Run: 2026-09-23-01M37HC6D7Z91C0CX1TNZQTD0T

The last thing Rory saw of Richmond Park was a cyclist in a yellow jacket passing between two distant oaks. Then Nyx stepped into the shadow of a standing stone, and the cyclist vanished. The stone had looked like an oak from a distance. Up close, its surface was grey and hard beneath a skin of bark, and the wildflowers at its base bloomed in colours Rory had no names for. The clearing beyond it lay bright and still. Isolde walked ahead without bending a stem. Behind her, the flowers sprang upright in the places Rory had trodden. “That is not reassuring,” Rory said. “Few thresholds are,” Isolde replied. Nyx stood almost motionless beside the stone, a tall silhouette where the afternoon light ought to have fallen. Their violet eyes fixed on a point above Rory’s shoulder. “There,” they whispered. Rory turned. She saw only another gap between the stones, crowded with brambles. The Heartstone warmed against her chest. Its silver chain had caught on her collar, and she freed it, pulling the thumbnail-sized crimson gem into her palm. A faint light moved deep inside it. “I can’t see anything.” “Walk toward the place you least want to step,” Isolde said. Rory studied the brambles. They were black with thorns and much too dense to pass through. Of course. She took out the dagger Isolde had given her. The moonsilver chilled her fingers through the leather wrapping on its hilt. At the edge of the thicket, the blade met resistance where there was no branch. Rory pushed. Something taut gave way with a noise like a breath drawn sharply between teeth. The brambles folded apart. Warm air poured through the opening, rich with the smell of baked pears, damp soil, and a spice Rory couldn’t place. Beyond the thorns lay a slope of red earth under an amber sky. Nyx went first. Their shape thinned as they crossed, then gathered on the other side. Rory followed before she could think better of it. The ground shifted under her boots. She caught herself against the trunk of a tree whose bark felt as smooth as glazed crockery. Behind her, the gap closed. There were no brambles now, only rows of trees running uphill until they disappeared into golden haze. Isolde emerged last. “Stay near one another.” Rory looked up. The sky held no sun. Light filled it evenly, warm and deep, and made the leaves overhead look almost transparent. Fruit hung among them in crowded clusters: small blue globes with silver seams, pears the colour of old wine, pale things shaped like cupped hands. Somewhere out of sight, water ran over stone. “This is Hel?” Rory asked. “This is Dymas,” Isolde said. Rory knew the name. It had sounded ugly when she’d heard it spoken in London, something to brace for. Here, a breeze carried the scent of rosemary over the orchard, and tiny white insects drifted through the branches like scraps of paper. The Heartstone lay quiet in her hand. She tucked it under her shirt and followed Isolde along a path paved with irregular green tiles. Moss grew between them. Rory crouched at the first tile and rubbed a thumb across its surface. Glass, or something like it. Beneath the green lay a curl of dark lettering. “Can you read that?” Isolde glanced back. “Not from where you stand.” Rory rose. As she moved, the letters under the glass seemed to move too. She tried another angle, then another. From the far side of the path she could make out a name, followed by a date and the words one season of service. The tile beside it bore another name. There were hundreds. A bell sounded somewhere uphill, its note low enough that Rory felt it in her teeth. The white insects vanished into the leaves. From far beyond the trees came voices, then a quick burst of applause. “A feast?” she asked. “Perhaps,” said Isolde. “That sounded like applause.” “Then someone has been pleased.” Rory looked down at the path. More names gleamed under the glass, too many to read as she walked. Some letters had worn thin beneath centuries of feet. “And these people?” Isolde’s pale lavender gaze settled on the tiles. “They came to work.” She moved on. Rory had learned to listen carefully when Isolde answered a question. They came to work did not mean they had gone home. The orchard opened onto a bridge made from a single enormous root. It arched over a channel of dark water, its fibres bound together as neatly as braided rope. Below, silver shapes passed slowly beneath the surface. Rory leaned over the edge and found herself looking at spoons, hundreds of them, swimming bowl-first against the current. One broke the surface with a bright little splash. Rory laughed before she could stop herself. Nyx turned their glowing eyes toward her. “You are surprised.” “It’s a river full of cutlery.” “Yes.” “That doesn’t happen where I’m from.” “Earth keeps its wonders poorly,” they said. Rory watched a spoon dive, trailing a chain of bubbles. For a moment she forgot the names underfoot. On the far bank, the path divided. One branch wound toward the applause and the scent of roasting meat. The other led into a stand of trees with silver-white trunks. The Heartstone gave a faint pulse against Rory’s skin. “This way,” she said, taking the quieter path. The light changed beneath the silver trees. Their crowns met overhead, shutting out the amber sky, but each leaf had a bright vein running through it. Rory could hear a soft, steady clicking. It took her several steps to realise the trees were shedding seeds onto the path. Each seed was a perfect little porcelain plate. She picked one up. It fitted on the tip of her finger. “Don’t eat it,” Nyx said. “I wasn’t going to.” “You considered it.” “I considered how you’d know if I did.” They gave a sound that might have been amusement. Isolde, ahead of them, stopped. At the heart of the grove stood a building grown into the trees. Columns of dark wood rose from the earth and joined high above in a vaulted roof. Between them hung gauzy curtains that stirred though the air had gone still. Long tables filled the interior. Every table was laid with spotless dishes, and every chair stood empty. Rory stepped inside. Her boots made no sound on the floor. It was polished stone, shot through with threads of gold, yet it had the slight give of living wood. The clicking ceased behind her. At the nearest table sat a covered dish. Steam escaped from beneath its lid, carrying the unmistakable smell of Jennifer Carter’s Sunday roast: lamb, garlic, potatoes crisped at the edges. Rory stopped so abruptly that Nyx passed through her shadow. Her mother hadn’t cooked that meal for her since Rory had left Cardiff. The smell was precise enough to bring back their kitchen, rain against the window, her father arguing with the radio while Jennifer carved. Rory reached for the lid. Isolde caught her wrist. Her fingers were light, but the small crescent scar there prickled beneath them. “What is offered,” Isolde said, “need not be freely given.” Rory pulled her hand back. The scent changed. For an instant it was sweet plum and warm bread. Then it was garlic and lamb again. Across the hall, a chair scraped the floor. Nyx flowed up the side of a column and gathered into a solid shape near the rafters. “We have company.” Rory saw no one. A second chair moved, drawing itself out from a table. On the plate before it, a knife and fork lifted upright. “Isolde?” “An invitation,” Isolde said. “To what?” “The table will tell you.” Rory had no intention of asking it. She backed toward the entrance, but the curtains had drawn together. Through them she could still see the silver trees. Something stood between her and them now: a thin, shimmering pressure, visible only where falling leaves struck it and slid away. The Heartstone grew hot. “There’s a portal nearby,” Rory said. Nyx dropped soundlessly to the floor. “Behind us.” A third chair scraped out. The cutlery on its plate rose. Rory slipped past the end of the table. The chairs turned to follow her, their legs dragging in unison. She held out the dagger and pressed its tip to the air between the curtains. The blade met resistance. Cold shot through her hand. “Rory,” Isolde said, “where does a hungry house keep its heart?” “Could you ask me something easier?” The cutlery clattered across the plates. One fork flew past Rory’s ear and buried itself in a column. The wood closed around its tines. She ducked, looked up, and saw the roof. A crimson bead hung at the centre of the vault, lodged where the branches joined. It pulsed in time with the stone against her chest. Each beat sent a faint tremor through the tables. Through the chairs. “That’s not a heart,” Rory said. “It’s a doorbell.” She dragged a chair beneath the centre of the room and climbed onto it. The chair bucked. Rory grabbed a branch with her free hand and hauled herself up, hearing the rip of her sleeve. A knife flashed below her. Nyx caught it in a fold of shadow. Up close, the bead was not set into the wood. Thin roots had grown around it, clasping it like fingers. Rory wedged the dagger between them and cut. The roots parted. Every dish in the hall rang at once. Rory caught the bead as it fell. It was warm and smooth, and inside it lay a folded strip of paper, small as a matchstick. The pressure at the entrance vanished. Curtains flew apart. Amber light flooded the room, and the empty chairs fell still. Rory jumped down. For a moment none of them moved. Then, far off among the orchards, the bell began to ring again. She held the bead up to the light. The paper inside bore a line of cramped writing. She could make out only two words through the crimson surface. Aurora Carter. Her full name. Not Rory. Not a name anyone here should have known. Nyx leaned close, their voice a whisper against her ear. “Did you find what you came for?” Rory looked at the bead in her hand, then at the Heartstone hanging from its silver chain. They pulsed together, once, in answer to one another. “No,” she said. “But someone expected me to.”