Run: 2026-11-11-01M7566V2QW6GNMTR0TYT04JMM

The park gates stood locked. Rory placed both palms on iron bars and lifted one leg over the rail she used as a shortcut during day deliveries from Yu-Fei Cheung's Golden Empress. Her trainers caught on a spike. She wrenched free and landed on damp grass. Black sat thick between the trunks inside Richmond Park. No lamp reached past the rail. Her breath fogged in a clean white puff and vanished. She pulled her jacket tight and checked the silver chain at her throat. The Heartstone Pendant lay cold against her skin since noon. Heat spread from the deep crimson stone an hour ago and woke her on the flat above Silas's bar. She blamed Evan for that restless wakefulness, then blamed the note tucked under her door with no name on it, then blamed herself for following heat into a locked park at night. A map on the back of the note marked Pen Ponds with a red cross. Rory tucked hair behind her ear and walked toward the water. The cut through bracken gave her a straight shoulder-length fall of black hair across her face. She pushed it back. Her left wrist throbbed where the crescent scar pulled tight under her sleeve. The path narrowed and the trees leaned in. She counted five trunks to the left and turned where she should have turned. Sound came from the pond side first. Not water. Not deer. A bell struck once across the park. Rory stopped under an oak and listened to the ring fade. No church stood near Pen Ponds. No bell rang inside Richmond Park after midnight. "Eva, you awake?" She held the phone out from her ear and stared at the screen. Signal bars read full. The clock read 2:17 and stayed on 2:17. She shook the phone. The time held. "Brilliant. Landline hour on a mobile." She slipped the phone into her pocket and kept walking. Wind moved the bracken in a line toward the pond. No wind touched her jacket. No wind touched her face. A dog barked from behind the stones ahead on the path. Rory froze with one foot in midair. The bark came from close range and stopped. She set her foot down on the path and turned in a full circle. Leaves dripped though no rain fell. Water struck a leaf, then another leaf, then a leaf behind her shoulder. She ducked under a branch and wiped her face with her sleeve. Her blue eyes watered from the cold. The path narrowed between two oaks with roots like knuckles. Wildflowers opened white and purple across the verge. Rory crouched and touched a petal. The petal left damp on her fingertip. March gave the park no flowers. Cardiff gave her no flowers last spring, a fact she carried in her chest alongside Jennifer's voice on bad days. She stood and brushed dirt from her knees. The pendant heated against her sternum. Heat climbed into her throat. "You pick tonight of all nights." The stone ticked against her collarbone in time with her pulse. It warmed on the third beat and cooled on the sixth. She knew the pattern from a card the unknown benefactor left beneath the pendant. The card named a Hel portal behind the standing stones. No name. No note. A gift with weight and a glow she could see under her nail in daylight. She pulled the chain out over her jacket and held the thumbnail-sized stone in her fist. The glow showed crimson through her knuckles. A second bell struck. Rory turned her head toward the sound. Footsteps matched hers on the stones beyond the trees. She counted her own steps to the next oak. Left. Right. Left. The other steps counted with her. Left. Right. Left. The other steps arrived half a beat late. She stopped. The extra steps stopped. Her pulse beat in both ears. She pressed her palms flat against her thighs and breathed through her mouth. "Show yourself or keep walking behind me. Pick one." Silence covered the path. She took one step forward. Two sets of steps moved forward. She took one step back. Two sets of steps moved back. The hairs on her forearms rose. She turned her head to the left. Movement slipped between the oaks at the edge of her vision. A branch. A shadow. A shape with height and shoulders. She fixed her eyes on the spot and found oak bark and empty air. The shape lived at the edge of vision and died under direct focus. She learned the trick by the third oak. She kept her eyes fixed ahead and watched the edge. The shape walked beside her, past her shoulder height, past the height of her own head. It kept pace with her left side. The scar on her left wrist pulled taut. The pendant burnt her skin through the chain. She looped the chain over her fingers and lifted the stone away from her throat. Heat stayed in the stone. Heat stayed in her throat. "Rory, love, turn around." The words came from behind her left ear. No mouth moved near her. No breath touched her neck. She spun on her heel and faced the path behind her. Empty path. Empty oaks. Her own footprints marked the dew in a straight line. A second set of prints marked the dew beside hers. Each print landed where her print landed. The pair of prints ended at her own boots. They began at her boots. She crouched and held her hand over the prints. Dew rose on the grass between the prints. Dew left the prints clean. She touched the clean line with one finger. Cold leaked up through her fingertip and into her wrist. The crescent scar throbbed in time with the pendant. She pulled her sleeve down over the scar and stood. Standing stones rose ahead where the path dipped toward Pen Ponds. Ancient stone teeth marked the boundary of the Fae Grove. Isolde's grove lived behind that boundary in talk from Eva. Eva gave the name to Rory over tea in Cardiff and laughed at Rory's face. "A pocket between Earth and the Fae realm, Rory. Time bends there." Rory never believed the story. She believed deer tracks and locked gates and weather. The stones in front of her gave her none of those comforts. Moss covered the north face of each stone. Moss left no footprints on the ground between them. Wildflowers grew through moss and stone dust. Their color clashed with night. The pendant pulsed enough to shake her hand. She made a fist around the stone and squeezed. The glow bled between her fingers. She stepped between the standing stones. Air thickened on her skin. Light from the pond disappeared behind her. The bell rang inside her head. Rory lifted the phone from her pocket. The screen woke on 2:17. Battery marked a full charge. The black screen threw her own face back at her. Her blue eyes stared at her from the glass. The reflection blinked after her. She blinked. The reflection held its eyes open. She lifted her left hand. The reflection lifted its right hand. The scar showed on the wrong wrist in the glass. Rory dropped the phone into the grass. The screen stayed lit in the grass. 2:17 stared up at her. She left the phone and walked into the grove. Wildflowers opened in a circle around her boots. Their heads turned toward her as she moved. No wind moved them. She stopped inside the circle. The extra footprints stopped inside the circle. The pendant cooled. Cold spread through her chest where the stone hung. She pulled the stone out and stared at it. Crimson light thinned to a thread inside the stone. She held the stone toward the circle of flowers. Light brightened in the stone. Heat returned to her throat. Footsteps circled her in the grass. No feet broke the flower stems. She turned with the sound and found no feet. The circle tightened around her boots. Petals brushed her ankles though she stood motionless. "Who walks with me?"