Run: 2026-09-23-01M36R0SRY5N5MK6PVYK2GXKZQ

The path ended at the oak stones, though Rory remembered it continuing another fifty metres. She stopped with one hand on the nearest pillar. Its bark had the hard, ridged texture of old wood, but the thing stood upright like a slab, black against the moonlit grass. Beyond it, Richmond Park lay empty. No lamps marked the roads. No traffic hissed beyond the trees. The city had dropped away behind her as if she had shut a door. Rory checked her phone. 11:47. No signal. “That’s useful,” she muttered. She had come because the pendant had warmed against her throat each time she passed this part of the park. Tonight it had begun to pulse before she reached the boundary, a steady heat beneath her collar. She wanted to find the place where the air split. In daylight, she had seen a narrow shimmer between two stones, like heat above a road. She had taken three steps towards it before the shimmer vanished. She could have waited until morning. The thought had followed her all the way from her flat, along the park paths, through the wet grass. But the pendant had kept beating against her skin, and she had not been able to leave it alone. Rory slipped her phone into her coat pocket and lifted her torch. The beam crossed the clearing. Wildflowers covered the ground. White blooms, yellow blooms, tiny purple stars crowded together in the grass, their petals open despite the season and the hour. She had seen them in daylight too. Then she had thought them pretty. Now they looked bleached and thin, as if the colour had been wrung out of them. The clearing seemed smaller than she remembered. The trees pressed close around it, their branches woven overhead. Yet when she turned towards the way she had come, the gap between the stones showed a stretch of grass long enough to lose in the dark. Her pendant gave a warm pulse. Rory drew it from beneath her shirt. The deep-crimson stone sat against her palm, its faint inner glow barely visible. The silver chain left a cold line across her neck. “Fine,” she whispered. “Show me.” She crossed the boundary. The grass bent under her boots. Somewhere above the trees, a bird made a short, sharp cry. Rory froze. No birds should have been calling at midnight. She raised the torch towards the branches. The beam found leaves, crossing twigs, one pale knot in the bark. Nothing moved. A second cry came from the far side of the clearing. Same pitch. Same clipped end. She looked down at her phone. The screen still showed 11:47. She tapped the side button twice, though the screen had not dimmed. “Fox,” she said. The word sounded too loud. It reached the trees and came back without an echo. She walked towards the middle of the clearing. The pendant warmed with each step. The stone’s red glow gathered at its centre, not bright enough to light her hand, but clear enough to stain the lines of her palm. Near the spot where she had seen the shimmer, the flowers grew in a ring. Their heads leaned away from the empty centre. Rory crouched and held the pendant above the grass. Heat brushed her fingertips. Something tapped the back of her boot. She stood in one motion and turned, torch raised. The clearing held only trees and flowers. The nearest oak stone stood several paces away. Rory examined the ground behind her. The damp grass showed the shallow marks of her own soles. Beside them, a small circle of flowers had been pressed flat. She bent to touch one. The stem sprang upright, though no wind crossed the clearing. A faint metallic chime sounded from the trees. Rory lowered the torch, then brought it back up. The sound had come from her left. She knew that much. It had reminded her of the bell above the door at the Golden Empress, the one Yu-Fei kept meaning to replace. A tiny silver ring, once, then silence. She waited. The chime rang again. Three notes, spaced as if someone had touched the bell and let it settle. “Who’s there?” No answer. She walked to the edge of the clearing, keeping the torch on the ground ahead. Her phone light would have saved the battery, but the torch gave her a stronger beam and a solid shape to hold. She could hear her own breath. The thin brush of her coat at her wrists. A pulse in her throat that matched the stone’s heat. The boundary stones stood at uneven intervals. Between two of them, darkness lay thicker than the shadows beneath the trees. Rory moved towards the gap. Her pendant glowed brighter. A voice spoke from behind her. “Rory.” She spun. The torch jerked over the flowers, crossed the ring, struck the opposite tree line. Nothing. She waited for a second call. Her fingers closed around the pendant. “Eva?” The name came out before she could stop it. Eva knew about the grove. She knew Rory had come here before. She did not know Rory had returned tonight. A branch creaked overhead. Rory looked up. No branches moved. The leaves held still, each one caught in the torch beam like a small dark hand. She backed towards the centre of the clearing. The sound of her boots seemed to lag behind her steps, arriving half a beat late. When she stopped, the last two footfalls continued through the grass. Her phone vibrated in her pocket. She pulled it out. The screen showed no call, no message, no notification. The time had changed to 11:42. Rory stared at it. The display flickered. For an instant, the screen showed a black background and white lettering. COME THROUGH. Then the ordinary lock screen returned. She slipped the phone away without taking her eyes from it. The pendant heated against her palm. A thin seam appeared in the air between the two nearest stones. It ran from the grass to a point above Rory’s head, straight as a cut. On the other side, pale light glimmered over what might have been water. She stepped closer. The chime rang from the trees again. This time, it came from directly behind her. Rory turned. A shape stood where the pressed flowers had been. It had her height and her black hair, straight to the shoulders. The torch beam found a dark coat, familiar cuffs, one hand hanging at its side. Rory’s left wrist tightened beneath her sleeve. The crescent scar there had begun to itch. The shape lifted its face. Rory could not make out its features. The light reached the figure and stopped there, as if the air around it had thickened. She took one step back. The figure took none. “Stay where you are.” Her voice cut across the clearing. The shape’s head tilted. Rory tightened her grip on the torch and shifted her weight towards the gap between the stones. The pendant burned against her palm. The figure opened its mouth. From somewhere beyond the boundary, Rory heard her own voice answer. “Stay where you are.”