AI Aurora hit the ground on one knee and skidded through a drift of red dust, the Heartstone pendant searing hot against her chest.
“Don’t touch the edge,” Isolde said.
Aurora planted her palm before it slid into the shimmering tear behind them. The air around the rippling wound in space bent like heat above a hob, only thicker, syrupy, wrong. Violet sparks crawled over the grass at the threshold and died in the dust. Nyx stepped through last, their tall shape peeling free of the darkness as if the portal had spat out a piece of night by mistake. The tear shrank at once, cinched itself to a slit, then a thread, then nothing.
Silence followed. Not true silence . A living hush. The kind that made every small sound seem chosen.
Aurora pushed herself up. Her boots left shallow prints in the crimson soil. “That was revolting.”
“You crossed realms intact,” Nyx murmured. Their voice brushed past her ear like silk dragged over stone. “By mortal standards, that was elegant.”
“Your standards are warped.”
“Profoundly.”
Isolde had not moved. Silver hair spilled down her back in a bright sheet against the amber light. She stood with her face turned to the horizon, pale lavender eyes half narrowed, as though she listened to something far away and underfoot at once.
Aurora followed her gaze and forgot the smart reply on her tongue.
The land rolled out in terraces and broad valleys, lush to the point of excess. Vines as thick as a man’s wrist climbed carved pillars of black stone. Trees bowed beneath fruit too heavy for their branches, clusters of glassy green pears, blushed figs, split pomegranates that bled ruby seeds into the dust. Beyond them rose structures that did not look built so much as plated onto the landscape, towers with bulbous domes, long colonnades, hanging gardens, broad stairways strewn with petals and bones. Smoke drifted from chimneys in slow ribbons, carrying scents that struck her in layers. Honey first. Then roasted meat. Then clove, wine, sugar, char, and beneath all of it something metallic, rich and sharp enough to make the back of her throat tighten.
Dymas. Gluttony had better caterers than Earth.
The sky held no sun that she could find, only a deep amber glow that pooled in the folds of the hills and turned the stonework to old gold. In the distance, bells rang with a wet, mellow tone, and something vast answered from farther off with a call like a whale taught to sing through a furnace.
Aurora swallowed. “Right. That’s not London.”
“No,” Isolde said. “London chews its own dead in smaller bites.”
That earned half a laugh, which vanished when Aurora looked down and saw what lay mixed with the red dust. Grape skins. Peach pits. Splintered nutshells. Finger bones. She nudged one with her boot.
“Human?”
“Once,” Nyx said.
Aurora looked up sharply .
“Dymas wastes little,” they went on . “Even memory feeds something here.”
The pendant still throbbed against her sternum, a second pulse out of step with her own. She slipped it free of her shirt. The deep crimson stone glowed faintly from within, each beat warm against her fingertips.
“So it wasn’t lying,” she said.
“Artifacts rarely lie,” Isolde said. “Owners do.”
The path ahead had no clear edge. Red dust gave way to pale flagstones veined with gold, then to packed earth between low hedges of herbs that smelled of mint and anise. Tiny pale insects floated above the leaves, their wings chiming when they struck one another. Aurora crouched and touched a sprig. It recoiled from her finger like a startled animal.
“Useful place.”
“Do not eat anything,” Isolde said.
“I wasn’t going to.”
“Do not smell too deeply, either.”
Aurora straightened. “That seems less avoidable.”
“Then do it shallowly.”
Nyx turned their head. Their glowing violet eyes fixed on the slope below. “Company.”
Aurora followed the direction of their stare and caught movement between the vineyards. Figures worked the rows with long, curved knives. At this distance they looked human, bent backs, aprons, baskets. Then one straightened. Its neck was too long by half. Another lifted a basket and she saw four arms instead of two.
She stepped back into the shadow of a stone pillar on instinct. Nyx dissolved at once, their outline thinning into a dark blur that pooled at the base of the pillar and climbed it like spilled ink. Isolde, impossible woman that she was, simply walked forward with calm, silent steps, not a print left behind.
Aurora hissed, “Where are you going?”
“To be seen,” Isolde said.
“That’s a dreadful plan.”
“It is the quickest one.”
The workers had noticed them. Three left the rows and came up the slope. As they neared, their details settled into place in the most unsettling way, not like strangers coming into focus, but like a bad painting being corrected stroke by stroke . Their skin shone with the soft bloom of ripe plums. Their eyes were black and seed-bright. Each wore a stained linen apron over elegant, old-fashioned clothes. Knives hung at their waists in neat leather rolls like a cook’s cherished tools.
The first tilted its head. “New diners?”
Its smile showed square teeth filed flat.
Isolde dipped her chin. “Travellers.”
“Same thing, in the end.”
Aurora kept one hand close to the inside of her jacket where the moonsilver dagger rested in its sheath. The Fae-forged blade cooled her side through the fabric. She hated how comforting that felt.
“We’re not here to dine,” she said.
The second creature sniffed the air near her, nostrils fluttering. “Fresh.”
Nyx’s whisper came from the pillar, from the dust, from the shadow beneath Aurora’s boots. “Choose your next phrase with care.”
Aurora folded her arms. “I said we’re not here to dine. I didn’t say we weren’t here to buy.”
The three exchanged a look.
The first one smiled wider. “Ah. A palate with coin. Better. Much better.”
“We seek the old kitchens,” Isolde said.
At that, all three stilled.
Not a breeze passed. Not a leaf stirred. Even the little winged insects fell quiet.
The third creature lowered its basket. Apricots rolled free and split on the stones, but what leaked from them was black.
“Many seek the old kitchens,” it said. “Few enjoy what they find.”
“We didn’t come for enjoyment,” Aurora said.
“Yes,” said the first, glancing at the Heartstone in her hand. “We can smell that.”
Aurora closed her fist over the pendant. Warmth flared against her skin.
The creature pointed with one long finger down into the valley. There, half hidden by orchards and terraced vines, sprawled a vast complex of buildings linked by bridges and courtyards. Copper roofs flashed under amber light. Tall chimneys breathed spice-scented smoke. Along the outer walls, carved mouths jutted from the masonry and poured streams of red wine into narrow channels that criss-crossed the hillside.
“Follow the vintner’s run,” it said. “When the walls begin to lick their own lips, turn where the stone angels have no faces.”
“That’s your direction?” Aurora said.
“In Dymas,” said the second, “all directions are edible.”
Nyx slid back into shape beside her, smooth and sudden enough to make the creatures flinch. Their tall silhouette leaned close.
“And the toll?” they asked.
The workers smiled again, but this time hunger stripped the civility from the expression.
“A taste,” said the third.
“No,” Isolde said.
The first spread all four hands. “Then a name.”
Aurora opened her mouth.
Nyx’s hand, cold and boneless as shadow under deep water, closed around her wrist over the crescent scar. “Not yours.”
She shut her mouth at once.
Isolde stepped forward. “Take mine, then, as it was given in exile.”
The workers recoiled as if she had shown them a naked flame.
“Fae names rot on the tongue,” hissed one.
“Pity,” Isolde said. “You looked peckish.”
The moment held, tight as drawn wire. Then the first worker gave a small bow.
“No toll, then. Pass. Hurry if you hope to keep your appetites your own.”
They returned to the rows, though Aurora felt their black eyes on her until the vines hid them.
She let out a breath she had not noticed she held. “You might have warned me about the name thing before we crossed hell.”
“You are welcome,” Nyx said.
“I said warned, not rescued.”
“And yet.”
They started down the slope. Underfoot, the red dust thinned and the ground changed. A network of channels cut through the terraces, carrying dark red liquid that smelled of wine and iron. Little stone bridges hopped from path to path. Aurora paused at the first channel and crouched.
The liquid moved too thickly for wine. Fruit skins, herb leaves, and once, unmistakably, a gold ring drifted past.
“Don’t fall in,” Isolde said.
“Again, useful advice.”
Isolde’s mouth curved by a fraction. On anyone else it would have been a smile.
As they descended, the details grew stranger. The vines bore grapes in impossible shades, blue so dark they swallowed the light, pearl-white clusters that seemed lit from within, translucent fruit with seeds shaped like tiny teeth . Birds with fleshy wattles pecked at split figs and sang in notes that matched the bells from the hills. Statues lined the path at intervals, angels carved from cream stone, each with smooth blank faces rubbed away. Their mouths remained, open and eager.
Aurora brushed a fingertip over one statue’s cheek. The stone felt warm.
“It’s ancient,” she said.
“Older than the court that rules it now,” Isolde answered. “Places of appetite outlive their masters.”
Ahead, the path narrowed between hedges tall as walls. The scent changed there. Less fruit, more kitchen. Broth. Smoke. Yeast. Butter so rich it turned the air dense. Aurora’s stomach clenched without permission.
“Is that part of it?” she asked.
“Yes,” said Nyx. “Dymas invites with the body first. Thought comes later, if at all.”
“Well, that’s rude.”
“Effective, though.”
The hedge passage opened into a broad courtyard paved in black and white stone, the pattern laid in spirals that made Aurora dizzy if she looked too long. Servants crossed the space carrying silver platters hooded with domes. None seemed surprised to see the trio. None met their eyes. The servants moved with perfect balance, though some had hooves beneath their hems, some had too many joints in their arms, and one had a neck stitched neatly to a different body with gold thread.
At the courtyard’s centre stood a fountain shaped like a many-headed beast. Instead of water, thick cream poured from each mouth into the basin below. Children, or things wearing the shape of children, scooped it up with tiny cups and laughed.
Aurora’s hand drifted to the dagger again.
One servant passed close enough for her to smell the platter it carried. Seared citrus, sage, blood. Her mouth flooded. The servant looked at her from the corner of one yellow eye and tilted the covered dish a fraction.
Inside, on a bed of herbs, lay a human hand glazed to a lacquered shine.
Aurora recoiled.
The servant’s lips twitched. It glided on.
“Keep moving,” Isolde said.
“That was deliberate.”
“Everything here is.”
They crossed beneath an arcade where bunches of garlic hung beside garlands of black roses. The walls themselves seemed to breathe. Not in and out, not quite, but a subtle flexing under the plaster, like muscle beneath skin . Aurora touched one before she could stop herself. It gave a little under her palm.
She snatched her hand back.
Nyx’s whisper curled with amusement. “Now who’s touching things?”
“It looked like stone.”
“In your defence, so do many liars.”
They reached the turn marked by the faceless angels. Beyond it, the splendid outer courts gave way to something older. The paving cracked. The sweet scents thinned. The buildings hunched lower, their copper roofs gone green, their archways furred with dark moss. Lanterns hung from hooks, but no flame burned in them. Yet the corridor held a dim amber light all the same, leaking from the seams between the stones.
Aurora’s footsteps echoed oddly. Half a beat late. As if something walked just behind her, placing its feet where hers had been.
“You hear that?” she asked.
“I hear many things,” Isolde said.
“Useful as ever.”
“A pan cooling. A lock waking. Teeth under the floor.”
Aurora stopped.
“The lock part would have done.”
Nyx crouched and pressed a hand of shadow to the flagstones. Their outline frayed, seeping into the cracks, then drew back sharply . “Wards. Old ones. Fae cuts them. Mortal blood wakes them. Demonic blood feeds them.”
Aurora stared. “And shade blood?”
Nyx tilted their head. “It offends them.”
“That sounds promising.”
“It is also noisy.”
The corridor ended at a pair of bronze doors so tall their tops vanished into darkness. Reliefs crawled over the metal, feasts, hunts, harvests, mouths receiving goblets, mouths receiving fingers, mouths receiving coins, mouths receiving stars. At the centre of the seam sat a keyhole shaped like an eye.
The Heartstone pendant pulsed so hard it hurt. Crimson light leaked between Aurora’s fingers.
Isolde looked at it, then at the eye-shaped keyhole. “There.”
“Please tell me no part of the plan involves me putting my hand in that.”
“No. The key is cruder.”
Aurora lifted the pendant. Up close, the bronze doors breathed out a chill smell of cellars and old grease. She reached for the keyhole.
The eye blinked.
She jerked back with a curse.
Nyx’s laugh sounded like dry leaves dragged across slate. “It likes you.”
“Another glowing review.”
The eye in the door rolled upward and fixed on the pendant. The bronze around it began to twitch. All across the reliefs, the carved mouths trembled open. A low, wet click-click-click ran through the metal as hidden gears woke.
“Do it now,” Isolde said.
Aurora thrust the pendant into the keyhole.
The stone slid in as though the metal had softened to flesh. Heat surged up her arm. The doors shuddered. From somewhere deep within the old kitchens came a sound like chains dragged over flagstones, followed by the clear ring of a single bell.
Then the doors swung inward.
Darkness spread beyond them, vast and layered. Rows of ancient hearths. Hooks hanging like iron ribs. Copper vats big enough to drown in. And at the far end, on a raised dais before a dead oven large as a chapel, sat a long banquet table already laid for four.
One chair scraped back on its own.
Another bell rang, closer this time.
Behind them, the corridor filled with the rustle of many soft footsteps .