AI The Heartstone Pendant scorched Aurora’s collarbone, a rhythmic , frantic throb that hummed through her marrow. She stumbled through the shimmering distortion of the Veil, her boots hitting soil that felt sickeningly soft, like treading on overripe plums. The air in Dymas hit her lungs next—a thick, cloying soup of cinnamon, roasting meats, and the sharp, metallic tang of fermentation. It wasn’t just a scent; it was a weight .
"Welcome to the larder," Nyx whispered.
The Shade flickered beside her, their humanoid silhouette struggling to maintain its edges against the oppressive amber glow of the sky. In this realm, Nyx looked less like a shadow and more like a hole in reality, a violet-eyed void cut out of the golden atmosphere.
"It’s beautiful," Aurora said, though her stomach lurched .
"So is a pitcher plant to a fly."
Isolde Varga drifted past them, her silver hair trailing like smoke in the heavy air. The Half-Fae left no footprints on the bruised-purple grass. Her lavender eyes remained fixed on the horizon, where sprawling vineyards climbed impossible, jagged cliffs of obsidian.
"The Prince provides," Isolde said, her voice a melodic riddle. "But the Prince also collects. Do not taste the fruit, Aurora. Not if you wish to see the Thames again."
Aurora gripped the hilt of the Fae-Forged Blade tucked into her belt. The moonsilver pommel felt reassuringly freezing, a sharp contrast to the humid, Dymasian heat. She looked down at her left wrist, where the small crescent-shaped scar from her childhood white-knuckled under the tension .
They moved deeper into the orchard. The trees were ancient, gnarled things with bark that looked like stretched, tanned leather . Clusters of translucent, bulbous fruit hung from the branches, glowing with an inner, fleshy light. As they passed, the fruit shuddered. Aurora realised with a jolt of nausea that they weren’t fruit at all. They looked like organs—pulsing hearts, bloated kidneys, and glistening lungs, all weeping a syrupy, golden nectar that pooled around the roots.
"This place smells... expensive," Aurora muttered, wiping sweat from her brow. "Like a Michelin-starred kitchen in the middle of a slaughterhouse."
"Excess has a very specific bouquet," Nyx replied, their form billowing as they slipped between the shadows of the organ-trees. "Belphegor doesn't just invite chefs here. He invites the hungry. The truly , desperately greedy."
A low, rhythmic thudding started beneath their feet. It wasn't an earthquake; it felt like a heartbeat . The ground pulsed , and the golden nectar in the pools rippled.
"The feast begins," Isolde whispered.
"What feast? We’re in the middle of a forest."
"The forest is the table, child. We are merely the garnish."
Isolde stopped before a massive, hollowed-out oak. Its trunk had been carved into a grand, ornate Gothic archway. Beyond it lay a clearing filled with long, white-clothed tables that stretched further than the eye could track. The tables groaned under the weight of silver platters piled high with glistening delicacies. Honey-glazed birds with iridescent feathers, towering cakes that defied gravity, and crystal decanters filled with swirling, iridescent liquors.
But there were no guests. Only the sound of clinking silverware that seemed to come from the air itself .
"The Heartstone," Nyx cautioned.
Aurora looked down. The crimson gem was no longer pulsing; it was glowing with a blinding, steady light. It pointed toward the head of the central table, where a single, massive golden chalice sat.
"The portal anchor," Aurora said, stepping toward the table. "If we break the seal on that cup, the rift stays open long enough to get the others out."
"Touch nothing else," Isolde warned, her hand twitching toward the hem of her gown . "The hunger here is a physical force. It will try to find the cracks in your soul."
Aurora approached the table. The scent of the food was an assault. It smelled like her mother’s Sunday roasts, like the spicy noodles from the Golden Empress, like every comfort she’d ever known. Her mouth watered. Her stomach cramped with a sudden, hollow ache that made her light-headed.
"Rory, focus," Nyx hissed, their violet eyes flaring .
She reached for the chalice. Her fingers were inches from the cold gold when the clinking of silverware stopped.
The silence was worse than the noise. It was a vacuum.
"The Master of the House hates a late arrival." Isolde’s voice had lost its ethereal calm. It was sharp. Terrified.
A chair at the head of the table slid back, screeching against the stone floor. No one sat there, but the velvet cushion depressed as if under a great weight . A napkin fluttered up, tucking itself into an invisible collar.
"I don't see anyone," Aurora whispered, her hand hovering over the chalice .
"You don't need to see a god to feel his teeth," Nyx said, their shadow-form retracting until they were a dense, shivering spear of darkness.
A silver dome covering a platter in the centre of the table flew off, clattering loudly across the floor. Beneath it sat a heart. It wasn't an organ-fruit from the trees. It was a human heart, still beating, dusted with fine, powdered sugar and drizzled with a reduction that smelled of copper.
Aurora’s scar on her wrist flared with a white-hot pain.
"Evan?" she gasped, the name slipping out before she could stop it.
The heart on the plate spasmed. A voice, distorted but hauntingly familiar , echoed from the empty chair.
"You always did have a small appetite, Rory. Why not stay for dessert?"
The ground gave a violent, heaving lurch . The organ-trees at the edge of the clearing began to uproot themselves, their leather-bark limbs cracking as they turned into multi-legged, scurrying horrors. The translucent fruits burst, spilling hundreds of starving, pale-skinned creatures that looked like emaciated children with rows of shark-like teeth.
"The Dymasian Sentinels," Isolde cried, drawing a slender, curved silver dagger from her sleeve. "They smell the living!"
"Get the chalice!" Nyx shouted.
The Shade lunged forward, throwing a wave of darkness at the first wave of creatures. The shadows tore through the pale monsters, but for every one that fell, ten more crawled out of the ruptured organ-fruits.
Aurora grabbed the golden chalice. It was heavy, filled with a liquid that looked like liquid starlight . As her skin made contact, a psychic shockwave of pure, unadulterated greed slammed into her brain. She saw visions of power, of her father’s approval, of Evan begging for mercy on his knees, of a world where she never had to run again.
"Drop it, Rory! It’s consuming you!"
Aurora’s eyes turned a dull, glazed amber. She didn't drop it. She lifted the chalice to her lips.
"So thirsty," she murmured.
The invisible presence in the chair laughed—a deep, booming sound that shook the very sky. The amber heavens cracked, revealing a glimpse of a much larger, darker sun behind the clouds.
Isolde leapt onto the table, her no-footprint grace discarded as she kicked aside a platter of roasted small-gods. She grabbed Aurora’s throat, her lavender eyes burning.
"Aurora Carter, remember the cold!"
Isolde slammed the Fae-Forged Blade, hilt-first, against Aurora's chest. The magical frost of the moonsilver bit through Rory’s jacket, shocking her system. The amber haze snapped. Aurora gasped, dropping the chalice.
The liquid starlight hit the floor and ignited.
A roar of fury shook the realm. The invisible entity at the table rose, the shockwave of its movement throwing Rory and Isolde backward. The table split in two, fine china shattering into lethal porcelain shrapnel.
"The seal is broken!" Nyx screamed over the din. "But so is his patience!"
The air began to thicken, turning into a literal, physical honey that slowed their movements. From the shadows of the obsidian cliffs, something gargantuan began to haul itself into the light. It had too many limbs, and each one ended in a mouth.
"Run," Isolde said, her voice finally stripped of its riddles . "Run, or you will be the next course."
The ground behind them didn't just shake; it dissolved into a gaping, tooth-lined maw . The orchard was leaning in, the leather-bark trees reaching out with sticky, sap-covered fingers.
Aurora scrambled to her feet, her Heartstone Pendant now a screaming red sun against her skin. "Where’s the exit?"
"There is no exit," Nyx hissed, pointing to the sky where the amber clouds were knitting together into a ceiling of solid bone. "Only the way down!"
The first of the many-mouthed Sentinels slammed into the ground inches from Aurora’s heels, its jaw snapping shut on the air where her leg had been a split second before. Then, the table itself began to grow teeth.