on the voice memo app. The red circle appeared. "Eva sent me here. The pendant is warm. The stones are inside the park. If this is stupid, blame me." The recording bar froze. The red dot pulsed. "Come on." She tapped the screen. Nothing. The app held the same second, stretched thin. From somewhere inside the ring came the chime of the Golden Empress service bell. Rory's shoulders drew back. She knew that bell. She heard it through kitchen steam and shouting every shift. It had no business standing under open trees. The bell rang again. After it came the slap of a ticket machine and Yu-Fei's voice, muffled, calling an order number. The smell of frying oil and ginger rose out of the flowers. Rory's stomach gave a painful lurch. The scent belonged to the restaurant, to her apron, to the delivery bag hanging on her flat wall. It had no place in a grove. Rory did not move. The sound stopped. In its place rose a low scrape, like a chair pulled back in another room. She took one step into the ring. The wildflowers bent away from her shoes. They did not spring up again. Behind her, the path she had followed lay gone. Trees filled it, trunk after trunk. They had grown while she looked away. The pendant pulsed. Warmth spread across her chest. She lifted her chin. "I brought the stone." The flowers stirred. A shape moved beyond the nearest standing stone. Tall. Thin. It passed behind the rock and did not come out the other side. The shape returned on the far side of the ring. It stood with its shoulders too high, its arms too long. Rory blinked. The space behind the stone held only shadow. Rory's throat closed. She forced her feet to stay. "If you want the Heartstone, show yourself." The grove answered with her own voice. "Show yourself." The words came from three places. One sounded close enough to touch her neck. She turned. The air behind her carried a smell of wet wool and old iron. No figure stood there. The flowers in that spot pressed flat, forming a narrow lane toward the centre of the ring. At the lane's end lay a scarf. Green wool. Frayed at one corner. Eva's. Rory crossed the distance before fear could argue. She crouched and touched the scarf. It was warm. Not sun-warm. Body-warm. The fibres held the shape of a fresh knot. The pendant burned. She snatched her fingers back and stared at the stone. Its red glow had brightened. Light spilled between her fingers, staining her palm. Red light climbed into her bright blue eyes. The unsigned card that had come with the pendant surfaced in her mind. It wakes near Hel portals. A breath touched the back of her neck. Rory rolled to her feet and faced the stones. Nothing moved. The grass lay still. Yet every flower around her leaned in one direction, toward a point behind the tallest stone. "Eva." Her voice cracked on the second syllable. From behind the stone came the sound of her flat door opening above Silas' bar. The hinge gave its familiar groan. The creak of the floorboard just inside. The small click of the lock when it caught. The flat sounds continued. Footsteps crossed the boards. The kettle tapped its lid. Someone set a mug on the counter with a ceramic knock. Rory knew each sound by months of living above the bar. They belonged to her rooms, not under ancient stones. Rory backed a step. Her phone lit in her hand. The screen showed a call. EVA. She answered before thought caught up. Eva's side of the line carried static. Under it, a mouth breathed. Rory gripped the phone. "Eva, I'm at the stones. Tell me where you are." The static shifted. A voice surfaced. It was Rory's own voice, low and urgent. "Don't come in." The call ended. The grove filled with the sound of phones ringing. Not one. Dozens. They rang from under the flowers, from inside the stones, from the branches overhead. All of them stopped together. One ringtone matched hers. It came from beneath a clump of red-throated flowers, close enough for her to kneel and dig. She did not kneel. The flowers parted over it and hid the sound. Rory lowered the phone. Her thumb found the crescent scar on her wrist. The skin there had gone hot. A second scarf lay near the next stone. Then another. Green wool. Frayed corner. Each one arranged in a fresh knot. Each one warm. The nearest scarf moved. The wool stretched in the middle. A pressure Rory could not see drew it upward. It held the shape of a head for one breath, then dropped. She did not pick them up. The tallest stone shifted. It did not slide or fall. It turned the way a shoulder turns, presenting a broader face. Behind it stood a stretch of dark no deeper than a doorway. The pendant jerked against her palm. Its glow beat fast, red through the silver chain, red against her fingers. The pendant's glow reached the standing stones and made their oak grain shift. The grooves deepened. Knots opened into dark holes. From those holes came the sound of breathing, thin and patient. The darkness breathed. Rory's body leaned toward the gate. Her eyes would not leave the opening. From within it came the sound of a bicycle wheel ticking. Then the Golden Empress bell. Then Eva's laugh, cut short. Rory opened her hand. The pendant clung to her skin for a moment before dropping to the flower bed. The crimson stone lay among white petals, shining with its own inner heat. The dark doorway widened. Rory took a step toward it.