Run: 2026-09-23-01M37HFKWBJAS642SXY9077255

The stones stood among the Richmond oaks like trees that had forgotten how to grow. Rory stopped at the edge of the clearing. Each stone was taller than she was, dark with age and ridged like bark. Moss filled the grooves. Between them, the park continued as it ought to: winter grass, bare branches, a muddy path fading into the dusk. Yet she could smell flowers. Not the damp, stubborn scent of snowdrops, but the thick sweetness of a garden in June. Nyx gathered into a tall silhouette beside her, faint violet eyes turned toward the stones. Their edges blurred against the deepening shade. “You’re sure she’s here?” Rory asked. “She is where she said she would be.” Nyx’s voice stirred the air by Rory’s ear. “Whether that is here is another question.” “Comforting.” Rory stepped through the gap. For one stride, the world pressed against her from every direction. The trees ahead stretched thin and silver; the mud beneath her boot turned hard, then soft again. Sound fell away. She had time to see her own hand rise in front of her, the small crescent scar on her left wrist startlingly white. Then the pressure lifted. Birdsong rushed in. She stood in a meadow under a sky the colour of pearl. Wildflowers brushed her knees, blue and gold and a red so dark it seemed almost black. Oaks ringed the clearing, their branches heavy with green leaves. Behind her, the standing stones remained, but beyond them she could see no Richmond path. Ferns filled the space where it had been. Nyx crossed a moment later. Their shape scattered into wisps as they passed between the stones and drew together again at Rory’s side. “Well,” she said. A bee the size of her thumb drifted past. Its wings made a sound like a plucked violin string. Nyx watched it go. “You first.” “I already was.” Rory kept her hand on the strap of her delivery bag as they walked. The path through the flowers was narrow but clear, its pale soil almost dry beneath her boots. She had left the Golden Empress barely an hour ago with the bag full of takeaway cartons for a customer near the park. Now it held a bottle of water, her phone, and the dagger Isolde had given her. The moonsilver lay in its sheath against her side, cold even through the canvas. Above the meadow, small lights moved among the branches. Rory took them for insects until one paused close enough for her to see that it had four tiny arms. It pulled itself behind a leaf, which folded shut around it. “Did you see that?” “Yes.” “Do we say hello?” “I would wait until we know what it eats.” The path curved downhill. Water sounded somewhere ahead, a quick bright chatter over stones. As they passed under the first oak, Rory looked up. Its leaves were green on one side and copper on the other. They turned together in a breeze she couldn’t feel, and the whole canopy flashed like a school of fish. Something brushed her wrist. She jerked back. A pale tendril had curled from a bank of flowers and touched the scar on her skin. It withdrew at once, carrying away a bead of blood no bigger than a pinhead. Rory pulled her sleeve down. Nyx came closer. “Did it hurt?” “Barely.” She watched the flowers. Their heads followed her as she moved. “It took blood.” “Then we should not linger.” They quickened their pace. The flowers turned away one by one. The stream ran through a channel of white stone. Rory crouched on its bank, grateful for an excuse to steady her breathing. The water was clear enough to show the pebbles below, though they appeared to shift whenever she tried to focus on one. A silver fish hovered against the current. It had no eyes she could see. Across the stream stood a low wall, or what remained of one. Roots had split its carved blocks, and moss covered most of the lettering. It was the first sign Rory had found that anyone had built anything here. She crossed on three flat stepping stones while Nyx slipped over the water as shadow, their feet barely touching the surface. The wall formed an arc around a shallow hollow. Stone benches followed its curve. At their centre stood a basin, dry and filled with leaves. Rory brushed them aside. A pattern had been cut into the bottom: rings crossed by branching lines, with a gap at each point where a branch met the outer circle. “Doors?” she said. Nyx leaned over her shoulder. “Possibly.” There were seven gaps. Six had small symbols beside them. The seventh was bare, its stone polished smooth. A bell rang. Rory looked up. The sound had come from farther into the trees: one low note that seemed to tremble in the bones of the basin. The silver fish broke the stream’s surface behind her, then vanished. “Isolde?” Rory called. No answer. The bell rang again, softer. They followed the sound beneath trees that grew closer together. The ground rose, and the wildflowers gave way to ferns. Rory’s phone showed no signal. It showed no time, either—only a blank space where the numbers ought to be. She slipped it into her pocket. A few paces later, she noticed the clocks. They hung from the branches on lengths of ivy: pocket watches with cracked faces, a kitchen clock shaped like a sunflower, a brass carriage clock no bigger than Rory’s fist. Some had hands that raced. On others the hands stood still. One ticked backward so loudly she could hear it over the stream. Rory stopped beneath a silver watch. Its face had no numbers. Instead, twelve tiny painted seasons circled the edge: buds, blossoms, green leaves, fruit, falling leaves, snow. The hand crept from winter toward spring as she watched. “Whose are these?” she asked. “People who came looking,” said a voice behind her. Rory turned. Isolde stood on the path in a gown the grey-green of willow leaves, her long silver hair loose down her back. Her pale lavender eyes rested on the watch, then on Rory. Though the ground was soft, there were no footprints behind her. “Looking for what?” Rory asked. “Many things.” Isolde moved past them. The clocks began to tick together. “Not everyone knew when they had found it.” Rory glanced at Nyx. They had gone very still. “Are they still here?” she asked. Isolde stopped. “Some.” A clock above Rory chimed thirteen times. She stepped away from it. “We came because you asked us to,” Rory said. “Your message said you’d found where the pendant came from.” At her throat, the Heartstone rested against her skin. The deep crimson gem had always held a faint light, visible when she cupped it in her hand. Now it warmed suddenly, enough to feel through her shirt. Isolde saw her reach for it. “It has found something nearer than its home.” “What?” “The place where a door remembers being open.” Rory waited. Isolde offered nothing more. She couldn’t lie, Rory knew, but that had never made her answers easy to use. The path ended at a fallen oak. Its trunk was broad enough to block the way, silver with age and furred with moss. Isolde climbed over. Rory followed, catching her palm on rough wood. On the other side she found herself in a forest of towering white trees. Their trunks rose straight and smooth, too tall to see their crowns. Veins of blue light ran beneath the bark. As Rory watched, the light rose slowly through one trunk, vanished among the branches, and descended through another. The forest breathed with it. A cool draught touched her face each time the blue brightened. The bell sounded again, somewhere ahead. This time Rory saw what made it: a bronze bell half swallowed by a tree. No rope hung from its clapper. A long root pressed against the metal, then eased away. The note rolled through the forest. Underfoot lay pale leaves shaped like narrow hands. They crackled beneath Rory’s boots. Isolde crossed them without a sound. Nyx drifted toward a patch of shade between two trees, then recoiled. Their outline rippled, violet eyes flaring. “What happened?” Rory asked. “The shadow goes farther than the trees.” They drew themselves solid beside her. “I could feel it pulling.” Isolde turned. “Stay where the light can find you.” Nyx looked at the blue-lit trunks. “Whose light?” Isolde’s gaze moved beyond them. “That is a question best asked on the way back.” Rory disliked the careful way she said it. She disliked more that Isolde had mentioned a way back at all. The grove behind the standing stones had been strange, but she could still imagine walking out of it. Here, among trunks that breathed light and shadows with their own depth, Richmond felt impossibly far away. She thought of the ordinary evening she had left: takeaway steam fogging the restaurant windows, Yu-Fei calling after her to mind the icy pavement, buses grinding past the park gates. Rory tightened her grip on the bag strap and followed Isolde. The trees opened around a pool. Its surface was black and perfectly still. White roots hung over its banks, stopping just above the water. At the centre rose a small island of stone, reached by a bridge so narrow Rory would have to cross sideways. On the island stood an arch. Nothing filled it. The trees on the far side were visible through the opening, their blue veins climbing into the dark. Yet the Heartstone grew hot against Rory’s chest. She pulled it out. Crimson light gathered deep in the gem and shone between her fingers. Isolde watched the arch. “There.” Rory stared at it. A shimmer crossed the empty space, faint as heat above a road. Through it, the white trees bent into unfamiliar shapes. For an instant she saw rows of vines instead, heavy with dark fruit beneath a warm amber sky. The scent of ripe figs reached her across the pool, rich enough to make her mouth water. Then the forest returned. “Dymas,” Nyx whispered. Rory looked down at the pendant. Its silver chain had left a red line across her neck. “Can we go through?” “You could try,” Isolde said. “That’s not an answer.” “It is the answer I have.” A soft scrape came from the bridge. Rory looked up. Something moved on the island, low against the stone. A branch, she thought, dragged by the wind. Then it uncoiled. It was made of roots as pale as the trees, jointed in ways she couldn’t follow. At one end hung a cluster of flowers, each with a dark centre. The flowers faced Rory. The bridge shuddered as the thing drew its weight across it. Nyx spread into a wall of shadow before her. The root-creature stopped. Its flowers opened wider, releasing a sweet smell that caught in Rory’s throat. She pulled the fae-forged dagger from her bag. Cold bit into her palm. The blade gave off a faint milky light beneath the canopy. Isolde caught her wrist before she could step forward. “It came when the stone woke. Put the stone to sleep.” “How?” The creature advanced. One white limb found the near end of the bridge. Rory thought of the basin and its seven openings, the polished gap with no mark beside it. She held the pendant in her fist. The heat increased. No good. The creature’s flowers tilted toward the gem. It wanted the light, or what lay behind it. She tucked the pendant inside her shirt, but the crimson glow shone through the fabric. “Rory,” Nyx said. Their shadow wall buckled as a root pushed into it. Rory looked at the pool. Black water, still as glass. She had no idea what lived beneath it, but the creature had stayed on the bridge. She caught the silver chain, lifted it over her head, and lowered the Heartstone toward the water. The flowers snapped shut. At the first touch, the pool flashed crimson. The pendant’s heat vanished from her fingers. She pulled it back at once, water dripping from the gem. The root-creature withdrew, limb by careful limb, until it lay curled at the arch. Its flowers opened to the trees. For a moment no one spoke. The pool settled. Rory put the pendant around her neck again; it was cool against her skin. “Well found,” Isolde said. “You might have told me.” “I did not know you would think of it.” Rory almost laughed. Her hand shook too badly to manage it. She sheathed the dagger, keeping her eyes on the island. Across the arch, the shimmer returned. Amber light filled the opening, and beyond it a vineyard sloped toward a distant roof bright with copper tiles. She heard voices carrying over the vines, then the clear strike of a knife against a board. The smell of food came with them—roasting meat, spice, hot bread. Her stomach clenched. A woman appeared between the distant rows. She was too far away for Rory to see her face. She stopped, turned toward the arch, and raised one hand. The root-creature stirred. Rory stepped back. The vineyard vanished, leaving the white forest visible through the arch once more. “Did she see us?” Rory asked. Isolde studied the empty opening. “She saw a light.” “Who is she?” “I could not see her face.” Rory touched the wet stone at her throat. She believed Isolde. That left the raised hand, the waking creature, and a doorway that might open onto Dymas. Questions enough for the walk back. Far above them, a clock began to strike. Its notes came quickly, tumbling over one another. Isolde turned toward the path. “We should go,” she said. Rory took one last look at the arch. The vines were gone, but the scent of warm bread lingered in the cold air. Then she followed Isolde into the breathing trees, with Nyx close enough beside her that their shadow touched her boots.