Run: 2026-09-03-01M1KYY7KXQ7MSMT2MEJVWDS9G

The last oak in Richmond Park wore a crown of grey lichen. Aurora paused before it, fingers tightening on the strap of her delivery bag. Behind her, the park sounded like a city after rain: tires, gulls, a distant siren. Here the noise thinned to a skin and stopped. Nyx leaned against the trunk, shadow curling around their ankles. "You hear it?" Aurora touched the pendant under her blouse. "Warm." Nyx tilted their head. "More than warm. Hungry." Isolde stood between the standing stones, silver hair loose to her waist. Wildflowers pressed close around her shoes, though no footprints marked the moss. Isolde looked at the stones. "The Grove keeps its own clock. One step inside. One hour outside. Or none." She looked at Aurora. "Which will you bring back?" Aurora counted the stones. Twelve, then thirteen. The oldest one had split down its middle, and through the split a thin ribbon of amber light moved. Aurora touched the split. "That is not the sun." Nyx laughed, low and dry as paper. "No. It is a door." Isolde stepped aside. Her pale lavender eyes caught the amber glow. "The Veil wears thin where grief has chewed. Hel likes its borders soft." Aurora pulled the Heartstone pendant into the air. The crimson stone pulsed against her palm, a thumbprint of heat. The chain went slack, then tugged, the way a dog tugs a leash. Aurora held the pendant. "It knows the way." Nyx tilted their head. "It knows a way. Shades know more ways than we like." Aurora drew the Fae-forged blade. The moonsilver leaf grew colder under her fingers, its edge catching no light. She pressed it to the split in the stone. The blade slid through the grain without touching it, and the crack widened into a breathing line. Amber light spilled over their shoes. The Grove took them. Inside, the oaks stood in rows that refused straightness. Their bark was black, their leaves the pale blue of a gas flame. Flowers opened along the path as they passed, white and gold, then closed behind them, sealing the trail. No wind moved the petals. Aurora watched a beetle crawl across one blossom, then the blossom folded around it and bloomed again, the beetle gone. Aurora stopped before the closed flower. "Where do things go?" Isolde looked at the petal. "Into the taste." Nyx drifted forward, their solid edges fraying at the shoulders. "I do not like this place. It remembers us." Aurora watched the beetle disappear. "Everything here is a plate. We walk on something set." A low hum came from the ground. The path bent toward a hollow between two oaks. At the hollow's centre stood a well, though the stone rim held no bucket. Instead, a ring of black water reflected the amber sky. In the reflection, the sky showed feasting tables, cloaks, and a figure seated on a throne of roasted fruit. Aurora crouched. Her reflection wore no flat. The water showed her in a silver gown, her hair crowned with thorns, her left wrist scarred and bare. The Heartstone beat against her chest. Nyx put a shadow over the water. "Don't drink." Aurora stood. "I didn't plan to." Isolde touched the rim. The water parted around her finger, then swallowed the tip. She pulled her hand back. A thin line of blue light glowed in her skin. "It knows my name. It will not call it." They moved around the well. The flowers followed. Aurora counted seven more blooms, then stopped counting when one opened in front of Nyx and offered a single black petal. Nyx took it. The petal dissolved on their tongue-shadow. "Good. It is sweet and wrong." Aurora's stomach tightened. "Put it back." Nyx smiled without teeth. "Too late. It is in the room." The ground dipped. A staircase of pale stone cut down between the roots. Each step was carved with a mouth, open and patient. The amber light from above fell in strips, warm as oven heat. The air carried sugar, smoke, roasted fat, and something green beneath it, like cut grass after a fire. Aurora pulled the blade across her shoulder. "That smells like a kitchen." Isolde looked down the stair. "A kitchen for a court. They call it Dymas." Aurora looked at the pendant. The heat had moved from pulse to drag, the stone pulling toward the stair. "Gluttony." Isolde's mouth curved. "A kind name." They descended. The mouths on the steps opened as they passed, releasing breaths that smelled of different meals: honey, burnt toast, salted lamb, wine gone sour. One step released the scent of a hospital corridor, antiseptic and old. Aurora stopped. "That is not food." Nyx breathed on the step. "It is hunger. It wears your memory and asks you to share." At the bottom, a door of braided vine stood open. Beyond it, the hall stretched wider than the park above could hold. The ceiling was amber, shot through with clouds that looked like whipped cream. Orchards ran along the walls, laden with fruit Aurora had no names for: spheres that chimed when they touched, long red pods that wept syrup, and pale gourds with faces that frowned. Tables bent under dishes. Candles burned blue in silver goblets. Servants moved between them, their skin marked with burn scars, their eyes wide and bright with a smile they could not stop. A chef stood at a great copper range. He wore a clean apron over a torn shirt. His hands had too many fingers, and each one worked apart, peeling a fruit that screamed. The hall noticed them. Cups lifted. Servants paused. The frowning gourds turned on the tables. Aurora kept her face flat, though the pendant dragged at her throat. The chef turned from the range. "Fresh faces. Three of them. One smells of rain, one smells of smoke, one smells of lies." Isolde straightened. "We are visitors." The chef pointed a too-long finger at the stair. "Visitors eat. That is the first law. The second is that nothing leaves the kitchen unpaid." Aurora stepped forward. "We are not here to pay." The chef laughed. "Then you are either brave or late." Nyx drifted closer, the shadows under their feet spreading like spilled ink. "The Prince has a competition tonight. You need a guest who has never tasted his feast." The chef laughed again. "The Prince has every appetite." A plate slid across the table by itself. It held a small glass of wine, dark red, swirling with tiny lights. A spoon of silver lay beside it, bent into the shape of an eye. Aurora looked at the glass. "What is that?" The chef pointed at the plate. "First course. A taste of what you are." Nyx tilted their head. "And if we refuse?" The chef pointed at the stair. "Then the door becomes a tongue." The pendant grew hot. Aurora turned it in her hand. The inner glow pulsed once, twice, then dimmed to a steady, angry warmth. Under the table, a chair creaked, and the wine in the glass rose without being touched. Aurora met the chef's eyes. "We will not eat what we cannot name." The chef smiled, showing teeth that were white and even, except one, which was black as a burn. "Everyone names something. The plate only asks when." The glass tipped.