AI The standing stones looked like the ribs of something buried upright in the earth.
Aurora stopped between the first two, one hand curled around the strap of her bag. The oak trunks rose higher than any trees had a right to, their bark black with age and glossy with rain, though the sky above them was clear. Beyond the narrow gap, Richmond Park lay where it had always lain: winter grass, bare branches, the distant pale blur of a road.
Through the stones, the world had changed.
A clearing spread beneath an unfamiliar sky. Amber light sifted through leaves that should have belonged to spring, and wildflowers crowded the ground in bright, impossible patches—blue and gold and a red so vivid it seemed wet . The air smelled of crushed mint, woodsmoke, and something sweet enough to make her mouth water.
Behind Rory, Eva let out a breath . “That’s not supposed to be there.”
“No,” Rory said. Her voice came out quieter than she meant it to. “It isn’t.”
Nyx stood to her left, a tall silhouette against the daylight, their edges stirring though there was no wind. Faint violet eyes watched the gap. Isolde Varga had already passed through. She waited on the other side, silver hair spilling to her waist, pale as moonlit water against the amber grove. Her shoes hovered a fraction above the flowers. Nothing bent beneath her feet.
“You may come,” Isolde said. “The door is kinder to those who enter while it is open.”
“Comforting,” Eva murmured.
Rory glanced at the pendant beneath her shirt. The thumbnail-sized crimson stone rested against her chest, its silver chain cool against her skin. It had been warm earlier, near the old iron gate at the park’s far edge. Now it was only a stone. She touched it anyway, then stepped between the oaks.
The air changed against her face.
It was not a gust or a chill . More like the world had drawn a curtain across her skin. Her ears popped. The familiar damp smell of London vanished, replaced by green sweetness and a faint mineral tang, like water running over a struck match. For one disorienting second she could hear nothing—not Eva’s breathing, not the traffic beyond the trees, not even the rustle of her own coat.
Then sound came rushing back.
The grove sang with it. Insects buzzed under the flowers, though Rory saw none. Somewhere deeper in the clearing, water tinkled over stone. Leaves whispered overhead, moving in a breeze that never touched the ground.
Eva came through behind her and grabbed Rory’s sleeve. “Tell me you feel that.”
“I feel it.”
“What is it?”
Rory searched for a sensible answer and found none. “A threshold, I think .”
Nyx passed through last, their shadow stretching long across the flowers. When they crossed, every blossom beneath that shadow folded shut. A beat later, they opened again.
Isolde watched them with her pale lavender eyes. “The grove has made room for you. Do not mistake courtesy for welcome.”
“Does it usually speak in riddles?” Eva asked.
“It is a grove,” Isolde replied. “It has no tongue.”
“That wasn’t an answer.”
“It was the answer I gave.”
Rory almost smiled. The familiar tug of irritation steadied her. She looked back at the standing stones. The park beyond them seemed farther away than it had been a moment ago, though the gap was still only a few strides wide . The oaks leaned inward, their branches tangled above the entrance. A shimmer rippled between them, visible only when she looked from the corner of her eye.
The Veil, she thought. Not a wall, exactly. More like heat over pavement, a distortion in the shape of the air. If the boundary was here, then the grove existed on both sides of it—or between them.
“Stay close,” she said.
Eva gave her a look . “You’re the one who hates being told what to do.”
“Today I’m making an exception.”
They started down a narrow track that threaded through the flowers. Isolde walked ahead without leaving a trail. Rory’s boots pressed the grass flat, but the blades sprang back almost immediately, as if reluctant to admit she had passed. Behind them, Eva’s footsteps made soft wet sounds. Nyx moved without any.
The deeper they went, the more the grove revealed itself. Trees arched over the path with branches woven into intricate patterns, each twig polished silver along one edge. A cluster of translucent berries hung from a thorn bush. Within each one, a pinprick of light drifted slowly from side to side, like a tiny trapped star.
Eva reached toward them.
“Don’t,” Rory said.
Eva froze. “I wasn’t going to.”
“You were.”
“I was going to look .”
“You can look from there.”
The berries trembled . Their lights turned toward Eva.
She pulled her hand back.
A low sound rolled through the grove—not quite a growl, not quite distant thunder . The trees creaked overhead. Rory’s fingers tightened around the bag strap. She felt the sound in her teeth.
Isolde did not turn. “It dislikes being counted.”
“Who does?” Rory asked.
“The things that wait in the fruit.”
Eva made a strangled noise. “There are things in the fruit?”
“Not now,” Isolde said.
Rory moved on before Eva could ask what that meant. She kept the berries in view until the path bent away and the thorn bush disappeared behind a screen of pale ferns. Each fern frond was feathered with frost, though the air remained warm. When Rory brushed one by accident, cold shot up her finger to the wrist. She jerked back and rubbed the spot, feeling a sting beneath the skin.
The path opened onto a stream.
It ran over a bed of dark glassy stones, though the water itself was clear. Tiny leaves spun in its current, each one bright green and veined with gold. The water made the same tinkling sound they had heard before, but now Rory could pick out a melody in it. Three rising notes, a pause, then two falling.
Something moved beneath the surface.
Rory crouched at the bank. A pale shape glided under the water, long and narrow. It had no fins, no visible eyes. As it passed, the current bent around it and the gold-veined leaves swirled in its wake.
“Fish?” Eva whispered.
“Perhaps,” Isolde said.
“Perhaps what?”
“Perhaps fish.”
Eva frowned. “You’re enjoying this.”
“I am not.”
Nyx came to stand beside Rory. Their reflection did not appear in the water. In its place, the stream showed a starless black sky and the suggestion of a doorway standing open somewhere far below.
Rory leaned back.
The image vanished. Only the clear stream remained.
Nyx’s voice slipped through the air like wind through a keyhole. “The paths overlap here.”
Rory looked at them. “Paths to where?”
“Elsewhere.”
The answer pressed at her mind, not because it was mysterious but because it was plainly true. She rose, stepping away from the bank.
On the opposite side, a pair of standing stones marked another narrow passage. These were not oak trunks but carved pillars of white stone, their surfaces covered in symbols that seemed to shift whenever Rory tried to focus . The carvings tugged at her eyes. She looked away and felt a dull ache behind them.
Isolde moved between the pillars.
The air tightened. Rory heard a faint ringing, like a glass struck with a spoon. Eva followed, shoulders hunched. Nyx passed without effect.
Rory hesitated at the threshold. The pendant warmed beneath her shirt.
She drew it out.
The Heartstone gave off no glow, but the deep-crimson gem pulsed faintly against her palm. Warmth spread along her fingers. Beyond the pillars, the melody of the stream broke off.
“Is that meant to happen?” Eva asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Is it a bad sign?”
“I don’t know that either.”
Isolde stood just beyond the stones. “The heart remembers the fire that made it.”
Rory looked up. “Is there a portal nearby?”
“Not every warmth leads to a door.”
“That’s not a no.”
“No.”
The pendant pulsed again. Rory closed her hand around it. The chain had caught against her collar; she tugged it free and tucked the stone beneath her shirt.
The ringing stopped as she crossed between the pillars.
On the far side lay a garden.
Not the wild, sprawling clearing they had left behind. This place had been arranged by a hand that understood beauty and had no interest in restraint. Trees bore white blossoms and black fruit. Vines climbed pillars of twisted wood. Low beds overflowed with herbs, their leaves silver on one side and green on the other. At the center stood a shallow pool in which no water moved. Its surface reflected the amber sky, though Rory could see no sky above the garden—only a canopy of branches and an opening like an eye.
The air smelled of honey and smoke.
Rory’s stomach clenched. The scent made her think of roasted meat, warm bread, the first bite of something rich enough to leave grease on her fingers. She hadn’t eaten since morning. She realized, suddenly , that she was starving.
Eva had gone still, staring at the pool. “I can see the moon in it.”
“It’s daytime,” Rory said.
“I know.”
There was no moon overhead. The pool held a pale, round disk that trembled in its reflection. Something dark crossed over it, though nothing moved above them.
Isolde approached the rim. She stopped short of the water. “Do not drink.”
“No one was planning to,” Rory said.
“Good. It asks for less than it takes.”
The warning landed with a weight Rory didn’t like. She made herself look elsewhere, studying the garden’s edges. There, half hidden among the vines, lay a set of old stone steps descending into darkness. No marks showed on the steps, but the shadows pooled at their base like ink.
Nyx watched them. Their outline blurred, then sharpened. “There is a seam below.”
Rory felt the pendant warm again. Stronger this time. A steady pulse beneath her palm, answering the darkness.
The garden’s impossible beauty seemed to narrow around that black staircase. The bright flowers, the fragrant herbs, the rippling reflection in the pool—all of it became a distraction arranged around the descent.
“Is that why you brought us here?” Rory asked Isolde.
“I brought you to the grove.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“No.” Isolde’s gaze rested on Rory’s clenched hand. “It is not.”
The pool gave a soft plink.
The moon in its surface cracked.
Rory flinched. A hairline fracture ran through the reflection, branching out in white lines. The actual water remained smooth. Eva caught Rory by the elbow.
“Something’s coming up,” she whispered.
The dark beneath the steps stirred. Not wind. Not water. A shadow pulling away from a shadow.
Nyx moved in front of them. For the first time since they had entered the grove, they seemed solid enough to cast darkness of their own . Their violet eyes brightened, faintly at first, then with a deeper glow.
Rory slipped the bag from her shoulder and reached inside. Her fingers found the Fae-forged blade, its moonsilver hilt colder than the surrounding air. Isolde had given it to her as a gift, though gifts in a place like this seemed to come with their own questions. Rory drew it.
The slender leaf-shaped dagger shone faintly in the garden’s strange light. Cold climbed into her palm.
The thing at the foot of the stairs stopped moving.
For several seconds, nothing happened. The flowers tilted toward Rory. The air thickened with honey and smoke. The broken moon floated in the pool, its reflection divided into pieces.
Then, from somewhere below, a voice spoke.
“Not yet.”
The words seemed to come from the stone steps, from the pool, from the hollow trunks overhead. Rory kept the blade raised.
“What does it want?” Eva breathed.
Isolde’s expression did not change. “It has told you.”
“That doesn’t help.”
“It was not trying to help.”
Rory’s hand had begun to shake. She tightened her grip until the cold of the hilt bit into her skin. The figure below the stairs withdrew. The shadows unknotted, sinking back into the dark. One by one, the flowers turned away from her.
The Heartstone cooled.
Rory lowered the blade by an inch, not more. “We’re leaving.”
“Already?” Isolde asked.
“Yes.”
“The grove is large.”
“I’m sure it is. We’ve seen enough for today.”
For a moment the Seer’s pale eyes rested on her. Then she dipped her head, as if Rory had answered a question no one else had heard.
They retraced the path past the pool, past the white pillars and the stream. The garden’s scents clung to them. Rory kept the dagger in her hand until the water’s melody returned, its three rising notes and two falling. At the berries, she did not look . Eva did not either.
The grove had changed while they explored. That much was obvious. The standing stones appeared suddenly through the trees, though Rory could have sworn they had been farther away. Beyond them lay the gray winter park, unchanged and ordinary.
Before crossing, Rory looked back.
The amber light had dimmed. Wildflowers still bloomed beneath the oaks, but their colors seemed farther away now, as though she were looking at them through thick glass . Isolde stood in the clearing, silver hair loose around her shoulders. No footprints marked the path behind her.
“Will the way remain?” Rory asked.
“For a while,” Isolde said.
“Can we come back?”
“You can return to any door you have not closed.”
Not an answer. Not quite.
Nyx slipped through first. Eva followed, then Rory. The instant she crossed, the park’s cold settled on her cheeks. Traffic hissed beyond the trees. A dog barked in the distance. Her ears popped again.
She looked down at the pendant. It rested against her palm, quiet and red.
Behind them, between the ancient oaks, the grove shimmered once—like heat above a road—then disappeared.