AI The world tore open with a sound like ripping silk and splintering bone.
Rory stumbled forward, the cobblestones of Covent Garden replaced by soft, spongy earth that gave way beneath her trainers. The air, once chilled with London damp, now washed over her in a thick, warm wave that carried the scent of overripe fruit and burnt sugar. Nyx flowed through the tear in reality behind her, their shadowy form coalescing into solidity as the portal snapped shut with a final, wet pop.
Silence. Then not silence .
A low, constant hum vibrated through the ground, up through the soles of her feet. It was the sound of a thousand distant conversations, the clatter of unseen cutlery, the gurgle of vast, hidden stomachs. The sky above was a seamless dome of warm amber, like liquid honey held up to a light. No sun, no clouds, just that constant, gentle glow.
“Well,” Rory breathed, her voice swallowed by the thick air. “This isn’t Richmond.”
“The Veil is thin here.” Nyx’s whisper came from everywhere and nowhere, a breeze against her ear. “Thin, and… flavoured.”
They were right. The air had a taste. Sweet, cloying, with an undercurrent of something savory and rich. It coated her tongue. She touched the Heartstone Pendant at her throat. It pulsed, not with warning warmth , but with a slow, rhythmic beat that matched the hum in the ground. A lazy, contented heartbeat.
Before them stretched a path of dark, rich soil, bordered by rows of vines. But these were no ordinary grapevines. The leaves shimmered with a metallic copper sheen, and the fruits hanging in heavy clusters were perfect spheres of deep purple, each one gleaming with its own internal light. As Rory watched, one fruit detached itself with a soft *plink * and floated gently to the ground, where it was immediately absorbed by the earth with a satisfied sigh.
“Don’t touch anything,” Nyx advised, their violet gaze scanning the impossible vineyard.
“Wasn’t planning on it.” Rory’s hand drifted to the hilt of the Fae-Forged Blade at her belt. The moonsilver was cold, a shocking contrast to the enveloping warmth . A anchor point. “Which way?”
The path forked ahead. One route led deeper into the vineyards, towards the source of the humming feast-sounds. The other wound towards a grove of trees with bark the colour of roasted chestnuts and leaves that rustled like crisp pastry.
“The pendant?” Nyx suggested.
Rory held the crimson stone in her palm. It pulsed steadily, no stronger in one direction than the other. A general welcome, not a guide. “Useless. Happy to be here, though.”
“Indulgence dulls purpose.”
“Let’s stick to the edge. Get a lay of the land before we commit to a tasting menu.”
They took the left fork, skirting the vineyard. The ground continued its soft, giving texture. Every few steps, Rory’s foot would sink slightly , and she’d hear a faint, muffled crunch, as if stepping on a world of buried biscuits . The unease started as a prickle at the base of her spine. Nothing threatened. Nothing moved but the drifting fruits and the rustling leaves. Yet the sheer, passive abundance of it felt aggressive. It pressed in, offering everything and demanding nothing, which was its own kind of demand.
They passed a tree whose branches drooped with what looked like golden, flaky pastries . The smell of butter and hot apricot jam wafted from it. Her stomach growled, a traitorous sound in the quiet.
“It’s engineered,” she muttered, more to herself than to Nyx. “The smells, the sounds. It’s not just growing food. It’s growing… atmosphere. Ambience.”
“A realm where consumption is the highest art,” Nyx murmured. “Every sense is a plate to be filled.”
Ahead, the grove gave way to a clearing. In its centre stood a structure . It wasn’t a building, not really . It was a sculpture of interlocking bones—long, curved ribs formed archways, spinal columns stacked into columns, skulls with grinning jaws served as hollow niches where glowing fungi grew. But the bones were white and polished, seamless, more like porcelain than any mortal remains. Between them, streams of clear, sparkling liquid trickled down into a central basin that steamed gently .
A fountain. A fountain made of bone.
“Cheerful,” Rory said, her voice flat .
As they approached, the humming changed. The feast-sounds faded, replaced by a delicate, crystalline music. It came from the liquid itself, each droplet hitting the basin with a perfect , melodic note. The steam carried the scent of clear broth, fragrant with herbs.
Nyx stopped at the edge of the bone-white plaza. “Do you hear it?”
Rory listened past the music. A new sound, underneath. A wet, rhythmic , squelching noise. Slow. Deliberate. Coming from the far side of the fountain.
She drew the Fae blade. The cold of it was a shock in her hand, a welcome slice of reality. She nodded to Nyx, and they split up, circling the fountain from opposite sides.
The source of the sound was a figure.
It was humanoid, or had been. It knelt by a smaller, secondary pool, its back to them. Its skin was stretched taut and glossy, like a sausage casing, over a form that bulged in strange, lumpy ways. It wore tattered remnants of a chef’s whites, stained with vivid sauces. In its hands, it held a ladle made from a hollowed thigh bone. With a painful, focused slowness, it dipped the ladle into the pool, raised it, and poured the shimmering liquid over its own head.
The liquid didn’t run off. It was absorbed on contact, sinking into the glossy skin, which pulsed and distended further with a soft gurgle. The figure shuddered, a tremor of ecstasy or agony, Rory couldn’t tell.
“Hello?” she said, keeping her distance.
The figure went still. The squelching stopped. With a creaking sound, like leather under stress, it began to turn its head. The movement was slow, degrees at a time. A face came into view.
It had no eyes. Just smooth, stretched skin where eyes should be. Its mouth was a wide, lipless slit, perpetually open. A thin trail of the same sparkling broth dripped from the corner.
“A… guest?” The voice was a wet bubble, emerging from the slit. It sounded surprised. “No one… comes this way. The main feasts are… east. By the river of honey.”
“We’re not here for the feast,” Rory said. The Fae blade felt alive in her grip, its faint luminescence a pale blue against the amber light.
“Not… here for the feast.” The creature processed this. Its head tilted. The broth dripped. “Then you are… lost. This is Dymas. All paths lead to consumption. It is the only… direction.”
“We’re looking for someone,” Nyx whispered, their form blurring at the edges, becoming half-incorporeal . “A soul. Contracted from Earth. A chef named Alistair Finch.”
The creature’s slit-mouth worked. A sound like a damp chuckle. “Finch. Yes. The perfectionist. He works the… night breads. In the ovens of sighing grain.” A bloated, fingerless hand gestured vaguely westward. “But you should not go. You are still… lean. You have… hunger. He will want to fix that.”
“We’ll take our chances,” Rory said.
“Chances.” The creature seemed to savour the word. It raised the bone ladle again, but instead of pouring, it offered it towards Rory. The hollow cup held a measure of the clear broth. “A taste? For your journey. It is the essence of clarity. Of… purpose. Before you lose it.”
The smell was incredible. It promised focus, understanding, the answer to every nagging doubt. Her mouth watered.
Nyx’s shadow fell across the offered ladle. “We decline.”
The creature’s head drooped, a gesture of profound sorrow. “A waste. All this… potential flavour.” It turned back to its pool, the invitation withdrawn. “The ovens are deep. The dough is… hungry. Mind it does not… prove you instead.”
The squelching sound resumed. The audience was over.
Rory backed away, blade still raised until they were back on the soft path. The encounter left a greasy feeling in her gut that had nothing to do with hunger.
“A helbound soul,” Nyx stated, solidifying beside her. “Trapped in the act of his obsession. Forever tasting, never satisfied.”
“Alistair Finch is here,” Rory said, the pieces clicking . “The missing pastry chef from Mayfair. He didn’t just vanish. He made a deal.”
“And his signature is on a contract we need. This way.”
They moved westward, the path now sloping gently downwards. The air grew warmer, heavier, carrying the smell of baking bread—a wholesome smell, but here it was so intense it became cloying, suffocating. The amber light deepened towards gold. The gentle hum was replaced by a deeper, rhythmic thumping, like a giant heart. Or a kneading fist.
The ground trembled with each thump.
They rounded a bend and stopped.
The world fell away into a vast, sunken valley. And in the valley, were the ovens.
They were not structures of brick and mortar. They were great, pulsating mounds of earth, like giant risen loaves, their crusts split open by glowing fissures. From these fissures poured waves of heat and that magnificent, terrible smell. Around each oven-mound, figures moved—more of the glossy, bloated helbound, shuffling with trays of raw, pale dough that seemed to squirm in their hands . They fed the dough into the fissures with a reverence bordering on terror.
*Thump.*
The nearest oven-mound shuddered. From its peak, a geyser of steam erupted, carrying with it a sound that was unmistakably a sigh—a deep, weary, contented exhalation.
*The ovens of sighing grain.*
“Right,” Rory whispered, her knuckles white on the blade . “How do we get a signed contract out of a sentient bakery?”
Above them, the warm amber sky began to darken in patches, like butter spreading on hot toast. A shadow passed over the valley. Not Nyx’s shadow. Something larger. Something with wings that smelled of caramelised sugar and regret.
Nyx’s form dissolved into smoke, pulling close to Rory. “We don’t,” they breathed into the space where her ear had been. “It gets us first.”