AI Aurora’s boot crunches on something that isn’t gravel—iridescent shards that glow like crushed stained glass. She pauses, hand dropping to the dagger at her waist, the Fae blade’s moonsilver edge catching the sliver of moon through the oak branches. “The stones are warmer than I remembered,” she says, not looking back . “Eva’s map wasn’t wrong , but it didn’t *say * the standing circles would hum.”
A breath hisses through Nyx’s form—they materialize beside her, a shadow with violet eyes that pool like oil. “Humming’s new,” they say, voice a whisper that tangles the air. “Or perhaps I’m hearing *it * better now.” Their fingers brush the Heartstone pendant at Aurora’s throat; the crimson gem warms under their touch, pulsing once, twice.
Behind them, Isolde’s silver hair moves without wind, a river of moonlight. “Veil hums when it bleeds,” she says, stepping into the circle. Her bare feet don’t press the shards—they pass through, leaving no mark. “Runes grow for those who listen. Not the kind that scribe. The kind that *breathe *.”
Aurora kneels, tracing a rune carved into the oldest stone. It’s not English. Not any tongue she knows. But the grooves hum under her palm, and when she leans closer, she sees it : threads of light weaving through the stone, connecting it to the next, until they form a cage around the clearing. “Like a web,” she says, standing . “To keep something in?”
“Or out,” Nyx mutters. They shift, solid now—six feet of shadow that crowd the edge of the circle, shoulders tense. “Hel’s children *love * gates. Especially when the Veil’s thin.” The pendant burns hotter . Aurora yanks it free, staring at the gem. It glows not a warm red anymore, but a sickly, almost neon crimson. “Not just the Grove,” she says. “Something’s *wrong * here. Too close.”
Isolde’s lavender eyes narrow. “The Fae do not make *wrong * places. They make *necessary * ones. This one… it remembers. The first time we walked through, we brought a lamb. It ate the flowers. They *screamed *.” She turns, and Aurora sees it : a meadow beyond the circle, but not Earth. The grass is a deep, shifting purple, and the flowers—huge, exotic—pulse like organs. A cluster of golden blooms opens, revealing a center that looks like liquid starlight. “Step,” Isolde says, gesturing . “Before the web decides you’re prey.”
Aurora hesitates, then steps into the circle. The runes light up, bright as fireflies, and the air *changes *—thicker, like honey, but scented with jasmine and something sharper, metallic. She blinks; the oak trees surrounding the park are gone . In their place are endemic giants, their bark silver, leaves that shimmer like moth wings. “How long till dark?” she asks, voice loud in the stillness.
“An hour here could be a day below,” Isolde says, plucking a purple flower and letting its petals spill to the ground. “Or the other way. Do not trust clocks. Trust *hunger *.”
Nyx snorts, but it comes out as a gust of wind that bends the moth leaves. “Hunger’s what’s killing me. Where’s the food? This place looks like it wants to eat me.”
Aurora follows the scent—sweet, like overripe peaches, with a undercurrent of something bitter, almost burning. The clearing expands; beyond the meadow is a grove of trees with trunks made of twisted metal, branches heavy with fruit that glows in every color of the rainbow. She picks one, golden and warm, and it bursts in her hand—juice that tastes of both sunshine and smoke. “Jesus,” she says, licking her fingers . “What *is * this?”
“Earth’s surplus,” Isolde says. “Excess from kitchens, cellars, fields. The Fae collect it . Choose it . For what they do with it … ‘indulgence’ is too small a word.” She walks to the edge of the grove, where a fountain bubbles. The water isn’t water—it ’s a clear, glowing liquid that shifts from blue to green. “The Fountain of Unquenchable Thirst,” she says, cupping her hands . “Drink, and you’ll never be hungry again. Drink a lot, and you’ll never *stop *.”
Nyx leans over the fountain, their shadow stretching into the water. “I don’t need to eat.”
“Fools do,” Isolde says. “Even shadows. Consume too much, and you forget what it means to be mortal. To *ache *. To *end *.”
Aurora’s pendant *screams *. She drops it, and it clatters on the purple grass. The fountain’s water stills. The colored fruit on the metal trees goes dark. Nyx’s shadow ripples, and for a heartbeat, Aurora sees not a silhouette, but a man —pale skin, dark hair, a scar on his wrist—before they’re back to black. “Hel,” they say, voice tight . “There’s a Hel rift. Right behind you.”
Aurora spins. The web of light around the circle is *fraying *, threads snapping like elastic. Beyond the fray, she sees it : a tear in the Veil, black as pitch, with a glow that hurts her eyes. Inside, she swears she sees flames—warm amber, like Dymas’s sky—and voices, low and hungry. “How?” she yells. “The solstice is a month away. The Veil should be strong.”
“Excess *weakens * it ,” Isolde says, not looking away from the rift . “Too much indulgence, too many souls screaming for more . The Fae feed on it , but even they can’t keep the Veil closed forever. Especially when someone *wants * it open.”
Nyx is moving, shadow coiling like a snake. “Mask. You need to mask.” They reach into their own shadow, pulling out a device—small, metal, with a lens— and shoving it into Aurora’s hand. “Dymasian spy gear. Blocks Hel’s glow. Or… whatever’s behind this rift.”
Aurora fumbles with the mask, squinting through the lens. The rift blurs, but the screams get louder—less like words, more like a primal *hunger *. She takes a step back, tripping over a root that isn’t there. The Fae blade, which had been cold against her thigh, *burns * now. She draws it , and the runes on its blade glow silver—same as the stones, same as the web. “It’s from here,” she says. “The Fae made this too.”
“Of course,” Isolde says. “We make the keys, and we make the locks. This one’s not a lock, though. It’s a *door *.”
The ground shakes. The web of light shatters, collapsing like a house of cards. The rift swallows the light, and for a moment, Aurora sees it : a figure in the dark, tall, with horns like a ram, skin that looks like cracked obsidian. It laughs, and the sound is a thousand voices screaming at once.
Nyx is beside her, shadow solid again, hands on her shoulders. “It’s here for the Heartstone,” they say . “Belphegor’s been hunting it since it left Dymas.”
Aurora grips the Fae blade, the moorsilver edge cutting into her palm. “Then we’ll give it something to hunt.”
The figure steps through the rift, and the air reeks of charred fruit and honey. Aurora raises the dagger. Isolde closes her eyes, and when she opens them, her hair is longer, silver threads glowing like wire. “Time to feed the web,” she says. “Or watch it feed *us *.”
The figure roars, and the world goes dark.
The next thing Aurora hears is Nyx’s whisper , hot against her ear: “Did you see that? The fountain *moved *. It’s following us .”
She blinks, and the grove is gone. They’re back in the oak circle, the standing stones silent, the shards of stained glass now just dirt. Her hand is bleeding, the Fae blade glowing faintly. Nyx’s shadow is a twisted mass on the ground, as if something has torn through it .
Isolde is already walking away, her silver hair trailing behind her. “Remember the riddle,” she calls. “‘The Veil is a mouth. It eats what it wants , but what it *craves * is *more *.’”
Aurora stands, the pendant in her hand. It’s dim now, but still warm, still pulsing. “What the hell is happening?” she says, but she knows. The Heartstone is a beacon . And Belphegor has found it .
Nyx appears at her side, shadow half-solid. “Welcome to the hunt, Rory. Let’s hope we’re faster than the last time.”
She doesn’t ask what the last time was. She doesn’t need to. The memory of that day—of Evan, of the blood, of the door opening—lingers.
The grove is silent, but Aurora swears she can still hear the fountain’s song, low and insistent, like a siren’s call.
They walk back to the park, the Veil buzzing in her ears.
And somewhere, a door slams open.
The chapter ends with the sound of running water, and the distant, high-pitched hum of a blade sharpening.