AI Aurora drove the moonsilver dagger into the knot of roots and twisted.
The living wood shrieked like a kettle left to boil dry. Sap bled out, not amber but a thin, milky light that ran over Rory’s knuckles and refused to drip. The bramble wall in front of her loosened its weave, thorns unhooking from thorn with a wet, reluctant sound, as if the hedge had teeth and hated to open its mouth.
“Careful,” Nyx breathed, voice sliding along her ear like smoke. “The Grove remembers cuts.”
Rory kept her wrist steady. The crescent scar on her left wrist prickled under the sap-light, the skin tightening as if it recognised the language in the wound.
“Then it can remember this,” she said.
She pulled the blade free. Cold travelled up her palm and into her forearm, a clean, sharp chill that made her feel awake in a way coffee never managed. The gap widened just enough for a person to slip through sideways.
Behind her, the ancient oak standing stones hunched in a rough circle, their surfaces veined with old carvings that looked like letters until you stared too long. Then they looked like fingernail marks. The air inside the boundary didn’t move like normal air, it pressed and released in slow pulses, as if the place breathed.
Isolde Varga stepped forward without sound. She wore no mud, no leaf, no anything that suggested she walked on soil, and the grass refused to bend where she placed her feet.
“You will not find a door by asking politely,” Isolde said. Her pale lavender eyes fixed on Rory’s hands, on the sap-light that clung. “You chose steel. That is honest.”
“Honest gets you killed,” Rory said, and ducked through .
The brambles closed behind her with a soft clap, like hands coming together. Sound changed at once. The park’s distant noise, the faint city hum, all of it died as if someone shut a window. In its place came a low susurration, thousands of small sounds layered together, petals rubbing, stems creaking, something that could have been whispering if it had a mouth.
Nyx poured through the gap after her, not stepping so much as becoming present. They pulled their shadow closer to solidity, a tall humanoid silhouette with faintly glowing violet eyes that floated in their face like lanterns behind black cloth.
Isolde followed last, gliding. The brambles parted for her without protest, which made Rory’s skin crawl more than the scream of the roots had.
The Grove opened around them in a clearing that looked too tidy to be wild. Wildflowers covered the ground in dense drifts, their colours wrong by half a shade. Blue leaned towards bruised. Yellow carried a green edge like old teeth. White had a faint, pearly sheen, as if someone dusted the petals with ground bone. The scent didn’t match any one plant, it hit in layers, honey, crushed mint, a bitter note like burnt sugar.
Rory took a step and felt the ground give under her boot, not soft earth but something springy, like walking on muscle .
She lifted her foot at once.
“Don’t look down for long,” Nyx murmured. “It looks back.”
Rory locked her gaze forward. Between the flower drifts rose slim trees with bark the colour of old paper. Their branches formed arches, some braided together, some split into antler shapes. Strange fruit hung from them, small and glossy, like pomegranates made of garnet. Their skins pulsed, not with light, with the faint expansion and contraction of breath.
Her Heartstone pendant warmed against her sternum.
Not heat like sun on metal. Heat like a living palm pressed to her skin.
Rory’s hand went to it on instinct. The deep crimson gemstone sat in its silver chain, innocent as a piece of jewellery you’d buy at a market stall. It gave a faint inner glow that answered the warmth with colour, as if blood lit from within.
Nyx’s violet eyes shifted to it.
“That little hunger-stone wants something,” they said.
Rory closed her fingers around the pendant and felt it throb once, slow, like a heartbeat trying to match hers.
Isolde’s lips curved, not quite a smile .
“The more it purrs, the closer you stand to a tear in the Veil.”
Rory looked between the trees. The air ahead shimmered in a thin distortion, barely there, like heat haze except colder, sharper. It caught on the edges of things, on leaves, on the curve of Nyx’s shoulder, and broke into fine fragments of light that vanished when she blinked.
“The Veil,” Rory said. “That’s it?”
Isolde tilted her head.
“You ask for nouns because verbs frighten you.”
“Fine,” Rory said. “What’s it doing?”
“It thins,” Isolde replied. “It listens.”
Rory didn’t like the idea of a barrier that listened. She tightened her grip on the Fae-forged blade. The dagger’s leaf-shaped edge held no nicks, no stain. Its cold seeped into her skin with steady patience.
They moved deeper.
The clearing narrowed into a passage between trees. The trunks stood too close, like ribs. The flower-carpet thinned and turned into a pale moss that clung to her boot soles. Each step made a faint sucking sound, soft but intimate, as if the ground tasted her.
Something chimed overhead.
Rory looked up and saw thin strands stretched between branches, not spider silk . They looked like glass pulled into threads. Tiny seedpods hung from them, translucent and hollow. They knocked together as they swayed, making notes that didn’t form a melody, just a pattern that tugged at her thoughts. The sound made her want to answer. It made her want to speak a name.
She clamped her jaw shut.
Nyx lifted a hand and let the glass-threads pass through their fingers without moving.
“Fae snares,” they whispered. “Not for bodies.”
“For what?” Rory asked.
“For attention,” Nyx said. “For promise. For the part of you that offers things when you panic.”
Rory exhaled through her nose and kept walking.
The passage opened again into a wider space, a kind of orchard. The trees here carried those garnet fruits in heavy clusters. The scent shifted, richer, thick with something like wine and warm bread . Rory’s stomach responded before her mind did, a sudden hollow ache that made her think of the Golden Empress kitchen, of steam and sizzling fat, of hunger satisfied.
Her pendant grew warmer.
“Isolde,” Rory said. “This isn’t just a pocket of pretty flowers. What’s anchored here?”
Isolde moved between two trees. Her long silver hair brushed the fruit, yet none of it stirred. She spoke as if she answered a different question.
“Gluttony never arrives with teeth bared. It brings a tablecloth.”
Nyx’s violet eyes narrowed .
“Belphegor’s scent rides this place,” they said, voice flat . “You dragged Hel close to a Fae wound.”
Isolde’s gaze flicked to them.
“I did not drag. I watched. Men and monsters pull at threads, and I follow what unravels.”
Rory stopped at the nearest tree and lifted her free hand towards a fruit. Up close, the skin wasn’t smooth. Fine seams ran through it, like sutures. It shivered when her fingers hovered near.
“Don’t,” Nyx said.
Rory held still, then withdrew her hand.
“I’m not eating cursed pomegranate,” she said.
Isolde’s eyes held a faint glint , amused or hungry, Rory couldn’t tell.
“A clever girl learns rules without tasting the consequence.”
Rory kept the dagger low and moved on, weaving between trunks. The orchard sloped downwards without a hill, the ground folding under her feet like fabric drawn over a hidden shape. The air tasted metallic now, not blood, more like coins held too long.
As they descended, the moss shifted to stone.
Not rock. Not earth. Flat slabs, worn smooth, fitted together with no mortar. Patterns spiralled across them, shallow grooves that caught stray light and sent it along the lines. Rory’s boots no longer sank, they clicked. The sound carried too far. It bounced ahead and returned a second later, altered, as if the place repeated her steps in a different voice.
Nyx turned their head.
“We’re not alone,” they murmured.
Rory listened hard. Under the chime of the seedpods and the low whisper of leaves, she heard a faint scrape. Something dragged across stone, then stopped. A breath, wet and patient.
She tightened her grip on the dagger.
“Isolde,” Rory said. “You said you offer prophecies. You didn’t mention baiting traps.”
Isolde’s expression stayed calm, ethereal, infuriating.
“I did not lie.”
“That’s not an answer,” Rory snapped.
“It is,” Isolde said. “It is only not the one you want.”
The path ended at a ring of stones half sunk into the ground. Not the oak standing stones at the boundary, these looked older, darker, their surfaces polished as if countless hands touched them. The grooves on the floor converged here, forming a wide circle.
Inside the circle, the air shimmered hard enough that Rory’s eyes watered. The distortion held shape like a sheet of glass set upright. It bulged slightly , as if something pressed from the other side.
Her pendant pulsed with warmth . It felt almost hot now, as if it wanted to burn through her shirt.
Nyx hovered at the edge of the circle.
“A rift point,” they said, quieter . “Wardens should have sealed it.”
Rory looked at Isolde.
“You knew this was here.”
Isolde stood on the stone floor without leaving even a scuff.
“I knew it breathed,” she said. “I did not know who would come to drink.”
Rory forced her voice steady.
“What’s on the other side?”
Isolde’s gaze drifted to the shimmering sheet.
“A realm where chefs wear crowns and kings lick their fingers,” she said. “A place called Dymas, where hunger is holy and fullness is a sin.”
Rory felt her throat tighten. The Heartstone pendant, given by an unknown benefactor, linked to Dymas, sat against her skin like a second heart.
Nyx’s eyes brightened, their shadow deepening.
“Gluttony,” they whispered. “Belphegor’s table.”
Rory’s mind skated through everything she knew and everything she didn’t. She kept her eyes on the rift.
“Why bring me here?” she asked Isolde.
Isolde’s voice softened, which did not make it kinder.
“Because the stone at your throat calls to its home. Because doors recognise their keys.”
Rory swallowed and moved closer. The air at the edge of the circle prickled against her face, static and cold at once. Fine hairs lifted on her arms. The dagger’s cold changed too, becoming sharper, more eager, as if it sensed something it could cut.
Within the shimmer, shapes shifted. Not clear, but there, colours like warm amber, a glow that reminded Rory of candlelit rooms and polished wood. She caught the faintest scent of roasted meat, sweet and heavy, so vivid it made saliva flood her mouth. Her stomach growled. The sound echoed , multiplied, answered by something on the other side.
A soft thud.
Then another.
Like footsteps , measured and slow, approaching from the amber glow.
Rory stepped back half a pace.
Nyx’s hand closed around her wrist, their shadow-cool touch grounding her.
“Listen,” they murmured. “It knows you smell it.”
“I’m listening,” Rory said, voice tight .
Isolde lifted one hand, palm out, as if blessing the rift or warning it .
“Do not bargain,” she said. “Not with your mouth, not with your eyes, not with the ache behind your ribs.”
Rory stared at the shimmer until her eyes stung. The distortion thickened. Hairline cracks appeared across it, bright lines that pulsed with inner light, like a sheet of ice about to break.
Her pendant flared warm enough to hurt.
Something pushed through from the other side.
A hand, not human. Too long, too many joints, skin the colour of old parchment stretched over tendons that moved like ropes. Rings glittered on its fingers, fat with gemstones. The hand pressed to the Veil and the cracks spread, spidering out.
Nyx hissed, the sound like wind through dead reeds.
“Back,” they said. “Now.”
Rory took one step away from the circle.
The hand flexed. The Veil split with a noise like cloth tearing, and the rift opened in a jagged oval.
Warm amber light spilled into the Grove, painting the pale trees gold. The scent of food hit like a punch, rich and overwhelming. Rory’s mouth filled with the taste of salt and fat, like she had bitten into something hot and perfect .
A face slid into view behind the reaching hand, half obscured by shimmer.
It smiled.
Its teeth looked too many. Too even.
A voice poured through, smooth as gravy over knives.
“Ah,” it said. “The little heart returns.”
Nyx moved between Rory and the rift, their silhouette swelling, shadow thickening into something almost solid enough to strike.
Isolde’s expression finally changed. Her calm broke into something sharp, a flash of alarm that made Rory’s blood run colder than the dagger.
“That is not a servant,” Isolde said. “That is an envoy.”
The envoy’s hand hooked over the edge of the torn Veil and pulled, widening the opening with casual strength.
On the stone floor, the circle grooves filled with amber light as if the realm on the other side leaked into the lines. The patterns began to move, spirals turning, a slow grinding that Rory felt in her teeth.
Rory lifted the Fae-forged blade, its moonsilver edge catching the amber glow and throwing it back in pale fire.
“Nyx,” she said. “If it gets through, can you hold it?”
Nyx’s violet eyes fixed on the smile.
“I can hold anything,” they whispered. “For a price.”
The envoy stepped forward, one elegant foot appearing through the tear. Its shoe looked like polished bone .
Then the stones around the circle answered with a deep, hungry rumble, and the floor split open beneath Rory’s boots.