Run: 2026-09-23-01M37HQA1GJK6QFZV0YSDPTAWE

The path through Richmond Park ended at a row of ancient standing stones carved with oak leaves. Rory had followed it from a locked service gate, across a stretch of grass silvered by moonlight, and through a stand of trees that had muffled the road behind her. At the stones, the traffic vanished altogether. She stopped and listened. Wind moved through the branches overhead. Somewhere beyond the trees, a deer gave a short, sharp bark. The note had given her one instruction: Touch the Heartstone to the third stone from the left. No name. No explanation. She had found it folded beneath the door of her flat above Silas’ bar, written on the back of a Golden Empress receipt. Whoever had left it knew where she lived and what she wore beneath her shirt. She had spent the afternoon telling herself that the note was a trick. By dusk, she had copied its directions onto her phone and come to find out who had written it. Rory counted the stones. Seven. The third stood between two trunks, its carved leaves worn almost flat. Beyond it lay a clearing crowded with wildflowers. White blossoms nodded among purple and yellow ones, though winter had stripped the rest of the park down to branches and mud. “Third from the left,” she murmured. She reached under her collar and drew out the pendant. The deep crimson stone, no bigger than her thumbnail, caught the moonlight without reflecting it. Its silver chain had left a cool line against her neck. The gem rested in her palm. No warmth. Rory slipped between the first two standing stones. The air on the other side smelled of wet earth and crushed stems. She looked back at the gap. The path remained there, pale beneath the trees. She could see the service gate through a break in the branches. A faint metallic click came from somewhere in the clearing. She turned. Nothing moved except the flowers. The click came again: two quick taps, a pause, then one. It sounded like the latch on the door to her flat, which had stuck since she moved in. Rory held still, waiting for the scrape that followed whenever someone forced it open. Leaves shifted overhead. No scrape came. She took out her phone. The screen showed 11:18. Its map placed her on a road outside the park, the blue dot pressed against a petrol station she had passed half an hour ago. She raised the phone, searching for a signal. One bar appeared, then went. “All right. No map.” Her voice travelled across the clearing and stopped. It found no echo among the trees. She put the phone away and followed the line of stones towards the third. A strip of bare ground ran between the boundary and the flowers. Rory kept to it. The wildflowers grew close together, their heads level with her knees, yet no insects rose when her coat brushed their petals. At the third stone, she noticed a shallow groove beneath the carved leaves. Water had collected in it. She bent to inspect the mark, and another sound reached her from behind: the dry crinkle of a paper bag. Rory straightened. She knew that sound from hours spent carrying takeaways through London. Paper handled with cold fingers; the stiff fold opening at the top. “Who’s there?” She turned back towards the path. The moon lit the gaps between the stones. No one stood in them. The bag rustled once more, farther away. She crossed to the edge of the clearing and looked into the trees. Branches cut the dark into narrow spaces. None held a face or a coat or even a patch of colour she could mistake for one. A deer could have got into a discarded bag. A fox. She waited for paws against the ground. Behind her, a stem snapped. Rory spun towards the flowers. The white blossoms closest to her swayed, then settled. She searched the rest of the clearing. Nothing disturbed the purple heads beyond them. She stepped back from the plants and checked the stone. Third from the left. She had counted from the path, the only approach marked on the note. Whoever wrote it had expected her to know which side was left. Her hand tightened around the pendant. The gem pressed into the crescent scar on her wrist. Warmth touched her skin. Rory opened her fist. A faint light glowed inside the crimson stone, deep as a coal banked beneath ash. She held it away from the standing stone. The warmth thinned. She brought it close. Heat gathered against her palm. She had felt that change before, near the place she had been told was a Hel portal. It had given her more reason to fear the pendant than to trust the person who had sent it. Here, in a clearing she had entered on foot, the same warmth returned. “No,” she whispered. The clicking sounded again. This time it came from the other side of the stone. She moved around it, keeping her shoulder clear of the rough surface. A dark mark crossed the moss at its base. She crouched and found a narrow strip of black fabric snagged on a root. She recognised the torn seam. It belonged to the lining of her coat. Rory touched the inside of her pocket. A thread hung loose there, caught where the fabric had ripped. She looked at the root again. The strip lay beneath the moss, not on top of it. She tugged. Damp earth held it fast. She had never been to the grove before. She was certain of that. She could remember the path from the gate, each turn she had taken, the first sight of the stones between the trees. She could not remember snagging her coat. The click came from the direction of the path. Rory rose and walked towards the gap between the first two stones. Her boots pressed dark shapes into the bare earth. Halfway there, she stopped. Another set of prints crossed hers. They had the same narrow heel and the same worn edge at the toe as her boots. They led from the clearing towards the path, passing close enough that one print overlapped her last step. Water shone in its hollow. She looked down at her own boot, then along the line of prints. They disappeared beyond the boundary stones. “Hello?” The clearing gave her back the small sounds of her own breathing and the chain moving against her collar. She waited, then took one step towards the path. A footstep answered from beyond it. Rory halted. The sound had come from the grass near the service gate. She could no longer see the gate through the trees. She shifted to her right, searching for the break in the branches. The trunks appeared closer together than they had when she entered. She pulled out her phone. 11:19. She had stood in the clearing long enough for her knees to ache from crouching. The minute on the screen held as she watched it. Her thumb left a mark across the glass. The crinkle of paper came again, beside her ear. Rory ducked and swung around. The clearing lay empty. Flower heads trembled in a ring a few feet from her, though the stems between them and the trees stood still. She backed towards the third stone. The pendant heated in her fist until she had to loosen her grip. Light bled through the gaps between her fingers. The note had not asked her to come at night. She had chosen the hour because she had wanted no one to see her searching the stones. Now she wanted another walker on the path, a voice calling to a dog, the sweep of headlights beyond the trees. She heard none of them. A low knock came from the third stone. Rory faced it. The carved leaves ran up its front, pale where moonlight caught their edges. She watched the groove beneath them. Another knock. Close to the height of her chest. She lifted the pendant by its chain. It swung towards the stone, pulling the silver links taut against her fingers. Rory braced her wrist with her other hand. The warmth reached the small scar there. “Is that what you wanted?” No answer came from the trees. She moved closer. A patch of moisture had appeared on the stone beneath the carving. It spread into five narrow streaks, spaced like fingers. Rory held her hand beside it without touching. The marks matched the width of her palm. The pendant stopped swinging. Its crimson light shone across the wet streaks. Rory set her boots against the roots at the stone’s base and pressed the gem into the centre of the mark.