AI Aurora shoved her shoulder into the last oak standing stone and felt it thrum back, not with weight, but with refusal .
Nyx slid beside her like spilled ink, their violet eyes flaring in the narrow gap between stone and air.
"The boundary bites."
"It can bite all it likes," Aurora said. Her fingers tightened around the deep crimson Heartstone pendant at her throat. The gem sat warm against her skin, warm enough to leave a print. "I’m not going back out empty-handed."
A breath of pressure swept over her, not wind, not air, something denser, as if the world held its lungs. The space between the stones shimmered . Not light. A distortion, the Veil pulled thin like sugar glass.
Nyx lifted a hand. Shadow lengthened from their fingers and combed the shimmer, gentle as a pickpocket.
"Step on the silence ," they whispered. "Do not step on your name."
"Helpful," Aurora said, and stepped anyway .
The Veil caught her like a mouth. Cold ran under her skin, then heat, then a clean, sharp blankness. Her stomach lurched . The smell of London, petrol and damp brick and old frying oil, stripped away in an instant.
Her boot hit ground that did not crunch, did not sink, did not behave like ground at all. It responded like taut skin. She shifted her weight and felt it flex under her sole, a living patience.
Behind her, the oak stones stood in a loose ring, mottled with lichen that gleamed like paint still wet. The gap they had forced open narrowed until it looked like nothing more than two stones leaning close, gossiping. Outside should have shown park grass, dog walkers, a path. Instead, the ring held a view of itself, repeating, the stones echoing in smaller and smaller circles like a hall of mirrors cut into rock.
Nyx stepped through and the air around them darkened, not with shade, but with attention . The shimmer sealed with a soft click that Aurora felt in her teeth.
Wildflowers spread across the clearing in colours her eyes struggled to name. Some of them held too many petals, layers stacked like folded paper. Others had no petals at all, only a cup of translucent flesh that trembled as if listening . The scent hit her next, sweet and bruised. It reminded her of pears left too long, and of something metallic beneath.
"Richmond Park has a hidden talent," Aurora muttered.
Nyx tilted their head.
"Not Park," they said. "Pocket."
Aurora touched her left wrist without thinking. The crescent scar there looked ordinary, pale and slight, but the air in this place made every mark on her body feel like a signature. She lowered her hand.
She took two steps. The clearing stretched, not wider, but deeper, as if she had walked into a painting that had layers behind the paint. The standing stones remained behind her and ahead of her at once. She turned to look back. The ring sat closer than it should, like it had followed.
"Do we go in a straight line," Aurora said, "or does that offend the local physics?"
Nyx’s shadow pooled at their feet and then reached out, a thin line that pointed into the wildflowers.
"Follow the cut. The Grove remembers paths."
Aurora crouched. Between the blooms, something like a track ran through, a narrow strip where the living ground had been pressed flat. No footprints. No heel marks. Just a suggestion that something often passed.
Her Heartstone pendant warmed again. Not a mild warmth now. A pulse . Slow, then quicker, a heartbeat that did not belong to her.
Nyx noticed. Their gaze fixed on the gem.
"Hel breathes near."
That word tightened Aurora’s throat. Hel. Dymas. Gluttony. A realm of feasts and contracts and mouths that never stopped. She had worn the pendant for weeks and cursed the unknown benefactor, cursed the feel of being owned by an object she had not agreed to accept. Now it acted like a hound scenting blood.
She stood and walked, keeping her steps careful. Her trainer soles made no sound on the living ground. Even her coat stopped rustling. The Grove swallowed noise with hungry grace. Only the flowers made a faint, constant chime, as if each stem carried a sliver of glass.
As she moved deeper, the air thickened with detail. Colours shifted at the edge of vision. The wildflowers leaned away from her and then leaned back, brushing her ankles with cool, damp touches. A ribbon of water cut through the clearing, not a stream, but a narrow, glassy seam in the earth . It ran uphill without effort. When Aurora leaned close, she saw the water held tiny bright shapes, fish or insects, that swam in perfect circles as if trapped in a thought.
She glanced at Nyx.
"You seeing this?"
Nyx’s smile never reached their eyes.
"I see the rules. Not the decoration."
They passed a tree that looked like an oak until Aurora noticed its bark held faint script, spiralling letters etched into the wood. The writing shifted as she tried to focus, each character sliding away from comprehension, like the bark refused to be read by a human mind.
Nyx’s hand hovered near it.
"Language wards," they murmured. "Old. Court-old."
Aurora’s pendant gave another pulse . A sharp one.
Ahead, a figure stood with her back to them, silver hair falling in a sheet to her waist. She wore a pale dress that did not move as cloth should. It draped like mist that had decided to behave.
Aurora stopped short. The living ground seemed to tense under her boots.
Nyx did not.
They flowed forward a step and then paused as if someone had laid a hand on their chest.
Isolde Varga turned.
Her pale lavender eyes found Aurora at once, then slid to the pendant, then to Nyx. Her gaze carried no surprise. It had the weight of a page already read.
"You cut through my stones without asking," she said. Her voice held music and threat, and it did not belong to any London accent Aurora had ever heard. "Mortals always arrive like burglars and leave like victims."
Aurora forced her shoulders down. Her pulse ran steady, but her skin prickled.
"No one posted rules," Aurora said. "And I had a reason."
Isolde stepped forward. The wildflowers did not bend under her feet. They did not move at all, not for her, not even a respectful tremble. She crossed the living ground and left nothing behind. No footprint. No mark. It made Aurora’s skin itch with an old instinct that said, Not human, not safe.
"A reason," Isolde echoed , tasting the word like wine. "You carry Hel on your throat, child. That counts as a reason and as a mistake."
Nyx’s shadow flared at their sides, and the flowers nearest them dimmed as if a candle had guttered.
"She did not choose it," Nyx whispered.
Isolde’s eyes softened by a fraction.
"Few choose their chains. Fewer notice them."
Aurora held up the pendant between finger and thumb. The gem’s inner glow thickened, like blood lit from within.
"It reacts. Warm near portals. That’s what it does."
Isolde’s gaze sharpened.
"It does more than that."
Aurora did not blink.
"Then tell me what it does."
Isolde angled her head, as if listening to something far away and unpleasant.
"I cannot lie," she said, and the words landed like a warning, not a comfort . "But I can still cut you with truth. Do you want it blunt or dressed in sugar?"
"Blunt," Aurora said.
Isolde stepped closer. The scent that clung to her did not match the flowers. It smelled of cold iron and crushed mint, and something sweet underneath that made Aurora think of childhood cough syrup.
"The Heartstone belongs to Dymas," Isolde said. "Gluttony. Belphegor’s kitchens and contracts. It is a key and a lure. It warms when it nears a tear in the Veil because it wants the tear. It wants to feed it."
Aurora’s grip tightened. The chain bit into her fingers.
"So it’s bait."
"It is a mouth," Isolde corrected. "It hungers for thresholds. Someone placed it on you so you would walk where you should not and open what you cannot close."
Nyx’s violet eyes narrowed .
"And yet you let her reach your Grove."
Isolde’s smile held no humour.
"The Grove lets what the Grove chooses. Do not mistake my patience for permission, Shade."
Aurora did not like the way Isolde said Shade. Like it belonged in a bestiary.
She looked past Isolde, deeper into the clearing. Between the flowers and the script-barked trees, a darker shape waited. Not shadow. A split. A line like a wound in the air.
The pendant flared hot. Heat licked up Aurora’s throat. She hissed and dropped it back against her chest.
"There," she said. "That’s the tear, isn’t it."
Isolde glanced over her shoulder as if she had known all along and only pretended otherwise.
"It is a crack," she said. "A small one. Wardens would mend it if they knew. Demons would widen it if they could. Mortals would step through and call it adventure."
Aurora began walking towards it before Isolde finished speaking. Nyx followed close, their presence shifting as if they took two forms at once, solid and not.
Isolde moved with them, silent, effortless , leaving no trace through the wildflowers. The Grove made room for her like it respected her and resented everyone else.
As they approached, the crack in the air gained texture. It looked like a thin curtain of oil poured into nothing, rippling with colours that refused to settle. Aurora’s eyes watered when she stared at it too long. The edges of the tear glittered with the same kind of shimmer she had felt at the standing stones, but this shimmer looked bruised, irritated.
The sound arrived next. A faint clatter, like cutlery dropped onto stone. Then laughter, distant, bright, and wrong. Not human laughter. Too many voices in one.
Aurora’s mouth filled with saliva. Her stomach tightened, hungry and nauseated at once.
She pressed her palm against her own sternum, as if she could pin her body’s reaction down.
Nyx leaned in, their face close to the tear. The oil-colours reflected in their eyes like drowned lights.
"Smell," they whispered. "Spice. Fat. Rot."
Aurora smelled it now. Roasted meat, rich and heavy. Citrus. Wine. Under it all, something sour, like bin juice.
She saw movement within the crack, glimpses of warm amber light, the suggestion of long tables, gleaming platters, hands reaching, mouths open. A realm that celebrated consumption until consumption became worship.
"A portal to Dymas," Aurora said. The words felt like a crime .
Isolde’s voice carried less riddle now and more edge.
"It is not meant to sit here. Someone pushed it into my Grove because the Grove hides what sits within it. Time behaves poorly here. Wardens track rifts. They struggle with pockets that slip."
Aurora shifted her weight , careful not to touch the tear.
"So we close it."
Isolde’s gaze returned to the pendant.
"You do not close a mouth by feeding it," she said. "And you, Aurora Carter, wear its favourite flavour."
Nyx’s shadow slid along the living ground and rose, a thin wall between Aurora and the tear.
"I can hold it," Nyx whispered. "For a breath. For two."
Isolde reached into the folds of her dress. Her hand emerged holding a slender, leaf-shaped dagger. Moonsilver caught what little light existed here and reflected it with a cold, clean sheen. The blade looked too delicate to cut anything real, yet it made Aurora’s skin tighten as if it had already drawn blood.
Isolde held it out, hilt-first.
"Take it."
Aurora hesitated only long enough to note the way Isolde’s fingers did not shake.
"This is yours."
"It is a gift," Isolde said. "And a bargain, but not the kind you fear. Moonsilver cuts wards. It bites demons. It can slice the stitch that holds this crack open."
Aurora took the dagger. The Fae-forged blade chilled her palm at once, a cold that ran up her arm and made the pendant’s heat feel obscene. The dagger balanced perfectly , as if it knew her grip.
Nyx’s voice thinned.
"Someone comes."
Aurora looked back. The standing stones had moved. Not far, but enough . The ring sat closer than it had, and within it the repeating view had stopped repeating. It now showed darkness threaded with amber, as if the portal’s light had reached back and stained the boundary.
A sound echoed through the Grove, not loud, but sharp . Hoof on stone. Then again. Not a horse. Something with too many joints.
Isolde’s face lost its softness entirely.
"Do you hear the cutlery?" she asked. "The feast heard you back."
From within the tear, a hand pressed out against the oil-sheen, flattening the rippling surface as if it were skin. The fingers looked human until the nails lengthened, black and glossy, and a ring of gold gleamed on one knuckle, set with an amber gem that caught the Grove’s shimmer and swallowed it.
Aurora raised the moonsilver dagger.
The tear widened with a wet sound. A head pushed through, smiling, lips too red, teeth too many. The scent of roasting flesh surged. The thing’s eyes fixed on Aurora’s pendant with open hunger.
"Little key," it purred. "Prince Belphegor sends his appetite."
Behind them, the standing stones cracked as something on the other side began to force its way in.