AI The air tore open with a sound like wet silk ripping.
Rory stumbled, the solid London pavement beneath her trainers replaced by something soft and spongy. Nyx caught her by the elbow, their grip cool and firm as polished stone. The portal’s after-image, a jagged rip of amber light, sealed itself behind them with a soft *pop *, leaving only silence .
They stood in a forest, but one that felt profoundly wrong.
"Be still," Isolde murmured, her voice barely disturbing the heavy air. "Let the grove know you."
The trees were immense, their bark the colour of old bone and smooth as ceramic. No leaves rustled. Instead, from high in the canopy, hung thousands of thin, glassy filaments that chimed with a melody just below hearing. The sound vibrated in Rory’s teeth.
The ground underfoot was a dense mat of moss that glowed with a faint, pulsating blue. With each soft pulse , tiny phosphorescent spores lifted into the air, drifting like lazy constellations.
"Richmond Park this is not," Rory whispered. The Heartstone pendant against her chest was warm, a steady, comforting counterpoint to the alien chill seeping through her jacket.
"It is a memory of a memory," Isolde said, moving forward . She left no imprint in the luminous moss. "A piece of the Courts that fell through the Veil, long ago. Time here is... forgetful."
Nyx flowed alongside Rory, their shadow-form seeming more substantial here, drinking in the dim, sourceless light. "The boundary is thin. I can feel the spaces between realms pressing close. Like thin ice over deep water."
They moved deeper. The glass-filament chimes grew louder, resolving into a discordant, haunting tune. Rory’s eyes adjusted, picking out details. Giant, pulsating fungi clung to the bone-white trees, their caps iridescent like oil on water. A stream cut across their path, but the water flowed upwards, defying gravity in a silent, silver ribbon that vanished into the canopy.
"Don’t touch the water," Isolde said, not looking back . "It drinks memory."
Rory gave the upward-flowing stream a wide berth. She caught a glimpse of her reflection in its silver surface—but it was wrong. An older version of herself stared back, eyes tired, hair streaked with grey, before the image shattered into ripples.
Unease coiled in her gut. This place was beautiful, a painting come to life, but its rules were alien and its hospitality nonexistent.
"The stones," Nyx whispered.
Ahead, the bone-white trees gave way to a clearing. In its centre stood a circle of standing stones, but they were not stone at all. They were petrified wood, ancient oak turned to glossy black obsidian. Veins of the same glowing blue moss ran through them, tracing intricate , spiralling patterns that seemed to shift if you stared too long .
Isolde stopped at the edge of the circle. Her silver hair seemed to draw the grove’s faint light. "This is the heart. The anchor."
Rory stepped between two of the obsidian monoliths. The air within the circle was different—still and charged , like the moment before a lightning strike. The discordant chime of the filaments faded to a background hum. Here, there was only a profound , listening silence .
In the exact centre of the circle lay a shallow pool, its surface perfectly still and black as a pupil. No reflection showed on its surface, not even the glowing moss or the dark trees.
"An eye," Nyx said, their violet gaze fixed on the pool. "A window."
"Or a door," Isolde corrected. She did not enter the circle.
Rory’s pendant gave a sudden, sharp pulse of heat. She flinched, her hand flying to it. The deep crimson gemstone wasn't just warm now; it was hot, and from within its core, the faint inner glow had brightened to a steady, bloody light.
"It's reacting," she said.
"To what?" Nyx moved to her side, a solid wall of living shadow.
Before she could answer, the black pool stirred. It wasn't a ripple. It was a contraction, like the dilation of an eye. The centre of the pool deepened, falling away into impossible depth, and from that depth, a scene bloomed to life.
They were looking into another place. A warm, amber sky hung over rolling hills of vibrant, impossible green. Figures moved in the middle distance—tall, elegant, with a grace that hurt to watch. One turned, and for a split second, Rory saw a face of heartbreaking beauty and cold, endless eyes.
"The Summer Court," Isolde breathed, and for the first time, Rory heard a crack in her serene composure. A sliver of raw, homesick pain.
The vision swirled, changing. The amber sky darkened to a bruised purple. The lush hills became a jagged landscape of crystalline spires under a cold, green moon. Different figures now, sharper, hungrier. The scene focused on a throne of twisted ice, and upon it, a figure smiled. It was a smile full of needles.
"And the Winter Court," Isolde said, her voice flat .
The pool’s image dissolved into chaos—a clash of silver and iron light, the screaming of horses that were not horses, the scent of ozone and rose petals and rotting frost flooding through the window despite there being no air.
Then, as suddenly as it opened, the window focused. It tunnelled through the fray, past the warring Fae, past the boundaries of their realm. It shot across the howling void between worlds, and slammed into a familiar , grimy London street.
The Golden Empress restaurant. Yu-Fei Cheung was locking the front door, her face drawn with tired worry.
The view pushed through the glass, into the dark kitchen. It zeroed in on a single floorboard near the back pantry. The perspective dove *through * the wood.
Hidden in a shallow space beneath lay a small, ornate box of dark wood. The vision seemed to pulse , and the box’s lid became transparent. Inside, resting on a bed of black velvet , was a key. It was made of the same obsidian as the standing stones, and it hummed with a malevolent, familiar energy.
"The Dymasian key," Rory whispered, recognising the resonant frequency of Gluttony from her first, unwilling trip to Hel.
The pool snapped shut.
The perfect black surface returned. The silent grove rushed back in, the glass chimes now sounding like frantic warnings.
Isolde was inside the circle now, her lavender eyes wide. "A viewing was requested. A viewing was granted. But the eye sees what it wills, not what you ask."
"You knew," Rory said, turning on her. The warmth of the pendant was a brand against her skin. "You knew it would show us that."
"I knew it would show you what you needed to see. The key is an anchor, a tether. Prince Belphegor did not lose it. He planted it."
"Why?" Nyx’s whisper was the sound of wind through a grave .
"To open a wider door," Isolde said. "A single soul is a delicacy. A neighbourhood, a city... that is a feast."
Rory’s mind raced , the cool-headed logic wrestling with the surreal horror. The key was in her city. In her workplace. It was a trap, and Yu-Fei was standing right on top of it.
A new sound cut through the chimes. A dry, scraping rustle, like millions of insect legs moving in unison.
It came from the periphery of the clearing. The glowing blue moss at the edge of the trees was darkening , withering to ash. The bone-white bark of the trees began to blotch with spreading stains of inky black.
"The vision was a beacon ," Nyx said, their form shifting, edges blurring as they scanned the tree line. "We looked in. Something else looked out."
From the deepening shadows between the petrified trees, shapes began to coalesce. Tall, thin, and jagged, they peeled themselves from the darkness, their forms made of shattered glass and hungry void.
The grove’s defences, Rory realised. Or its antibodies. And they were not welcoming guests.
Isolde raised a hand, pale light gathering at her fingertips. "The way out is behind us. The path will not hold for long."
Rory’s hand went to the Fae-forged blade at her belt. The moonsilver was ice-cold, a shocking contrast to the heated Heartstone. It glowed with a faint, eager luminescence.
The first of the jagged shadows stepped into the clearing, and the glass chimes screamed.