AI The Heartstone pendant warmed against Aurora’s chest before the portal came into view.
Not a blaze. Not a hole in the world. Just a shimmer hanging between two yew trees at the edge of Isolde’s grove, a wavering pane that bent moonlight into bruised colours. The wildflowers around it had grown wrong. Foxgloves with black throats leaned towards the distortion. White clover showed veins of gold. The air tasted of iron and ripe fruit.
Aurora touched the pendant through her shirt and felt a slow pulse answer her fingers.
“So this is it.”
Isolde stood beside one of the standing stones, silver hair spilling down the front of her cloak. The stone ring framed her like an old saint in a church window, though saints never looked so amused.
“A door with manners,” she murmured. “It waits to be asked. It hates to be ordered.”
Nyx unfolded from the shadow of an oak root, rising in one smooth stretch until their head brushed a low branch. Their shape shifted with the breeze, edges loosening, then tightening again. Violet eyes burned in the dark of their face.
“Hel rarely waits for anyone.”
Aurora swallowed and looked at the shimmer again. Up close, it was not smooth at all. The surface crawled in thin ripples like skin over muscle. Behind it, she caught flashes that refused to settle into a picture—amber light, something green, a glint of metal, movement.
She slid her hand into her coat pocket and closed it around the hilt of the Fae-forged blade. Even through the sheath, the moonsilver bit cold into her palm.
“You’re both making it sound charming.”
“Charming things bite hardest,” Isolde replied.
Aurora laughed once under her breath, more nerves than humour. Her left wrist ached with the old scar, that strange little warning her body threw when she stood too close to bad choices.
“Right. Good. Love that for me.”
The grove had fallen quiet. No birds. No rustle of deer in the fern. Even the branches seemed to hold still, as if the whole clearing waited for the answer.
Aurora stepped closer to the portal. Warmth rolled from it, thick and fragrant. Not the clean smoke of a bonfire or the damp heat of a Tube platform in August. This smelled of baked figs, crushed herbs, wine left open on a summer table, honey burned at the edge of caramel. Underneath it all sat something richer, heavier. Meat roasting. Butter. Blood.
Her stomach turned over in confusion, hunger pulling one way and caution the other.
“How do we ask?”
Isolde rested pale fingers against the nearest stone.
“With honesty. It notices.”
Nyx gave a sound like dry leaves dragging across slate.
“Then let the human speak. Doors enjoy bright things.”
Aurora shot them a look.
“Nice to know I rank with fairy lights.”
She faced the shimmer. It reflected her in broken strips: bright blue eyes, black hair lifted by a breeze she couldn’t feel anywhere else, jaw set harder than she intended.
“We need passage,” she said. “No tricks. No theft. We go in, we look, and we leave.”
The portal drew inward, not opening so much as taking a breath. Light drained to its centre. A narrow seam appeared, lined with a molten gold edge.
Isolde smiled.
“It liked you.”
“Massive relief.”
The seam widened. Warm air poured through, carrying a swell of distant sound—laughter too deep to be fully human, glass chiming, a knife striking a chopping block in a quick bright rhythm.
Aurora did not give herself time to think. She stepped through.
The world caught her by every sense at once.
Heat wrapped round her first, silk -smooth and dense. The ground under her boots felt soft, almost springy, not earth as she knew it but something richer, layered with old roots and fallen fruit. The sky stretched overhead in a colour she had no simple name for. Amber, yes, but alive inside itself, swirling with rose and copper, as though sunset had been peeled open and hung above the land.
She stopped dead.
Vines climbed terraces carved into hills that shone with dark green leaves veined in bronze. Orchards spread beyond them in ordered rows, though the fruit hanging there looked nothing like any orchard in Britain. Pear-shaped things with skins like opals. Citrus the size of helmets. Clusters of blue-gold berries that glowed from within. Water ran through channels cut in pale stone, and the water flashed silver one moment, red the next.
Behind her, Nyx stepped through in silence . The light struck their shadow-body and slid over it, leaving their edges sharp as cut paper.
Isolde came last. The portal narrowed behind them until it became a golden thread between two twisted cypress trunks, then vanished.
Aurora turned back at once.
“Tell me it comes back.”
“The way home exists whether you deserve it or not,” Isolde answered.
“That did not answer the question.”
“It never does,” Nyx murmured.
Aurora breathed out through her nose. Ahead, far off, rose a city—or something close enough. Towers the colour of old honey rose from the hillsides, their balconies thick with flowering vines. Domes flashed copper. Bridges arched over ravines where steam drifted up carrying the smell of cinnamon and cloves. The whole place gleamed as if polished by warm hands.
And threaded through it all came human sounds twisted at the edges. Music with too many strings. Applause. A burst of argument. Someone shouting in triumph.
“What is this place?”
Isolde walked ahead without leaving a mark in the dark soil. Her cloak brushed a drift of white flowers, yet no stem bent under her.
“A hunger dressed for court.”
Aurora looked at Nyx.
“Useful as ever.”
They tilted their head towards the terraces.
“Watch before you name it. Names stick.”
So she watched.
Workers moved between the vines, though worker was not the right word. Some looked human at first glance until they turned and showed eyes like polished coins or hands with too many joints. Others walked on hooved legs under embroidered aprons. A wide creature with skin like red clay carried three baskets at once and laughed with a mouth full of square gold teeth. No one appeared rushed. Every movement had a ceremony to it, as if harvesting fruit here held the same weight as prayer .
A breeze slid across the hillside. It brought new scents with it, enough to blur the mind—fresh bread, orange peel, rain on hot stone, seared sugar, pepper smoke. Aurora felt a sharp empty ache in her stomach .
Nyx’s hand, all shadow and cool absence, touched her sleeve for a second.
“Do not eat.”
She had not realised she had taken a step towards a low branch heavy with plum-dark fruit. The skins glistened, taut enough to split. Sweet perfume poured from them.
“I wasn’t going to.”
Nyx’s violet eyes brightened.
“You were.”
Aurora stared at the fruit, then at her own hand, half-lifted like a thief caught in the act.
“Fine. Point taken.”
They moved down a stone path set between terraces. The stones were warm through the soles of her boots and smooth with age, though no cracks showed, no weeds thrust between them. Bronze lamps rose at intervals from the ground. Their flames burned green and gave off the smell of rosemary.
The deeper they went, the stranger the details became. Bees the size of thumbs drifted between blossoms with wings like stained glass. Tiny lizards slept in the crooks of branches, their scales pearl-white, their throats pulsing red. One fountain spilled not water but a clear golden liquid into a basin crowded with floating herbs. Figures passed on the road carrying platters under silver domes. Steam escaped at the edges, rich enough to make Aurora’s mouth flood.
Voices carried from an open pavilion on the next rise. They edged closer, careful to keep behind a row of pomegranate trees.
Inside the pavilion, a long table had been laid with surgical precision. Knives flashed. Copper pans hung in neat ranks over blue fire. Three chefs worked in total silence except for the sounds of their hands—chop, scrape, pour, fold. One wore a jacket stitched with garnets. Another had horns that curved back through a white cap. The third was human. Or had been once. His face was lined and grey at the mouth, but his hands moved with fierce grace as he plated slices of something translucent onto black stone.
At the head of the table sat a bloated creature in silk robes, chin slick with grease. Rings burdened every finger. It lifted a fork, tasted, and closed six eyes at once in pleasure.
Aurora felt her skin tighten.
“Hell’s MasterChef.”
Nyx’s shape rippled with what might have been dark amusement.
“Closer than you know.”
The human chef placed the dish down. The creature tasted again, then snapped two fingers. A servant rushed forward with a bowl of red jewels—no, not jewels, seeds, each one glowing as though lit by embers. The creature tipped them over the dish, scattering them like rubies.
Aurora could not stop staring at the chef’s face. He kept his eyes on the table. His knuckles stood out white round the handle of his knife.
“He’s dead, isn’t he?”
Isolde’s gaze drifted over the pavilion like mist over water.
“Dead. Bound. Useful.”
The word hit harder than the others. Useful. Not mourned. Not honoured. Measured only by what he could produce at the table.
A bell rang somewhere below them, deep and sonorous. The vineyard workers lifted their heads at once. Across the terraces, movement changed. Baskets were gathered . Trays covered. Laughter sharpened into purpose.
“We should move,” Nyx whispered.
Aurora did not argue.
They slipped away from the pomegranate trees and followed the path down into a shaded lane bordered by walls thick with ivy. The leaves here were black-green and cool, and for the first time since crossing, the heat eased off her skin. Her breathing settled.
At the end of the lane, the path opened onto a square paved in pale stone that shone like bone. A market spread across it in concentric rings. Stalls built from carved wood and polished horn displayed heaps of produce, bottles of syrup, ropes of cured meat, pastries lacquered to a mirror shine. Colours punched the eye from every side. Crimson. Saffron. Jade. Violet so deep it looked wet.
No one shouted for trade. Buyers drifted from stall to stall with an air of private appetite. They wore robes, armour, lace, butcher’s aprons, furs despite the heat. One pair argued over the marbling on a slab of meat that twitched faintly under its glaze. Another bent over a tray of mushrooms that sang in tiny glass voices when touched.
Aurora stopped in front of a stall selling fruit preserved in clear cubes. Suspended in the jelly were petals, gold leaf, seeds like stars. Beside them lay breads shaped into spirals, each layer a different shade. A woman with green skin and tusks smiled at her from behind the display.
“First taste is free.”
The words slid over Aurora like warm oil. Her whole body leaned towards the stall before she caught herself.
Nyx moved between them, taller now, broad enough to blot out the stall.
“She declines.”
The tusked woman’s smile did not falter, but her nostrils flared.
“Your shade reeks of old doors.”
“And you reek of bait.”
Aurora grabbed Nyx’s sleeve before the exchange could sharpen.
“Come on.”
They cut through the crowd, weaving past a procession of servants carrying cages full of bright feathered things that sang like flutes. Somewhere to their right, a group of musicians struck up a piece so lush and layered it felt almost edible. To the left, from a shaded archway, came the crackle of fire and the clean ring of steel on steel.
That sound changed her course at once.
She turned her head. Beyond the archway lay a narrow courtyard sunk below the market level. The air there looked cooler, touched with blue. Racks of blades hung against dark stone walls. Not kitchen knives. Swords, hooks, skewers as long as spears, curved cleavers etched with patterns that shifted when she tried to focus on them.
At the centre stood a low table, and on it lay a dagger no longer than her hand. Its blade was black glass veined with silver, its hilt wrapped in something that looked disturbingly like braided hair.
Isolde stopped beside her.
“Everything here cuts twice.”
Aurora’s hand tightened round the hidden Fae blade in her pocket.
“Who buys weapons in a food market?”
A smith looked up from a grindstone below. His arms were bare to the elbow, skin scored with old burns. He smiled, and the smile showed teeth filed to points.
“Anyone who knows what dinner becomes.”
Aurora held his gaze a beat, then moved on.
The square narrowed into a colonnade where the light dimmed to amber dusk. Carved pillars rose on both sides, each one wrapped with scenes so detailed they seemed ready to move—harvests, banquets, hunts, bodies sprawled in sleep or excess . Figures bit into fruit, tore bread, lifted goblets, devoured, embraced, collapsed. The stone had been rubbed smooth by centuries of passing hands. Under her fingertips, some sections felt warm. Others felt as cold as a cellar.
She stopped at one panel and leaned closer. Among the carved revellers, one face had been worked with startling precision. Human. Young. Eyes wide, not with pleasure but fear . Hands pressed flat against the table as if he meant to stand but could not.
“Isolde.”
The Half-Fae turned, silver hair stirring though no wind moved here.
Aurora pointed. “Look at this.”
Isolde studied the carving. For the first time since stepping through the portal, her expression lost its distant calm.
“That is old.”
“Helpful. Again.”
Nyx slid nearer, their shadow stretching over the carved stone. The violet in their eyes dimmed, then flared.
“Not carved,” they whispered. “Pressed.”
Aurora looked again. The detail in the face, the tension in the hands, the fold of cloth caught under one knee—too exact, too immediate. Her stomach clenched.
“You mean this was—”
A sound rolled through the colonnade before she finished. Not the market. Not music. A single vast horn, low enough to shiver the pillars and send dust lifting from the grooves of the carvings. All round the square beyond, conversation ceased. Footsteps shifted. Trays clinked. Then every head, mortal and otherwise, turned in the same direction.
At the far end of the colonnade, beyond an arch worked with grapes in gold relief, doors began to open onto a hall flooded with amber firelight.
Aurora looked from the opening doors to Nyx and Isolde, pulse hammering against the pendant’s answering heat.