Run: 2026-09-10-01M25DJXX569WZK6NAD7X7BCE9

The standing stones jutted from the earth like the knuckles of a buried giant, their surfaces rough with lichen and time. Rory pressed her palm against the nearest one. Cold. Not the cold of winter, but something older, something that had never known warmth. "Feel that?" she asked. Nyx drifted beside her, their form wavering at the edges. A silhouette of shadow against the midday sun, thin as smoke and twice as difficult to hold onto. "The Veil thins here. Pockets of elsewhere bleed through." "Elsewhere." Rory pulled her jacket tighter. The October air had no bite, yet goosebumps crawled up her arms. "That's specific." "Specificity is a mortal comfort." Nyx tilted their head, violet eyes flickering. "Shall we?" They passed between the stones. The world shifted. Rory's stomach lurched, that same dropping sensation from a dream where you fall and wake before hitting the ground. Except she didn't wake. The oak trees behind them, the ones she'd memorised on the walk from Richmond Park's main path, had vanished. In their place stood a forest that belonged in a painting, the kind hung in museums where guards watched you breathe too close. The trees were silver-barked, their leaves translucent, catching light that had no source. Wildflowers carpeted the ground in colours Rory had no names for. Not quite blue, not quite violet. Somewhere between the two and somehow more. They didn't sway in any breeze. They stood perfectly still, as if waiting. "Time moves differently here." Nyx's voice came as a whisper from everywhere and nowhere. "An hour inside could be minutes outside. Or days." "Days." Rory's hand went to the pendant at her throat. The Heartstone pulsed against her skin, warm and steady. A heartbeat that wasn't hers. "You could have mentioned that before we crossed." "Would it have changed your mind?" No. It wouldn't have. She'd come too far to turn back now. The path ahead wound through the silver trees, soft moss underfoot muffling their steps. Rory noticed something odd about the ground, about the way the moss seemed to glow faintly where her boots pressed down, then faded as she moved on. She looked behind them. No footsteps. No trace they'd ever walked this way. The forest swallowed their passage whole. "Footprints," she murmured. "Fae groves remember nothing of those who trespass." "Trespass." Rory glanced at the shadow beside her. "Is that what we're doing?" "We are uninvited guests in a place that predates invitation." They walked deeper. The trees grew taller, their silver bark twisting into spirals that hurt to follow with your eyes. Rory caught movements in her peripheral vision, shapes that darted between trunks, there and gone before she could focus. She didn't ask what they were. Some questions invited answers she wasn't ready to hear. The flowers changed as they walked. Now they grew in spirals around the tree bases, pulsing with a slow rhythm, like lungs breathing. Like hearts beating. Rory crouched beside one, watching the petals open and close. "How long?" she asked. "Long enough for the sun to move." Nyx hovered at the edge of her vision, solid one moment, translucent the next. "Or not at all. The sky here doesn't work the way you expect." Rory looked up. The canopy was thick, leaves overlapping like scales, but through the gaps she saw sky. Amber sky. The colour of honey held to candlelight. Not blue, not grey, not any sky she'd ever seen. "That's not Earth sky." "No." "Where are we, Nyx?" "A grove that exists in the spaces between. Not quite your world. Not quite the Fae realm. A pocket. A breath held too long." Rory stood, brushing moss from her knees. The pendant pulsed again, stronger now, warm enough to feel through her shirt. She wrapped her fingers around it. "There's Hel magic here. The Heartstone reacts to it." "The grove touches many things." Nyx drifted forward, their form stretching, thinning, reforming. "It is a crossroads of sorts. A place where boundaries grow thin." They pressed on. The air grew thicker, heavy with the scent of things blooming and rotting in the same breath. Sweet and cloying, then sharp and sour, then sweet again. Rory's head swam. She blinked hard, focusing on the path, on putting one foot in front of the other. The trees thinned. The clearing opened before them. Rory stopped walking. Stopped breathing. Standing stones ringed a space no larger than her flat's living room, but the space inside felt infinite. The stones were white, not the grey of the ones outside, but pale as bone, smooth as river glass. They hummed. Not a sound, exactly. A vibration in the air, in her chest, in her teeth. Something ancient and aware, watching from the circle's edge. In the centre stood a pool. Not water. Something that moved like water but gleamed like mercury, reflecting light that wasn't there. Rory took a step toward it. The reflection shifted. She saw herself. Then she saw a version of herself that wasn't her. Older. Scarred. Eyes that had seen things Rory hoped she'd never see. "Don't touch it." Nyx's voice cut sharp for once, no whisper, no drift. "That pool shows what could be. What might have been. It will drive you mad if you stare too long." Rory looked away. Her hands were shaking. When had they started shaking? "What is this place?" "A prison." Nyx moved to the edge of the circle but didn't cross. "Or a sanctuary. Depends on who you ask." "Which is it?" "Both. Neither. The Fae don't think in such simple terms." Rory studied the stones. The hum grew louder, pressing against her ears, her skull, the space behind her eyes. She felt something brush against her thoughts. Not words. Impressions. Curiosity. Hunger. Patience worn thin over centuries. "Something's here," she whispered. "Someone." A figure stepped from between two stones. She hadn't been there a moment ago, Rory was certain. Yet she moved with the casual grace of someone who'd stood in that exact spot for eons. Silver hair fell to her waist, catching light and throwing it back. Pale lavender eyes regarded Rory with an expression that wasn't quite welcome, wasn't quite warning. Bare feet on moss that glowed where she stood. No footprints behind her to mark how she'd arrived. "You brought the mortal." The woman's voice sounded like wind through leaves, like water over stones, like the memory of a song you couldn't quite recall. "And the shadow. How quaint." "Isolde." Nyx inclined their head, a gesture that might have been respect or might have been mockery. "We've come for answers." "Answers." Isolde's lips curved. Not a smile. Something closer to an acknowledgment of an old joke. "Everyone comes for answers. No one comes for the questions." Rory found her voice. "I was told you could help." "Told by whom?" "A man. I don't know his name." "The most dangerous kind of man." Isolde circled her, bare feet silent on the moss. "Men without names carry the heaviest truths. What do you seek, mortal?" "The Heartstone." Rory touched the pendant again. "What is it? Why was it given to me?" Isolde stopped circling. Her eyes fixed on the gem at Rory's throat, and for a moment, something moved behind that ageless face. Recognition. Wariness. And something else. Something that looked almost like grief. "That," she said, "is a piece of a heart that should have stopped beating three hundred years ago."