AI The December chill of Richmond Park bit aggressively through Aurora Carter’s denim jacket, but the plummeting temperature was the least of her concerns. Ahead of her in the oppressive darkness, a tight cluster of ancient oak standing stones loomed like shattered teeth against the moonless sky. By day, they were merely a fenced-off curiosity for London's tourists. Tonight, they were a gateway.
Beside her, a deep patch of darkness detached itself from the gloom of a twisted rowan tree. Nyx coalesced into a towering humanoid silhouette, standing well over six feet in their solid form. They possessed no easily defined features save for faintly glowing violet eyes that scanned the invisible boundary lines of the oaks.
"The barrier is brittle," Nyx said. They did not speak from a throat. The voice lacked physical vibration, sounding instead like a long, dry whisper carried on an abandoned wind. "The winter solstice wanes the Veil. We can cross here."
Rory rubbed her thumb over the small crescent-shaped scar on her left wrist, turning the slick, raised skin beneath her fingernail. It was a nervous habit, an anchor to reality when the sheer scale of the hidden world threatened to overwhelm her. She was a twenty-five-year-old law school dropout. By day, she dodged congested city traffic delivering takeout for the Golden Empress. She mapped out side streets and alleyways, not metaphysical barriers separating Earth from pocket dimensions. But her cool head was exactly what kept her alive when she had fled Cardiff, and it was what would keep her alive now.
Nyx drifted forward, their form shimmering as they seamlessly shifted between solid shadow and incorporeal mist. The shade raised a pitch-black hand toward the center of the stones.
To Rory’s bright blue eyes, the empty air between the oaks began to warp. It was a faint, shimmering distortion, violently rippling like heat rising off miles of sunbaked asphalt, yet it cast a strange, oily iridescence in the dark.
Taking a measured breath, Rory stepped forward and pushed her way through the Veil.
The physical sensation was jarring , akin to walking chest-deep into a pool of heavy, electrified water. A momentary static charge crawled over her skin, raising the straight black hair at the nape of her neck. And then, the biting London frost simply vanished.
Rory stumbled slightly as her boots met unfamiliar, springy resistance. The Fae Grove did not obey the rules of the city she had just departed. Heat rolled over her in a gentle, deeply fragrant wave. The ground beneath her changed from frozen mud to a lush, mossy carpet. Wildflowers in violent, saturated shades of magenta, gold, and cerulean blanketed every available surface. They bloomed with an eager, impossible vitality, crowding the bases of colossal trees whose branches wove together to form an unbroken canopy.
She looked over her shoulder. There was no shimmering Veil behind her, no outline of Richmond Park, only endless tracts of twilit forest. The sky above the dense canopy possessed the pale, pearlescent glow of perpetual dawn, refusing to commit to day or night.
"Stay close," Nyx whispered from her right, though the sound seemed to echo sequentially from the broad leaves overhead. The shade’s edges blurred into the ambient light, an entity of absolute darkness trapped in a realm of relentless vibrancy. "Time pools here like stagnant water. A day in the mortal world might be a minute under these branches. Or an hour of wandering here could cost us a year back home."
Rory checked her wristwatch. The second hand had firmly stopped dead.
She pushed down a sudden, sharp flutter of panic. She was used to strict timetables, pacing her life in delivery windows and shift rotations. The concept of losing a year to a walk in the woods made her stomach pitch. But her analytical mind took over, cataloging the alien environment. The air was thick, carrying the cloying scent of crushed jasmine and rich loam, yet underlying it was a metallic copper tang. Magic, raw and unrefined, tasted like ozone at the back of her throat.
As they navigated a winding path bordered by enormous, bioluminescent ferns, a sudden warmth bled across Rory's chest. She paused, reaching under her collar to extract a silver chain.
Hanging from the links was the Heartstone pendant. Roughly the size of her thumbnail, the deep crimson gemstone was ordinarily dormant. Now, it possessed a faint, rhythmic inner glow. The heat radiating off the faceted stone was distinct, pulsing against her palm like a living heartbeat.
"Nyx," Rory said softly , holding the gem up. "The pendant."
The shade drifted closer, their violet eyes narrowing. "It wakes."
"It only pulses when a Hel portal is near," Rory noted, her quick mind already connecting the fragmented lore she had gathered since running from her old life. "Why would a demonic gateway exist inside a Fae pocket dimension?"
"The realms overlap in ways mortals cannot easily map," Nyx murmured, their shadowy form shifting restlessly . "A tear deep within this grove might lead down into the lower domains. Dymas, the realm of Gluttony, often breaches places of unabashed excess. And the Fae… they are nothing if not creatures of endless indulgence."
"Excess is merely a mortal boundary, Aurora Carter."
The voice was melodic, ringing with crystal clarity through the heavy air. Rory dropped the pendant and spun around, her eyes scanning the dense, flowering brush.
A woman emerged from a thicket of silver-leafed willows. At first glance, she looked young, but a profound , terrifying age settled around her like an invisible weight . She stood noticeably shorter than Nyx at five-foot-five, her ethereal features framed by a waterfall of spun silver hair that reached all the way to her waist. Her eyes were a haunting, pale lavender that seemed to catch and refract the forest's twilight .
But it was her movement that made the hairs on Rory’s arms stand up again. The woman glided forward, and though she wore delicate woven sandals, the fragile wildflowers beneath her did not bend. She left absolutely no footprints in the soft earth.
"Isolde," Nyx whispered, a faint note of deference rustling through the hollow syllables.
The three-hundred-year-old Half-Fae seer smiled, though the expression remained detached. Exiled for sharing the secrets of the Fae Courts with humans, Isolde Varga now held dominion over this hidden patch of Earthly territory.
"The shadow out of time, and the girl running from her own," Isolde said, her voice dropping into a rhythmic, lulling cadence . She tilted her head, her lavender gaze locking onto Rory. "You seek the truth of the shimmering borders. The blood-stone warms against your heart, for the warm amber skies wait beneath the soil. Prince Belphegor feasts while the world above fractures."
Rory kept her stance wide, refusing to yield ground. She knew the Fae compulsion prevented Isolde from outright lying, but surviving on her own had taught Rory that the truth was often the sharpest weapon available. "We didn't come for Dymas. We came for answers about the Veil."
"Answers are but a meager meal for the starved mind," Isolde countered mildly, pacing a slow, weightless circle around them. "And you, clever mortal, are famished for certainties. But you walk toward thresholds guarded by teeth and fire."
Isolde paused, raising a pale, slender hand. Deep within the folds of her gossamer robes, she produced a narrow object wrapped tightly in dark velvet . She extended it toward Rory.
"Before you carve your path through the wards of the gluttonous prince," Isolde said softly , "you will need a tooth sharp enough to bite the magic."
Rory hesitated, glancing at Nyx. The massive shade offered a slow, solemn nod of approval.
Reaching out, Rory took the heavy bundle. The moment her fingers brushed the cloth, a severe, biting chill shot up her arm, entirely contrary to the burning heat still radiating from the pendant against her chest.
She peeled back the velvet . Resting in her palm was a slender, leaf-shaped dagger. It was forged entirely of moonsilver, glowing faintly with a pristine , luminescent sheen that mirrored the alien sky above. It was achingly cold to the touch, pulling the heat directly from her skin, yet it felt beautifully balanced in her grip.
"A blade of the Fae Courts," Isolde explained, her tone taking on a distant, sorrowful edge . "Exceedingly rare. It will shear through the demonic wards that separate this grove from the amber realm below."
Rory gripped the hilt tightly . The intense cold of the metal countered the thrumming warmth of the Hel artifact around her neck, anchoring her in the impossible reality of the moment. An intense unease settled deeply in her gut, but beneath it lay a vivid, undeniably wondrous thrill. The world was so much larger, and so much more terrifying, than the busy grey streets she called home.
"Thank you," Rory managed, carefully tucking the blade into her belt.
Isolde offered a serene, chilling smile as she began to retreat back into the silver-leafed willows. "Do not thank me, child. For the path ahead demands a toll I would not wish to pay."