AI The air shifted from Richmond Park’s frostbitten bite to something thick, warm, and spiced with roasted figs and burnt sugar before Rory could even lift her head. She’d stepped through the rift Isolde had carved in the Fae Grove’s boundary, and when she turned to look back, the Veil’s faint, iridescent shimmer folded in on itself like a popped soap bubble, vanishing entirely. It was the first time she’d ever seen the barrier that split her world from the rest, and for a long beat she could only stare, her scuffed Doc Martens sinking into loam that smelled like clover and honey, nothing like the frost-crusted mud she’d left behind.
The Heartstone pendant at her sternum pulsed , a steady, thrumming warmth that seeped through her peeling Golden Empress delivery jacket, and she fumbled to press a palm to it, the small, thumbnail-sized crimson gem burning faint through the fabric. Beside her, Nyx’s violet eyes glowed brighter than the dimming amber sky above, their 6’2” shadow-silhouette shifting at the edges as they scanned the tree line. “The rift held,” they whispered, their voice curling through the air like wind through grass, the way it always did. “No Wardens followed. We’re the first strangers to cross into Dymas in seventy years.”
Rory lifted her head to stare at the sky. It was the color of melted honey, stretched endless from horizon to horizon, no sun, no clouds, just that steady, warm amber glow that painted everything it touched in gold. Ahead, Isolde was already walking , her silver waist-length hair streaming out behind her, and when Rory glanced down at the ground to check her own footprints, she frowned. Her boots had left deep, clear prints in the soft loam, but behind Isolde, there was nothing. No indent of her leather boots, no disturbed grass, just unbroken, velvet -soft earth.
“Is that—” she started, and Nyx huffed a quiet, breathless laugh, shadow shifting like they’d shrugged. “Fae don’t leave marks where they don’t want to. Half-fae even less. The grove’s the same, remember? You never saw her tracks there either.” Rory nodded, though she’d been too disoriented by the Fae Grove’s warped time—an hour spent prepping there had eaten three days of her mortal life, enough that she’d missed two shifts at the restaurant—to notice. She rubbed the crescent-shaped scar on her left wrist, the old childhood injury that had become a nervous habit after Evan used to grab that same wrist to pin her to walls, the rough edge of the scar catching on the callus of her thumb. She’d fled London to get away from him, only to end up trekking through a realm of hell because the same man who’d abused her had opened a rift in the East End that was slowly swallowing whole blocks of flats. Isolde had said only something born of Dymas could seal it.
They walked deeper into the orchard that stretched for miles, and Rory’s wonder swelled so fast it ached. The trees were nothing like any she’d seen on Earth. Apple trees bore fruit striped gold and emerald, humming a low, thrumming tone when they passed, their branches heavy with produce that glowed faint from within. Pears hung translucent as glass, their seeds visible, pulsing like tiny hearts. A peach the size of a melon dropped from a branch twenty feet ahead, hitting the ground and splitting open to spill juice that smelled like spiced wine, the flesh pink as crushed rose petals. Rory stopped, staring, and for a minute she forgot all about the rift, about Evan, about the fact that they were trespassing in a realm ruled by a demon prince. She’d spent her whole life in Cardiff’s rain and London’s smog, had never seen anything that felt so alive, so unapologetically vibrant.
Then she saw the workers.
Three people emerged from between the trees, carrying wooden crates stacked high with the glowing apples, their shirts stained with juice, laughing as they balanced the load. One of them slipped, and the others caught him, whooping, and for a second they looked like any group of farmhands back home—until Rory spotted the chains. Faint silver bands wrapped around each of their ankles, glowing dim, anchored to nothing, trailing only empty air behind them. The laughter died in her throat. “What are those?” she whispered, and Nyx’s shadow tensed. “Helbound souls. They traded decades of work here for a chance to skip the torments of the lower realms, or they were tricked into it. Belphegor’s always hungry for new hands to tend his crops. The best chefs in all the realms come here to compete, and they need ingredients.” Rory’s hand drifted back to her scar, the weight of that control settling on her chest the same way it had when she was with Evan, someone else owning your time, your body, your future. She’d thought escaping him would mean never feeling that again, but here it was, scaled up to a cosmic level.
The Heartstone pulsed faster, so hot it was starting to sting through her shirt, and they kept walking, leaving the workers behind, their faint singing in an unrecognizable language fading as they moved into a vineyard that stretched to the horizon. The vines here were thick, their thorns dripping a dark red liquid that pooled in the dirt, and the grapes clustered along the branches were the exact same deep crimson as her pendant. The Heartstone thrummed so hard Rory had to yank it out from under her shirt, holding it in her palm, its faint inner glow matching the glow of the grapes. A wind blew through the vineyard, rustling the leaves, and suddenly hundreds of voices were murmuring her name, soft and insistent, Aurora. Rory. Malphora. She froze, fumbling in her jacket pocket for the moonsilver dagger Isolde had given her, the leaf-shaped Fae-forged blade that was always cold to the touch, its luminescence flaring to life the second her fingers closed around it.
Isolde turned, her pale lavender eyes sharp, and said, “The stone was born of these vines. Its heart beats where its roots drink the blood of those who came before you.” Rory stared, the whispers growing louder, and before she could ask what that meant, a snarl split the air. A demon, small and scaled, horns curling from its forehead, stepped out from behind a grapevine, a glowing red ward stick raised in its hand, ready to alert the palace guards to their presence. It screeched, and Rory moved before she could think, stepping forward and slashing the dagger at the ward that coiled around the imp’s wrist. The blade cut through the magic like it was silk , the ward shattering into a shower of red sparks, exactly as Isolde had said it would—moonsilver could cut through any magical ward, was deadly to demons.
The imp screamed again, and Nyx melted into the shadow of the vine, their form turning to smoke that slipped between the leaves, before they wrapped their shadowy hands around the imp’s mouth, dragging it back into the dark. The screaming cut off abruptly, and Nyx reappeared at Rory’s side, their violet eyes glowing bright. “More are coming,” they whispered. “Belphegor’s guard will be here in five minutes. We have to reach the palace before they lock the feast grounds.”
Rory looked up, and for the first time saw the palace, rising from the end of the vineyard, its spires glazed in the same amber as the sky, banners emblazoned with a ram’s head snapping in the wind. The roar of a crowd drifted toward them, music and clinking glasses, the grand feast Isolde had warned them of, the culinary competitions that drew beings from every realm. She glanced down at the Heartstone in her palm, pulsing in time with her own heart, then at the dagger in her hand, its cold seeping into her skin. She’d been a pre-law student, a delivery driver, a girl who’d run from an abusive boyfriend, and now she was about to steal a relic from the prince of Gluttony to seal a rift that would eat London if she failed.
Isolde smiled, stepping beside her, and said, “The feast that feeds the prince will feed the rift if you fail to take what is yours.” Rory nodded, tucking the pendant back under her shirt and the dagger into her