AI The Heartstone burned against my sternum, a faint pulse matching the stutter of my pulse . I stumbled over a root half-buried in moss, and Nyx’s shadowy arm looped around my waist to steady me, cool, weightless, like grabbing a gust of night wind.
“Easy.”
Isolde called, her voice like wind chimes strung with silver. She stood ten paces ahead, back to a stand of oak trees whose bark glowed pale gold in the dim, filtered light. I’d only ever spoken to her over encrypted messages, but the silver hair sweeping down her waist, the lavender eyes that didn’t quite catch the light, gave her away immediately . She didn’t leave footprints in the moss, exactly as she’d promised, no indentation, no disturbance of the velvet -green growth, just her bare feet gliding as if she walked on air.
I brushed mud from my delivery jeans, the same ones crusted with duck sauce grease from my shift an hour prior, and adjusted the strap of my neglected Golden Empress delivery bag slung over my shoulder.
“You said the grove was hidden between realms.”
“I didn’t think it’d feel like stepping into a fairy tale someone forgot to finish.”
Isolde laughed, a sound like trickling water over smooth pebbles, and stepped forward to link her arm through mine. Her skin was cold, colder than the mid-November air outside the grove’s standing stones, but it didn’t make me flinch. “Fairy tales are just stories mortals tell to make sense of what they cannot see,” she said, her voice softening as we began to walk deeper into the clearing. “This is the space between the space.”
The ground beneath my boots shifted again, from mossy velvet to something finer, like crushed rose petals, and the air filled with a scent that hit me all at once, honey, jasmine, and the sharp, sweet tang of ripened berries I’d never smelled before, not even at the Cardiff farmers’ markets my mother used to take me to. I glanced down, and my breath caught. Wildflowers bloomed in clumps all around us, scarlet poppies, bluebells, gorse that glowed yellow as if lit from within, even though the trees outside the grove were bare and the grass brown and crunchy. Here, the grass was lush and green, the trees draped in ivy that flowered pale pink.
I fumbled for my phone, poking the screen awake. The screen glowed 10:12 PM. I blinked. I’d locked my bike to the fence outside the standing stones exactly twenty-one minutes prior. The sun had dipped below the London skyline an hour before that. Isolde’s laughter tinkled again. “Time does not flow the same here,” she said. “An hour inside can be a breath outside, or a century. Choose your words carefully .”
Nyx drifted ahead of us, their shadowy form flickering between a solid humanoid silhouette and a wisp of smoke, their violet eyes glowing brighter as they scanned the treeline. “Something’s off,” they whispered, their voice carried on the wind, like it was coming from a hundred tiny voices all at once. “The magic here isn’t just Fae. There’s Hel’s stench clinging to the flowers.”
I rubbed the crescent scar on my left wrist, a nervous tick I’d had since I was twelve, when I’d sliced it on a rusted bike chain outside my childhood home. The Heartstone pulsed faster, warm against my skin, and I fumbled to pull it out from under my shirt. The deep crimson gem glowed faintly, its pulse matching the low, guttural rumble that had started in the distance, a sound like a feast bell warped and stretched too thin.
“What is that?” I asked, nodding toward the rumble.
Isolde’s lavender eyes narrowed , and she pointed to a cluster of ancient oak trees at the far end of the clearing. Between two of the trunks, a faint silver shimmer distorted the air, a thin wavy line that only became visible when I squinted, exactly as the Wardens’ logs had described the Veil. “The Veil’s weakest at winter solstice,” she said. “But this rift did not open by accident. It feeds on excess, this place.”
I followed her gaze, and my stomach tightened. The rift rippled, and a tendril of dark, smoky mist seeped through, carrying with it the scent of roasted pork and burnt hoisin sauce, familiar , from the feasts my father used to host before he and my mother split up, from the Saturday night shifts at Golden Empress. Then, a figure stumbled out, skeletal but with a grossly bloated belly, wearing a tattered white chef’s apron stained with dark, congealed grease. Its mouth was full of sharp, yellowed teeth, and it let out a snarl that sounded like a pig being slaughtered . I stared at the faded logo stitched to its chest, Golden Empress.
My stomach dropped. Wang, Mrs. Cheung’s head chef, had disappeared six months ago, after a night shift where he’d called in sick claiming a “bad dream.” I’d thought he’d moved back to his family’s village in Guangzhou.
“Helbound,” Nyx said, their voice dropping to an even lower whisper . “Contract to Belphegor’s court. They feed on the excess of this realm, the joy and gluttony mortals waste on feasts.”
I pulled the pendant tighter, my fingers brushing the crescent scar on my wrist again. The Heartstone burned so hot now it was almost painful, and I could feel the heat seeping into my skin, spreading up my chest and down my arms. Isolde reached into the pocket of her flowy, green cloak and pulled out a slender, leaf-shaped dagger, its blade glinting faintly even in the dim light. The metal was moonsilver, she’d told me once, cold to the touch and sharp enough to cut through magical wards, particularly effective against demons.
“Take it,” she said, holding the blade out to me. When my fingers wrapped around it, I felt a faint tingle run up my arm, like static electricity. “It will cut through its magic. Do not let it get close to you. It feeds on mortal fear, and this place has plenty to spare.”
I stepped back, tripping over a cluster of bluebells, as the helbound chef lunged forward, its bloated belly swaying as it moved. Nyx darted in front of me, their shadowy arms wrapping around the helbound’s throat, but its clawed hands scraped against Nyx’s form, leaving dark, smoking rents in the shadow that healed almost immediately. The helbound’s teeth snapped shut an inch from Nyx’s shoulder, and I raised the Fae blade, my hands shaking slightly despite my best efforts to stay calm.
I drove the blade into the helbound’s chest, and it let out a high-pitched shriek that sounded like a pulled pig’s tail . The blade glowed faintly silver as it cut through the skeletal flesh, and the helbound dissolved into a puff of smoky mist that dissipated quickly , leaving nothing but the stained chef’s apron crumpling to the ground.
I let out a breath I didn’t realise I’d been holding, and wiped sweat from my forehead. Before I could say anything, the rift between the oak trees rippled again, and two more helbound chefs stumbled out, their aprons stained with grease, their eyes glowing a sickly yellow. This time, the rift widened, and I could hear the distant rumble of a feast, dozens of voices laughing and clinking glasses, coming from the other side.
Isolde stepped in front of me, her lavender eyes narrowed , and she raised her hand, muttering a string of words I didn’t recognise, sharp and guttural. A burst of green light shot from her fingers, hitting one of the helbound’s chests, and it dissolved into mist, but the other one lunged forward, its clawed hands grabbing for my ankle.
I stumbled backward, my boot slipping on the crushed petal ground, and the helbound’s fingers closed around my calf, its cold, skeletal touch sending a shiver down my spine . I raised the Fae blade to drive it into its head, but a third helbound stepped out of the rift, this one taller, its belly so bloated it looked ready to burst, wearing a crown of roasted pork belly and apples. The scent of feasts flooded the clearing, and the Heartstone in my hand burned so hot it almost slipped from my grasp, its pulse thudding in time with the distant feast bells from Dymas.