AI Rory’s breath fogged in the sharp December cold of Richmond Park, her scuffed delivery boots crunching through frost that crusted the path like broken glass. The frayed cuff of her puffer jacket—stained with soy sauce from a hundred Golden Empress drop-offs, stretched thin from hauling stacks of takeaway containers—pressed into the crescent scar on her left wrist, the old injury stinging so bad she’d stuffed her hand into her jacket pocket ten minutes prior to muffle the ache. Around her neck, tucked under her shirt, the Heartstone pendant hung cold against her sternum, a tiny weight she’d grown used to since the anonymous package landed on her flat above Silas’ bar three weeks earlier. It had only started warming in the last hour, thrumming faint and steady as a second heart, as they’d ventured deeper into the park’s unmanaged western woods.
Ten feet ahead, Isolde glided, her silver waist-length hair catching the last pale gray of the winter sunset, her bare feet sinking into the frost without leaving a single mark. Rory had slowed to stare at the spot where the half-fae had stepped two minutes prior, the frost still sharp and unbroken, no indentation, no smudge, nothing to prove anyone had stood there. When she’d whispered the question to the shadow trailing at her elbow, Nyx’s wind-soft whisper had brushed her ear: “Fae blood. Half of her never belonged to this world. The ground doesn’t claim what isn’t hers to leave.” The shade’s violet eyes glowed faint as embers from the darkness between oak trunks, their humanoid shadow form rippling when they drifted closer, their solid six-foot-two frame casting no shadow of its own. Rory had stopped flinching at their cold touch a week prior, when Nyx had pulled her out of the path of a speeding van that hadn’t even seen her, but the way they slipped between light and dark still made the back of her neck prickle.
When they rounded a stand of gnarled hawthorns, Rory froze. Three ancient oaks rose ahead, their branches twisted and woven into a natural arch, their bark carved with runes that glowed faint silver when Isolde lifted a hand to brush them. She’d run this stretch of Richmond Park three times in the last year, had mapped every trail to avoid the crowds and the park rangers who yelled at people for cutting through restricted woodland. She would have remembered these trees—they were twice as tall as any other oak in the park, their trunks wide enough to drive a car through, their arch looming like a gate no mortal had built.
Isolde turned, her pale lavender eyes locking on Rory’s, and spoke in the riddles she never strayed from, the Fae compulsion to never lie binding her words to truth even as they wrapped around meaning like ivy: “Step through, little moth. The world beyond does not bite, unless you offer it your throat.”
Rory’s hand dropped to the top of her right boot, where the Fae-forged moonsilver blade Isolde had given her lay sheathed, the metal always cold enough to seep through the leather of her boot and chill her ankle. She’d tested it three days earlier, slicing through a rusted chain link fence that had blocked an alley shortcut, the blade passing through steel like it was wet paper, just as Isolde had promised it would cut through magical wards. Nyx pressed their shadow-shoulder to hers, a silent push forward, and Rory stepped under the oak arch.
The change hit her before she could draw her next breath. The London winter cold vanished, replaced by a warm breeze that carried the scent of jasmine and burnt wild honey, thick enough to make her eyes water. The gray December sky was gone, replaced by a pearlescent green sky that shimmered like mother-of-pearl, the sun hanging low and golden, not setting, not rising, just existing. Under her boots, the frost had turned to thick clover, dotted with wildflowers that should never have bloomed in December: blood-red poppies, daisies with faintly glowing yellow centers, bluebells that chimed soft as tiny bells when the wind brushed their petals. She fumbled for her phone in her pocket, the device that had shown 3:17pm when they’d parked at the park gate, and stared as the screen glitched, jumping from 3:18 to 7:42 to 10:00pm before dying entirely, going black no matter how hard she tapped the glass.
“Time moves different here,” Nyx said, materializing fully at her side, their shadow form solid enough that Rory could make out the faint outline of the man they’d been once, Aldric the sorcerer, before the 1643 summoning had trapped them between realms. “An hour inside can be a minute outside, or a week. The Veil bleeds into this place, warps everything it touches.” The Veil, the barrier separating Earth from Hel and the Fae realms, weakening on the winter solstice, just enough for the rift in the Grove’s core to stay stable long enough for them to cross into Dymas. Isolde had explained it in fragments, half-riddles that had only clicked into place when Nyx had filled in the gaps: the Heartstone Rory carried belonged to Prince Belphegor’s court in Dymas, the Hel realm of gluttony, and the unknown benefactor who’d sent it to her had hidden it in the mortal world to keep it from Belphegor, who would use its power to bind more souls to his endless feasts. They’d come to return it, to uncover who had sent it, and to put an end to the string of mortals vanishing from London’s streets, stolen through rifts to work as Belphegor’s contracted chefs.
A butterfly fluttered past Rory’s face, its wings stained glass bright with red and gold, and landed light as a breath on the crescent scar on her left wrist. The week-long stinging vanished instantly, replaced by a soft warmth that seeped up her arm, and she gasped, lifting her hand to stare at it. The butterfly’s wings beat slow, humming like a plucked lute string, and for the first time since she’d fled Cardiff and her abusive ex Evan, she felt the constant knot of fear in her chest loosen. She’d spent a year looking over her shoulder, sleeping with a knife under her pillow, jumping at every raised voice, and here, in this impossible place, she could breathe. “I’ve never felt anything like this,” she whispered.
Nyx’s whisper softened, rare for the shade who rarely spoke of anything but the dangers that lurked between realms. “Most mortals never do. The Grove only lets those who need it find it.”
They followed Isolde deeper into the clearing, the half-fae still gliding ahead, no footprints marring the clover at her feet. The Heartstone under Rory’s shirt began to pulse harder, warm enough to seep through her jacket, and she pulled it out, the deep crimson gem glowing faint from within, thrumming so hard it vibrated against her palm. “It’s never done that before,” she said.
“Pulses near Hel portals,” Nyx said, nodding at the stone. “The rift to Dymas is close. Winter solstice weakens the Veil, so it’ll stay open for another six hours. Long enough to get in, get what we need, and get out.”
Faint laughter drifted from the trees to their left, high and sweet but wrong, echoing like it was bouncing off the walls of a long tunnel, and Rory’s hand flew back to the hilt of the blade in her boot, the moonsilver growing colder, a warning. Dozens of eyes pricked at her back, unseen, hungry, and Isolde paused, turning to call over her shoulder: “Lost Fae, trapped at the Grove’s edges. They beg for treats, for stories, for a sliver of your soul to take back to the courts. Ignore them, and they will lose interest.” Rory kept her eyes fixed on Isolde’s silver hair, not daring to glance at the trees, until the laughter faded, the weight of the stares lifting when they passed a stand of ancient oaks that marked the Grove’s core.
The clearing opened up before them, a giant oak rising in its center, so wide it would take ten people to wrap their arms around it, its trunk split open at the heart, spilling warm amber light over the grass. The Heartstone in Rory’s hand pulsed so hard it nearly slipped from her grasp, and she stepped closer, peering through the split in the trunk. Beyond it, a world stretched out: Dymas, its sky a rich warm amber, vineyards rolling over endless hills, grapevines heavy with glowing gold fruit, orchards heavy with apples the size of her head. The scent of roasting pork and cinnamon and clove drifted through the rift, wrapping around her, making her stomach growl so loud it echoed , and she heard distant trumpets, the clink of gold plates, the roar of a crowd feasting, the sound so inviting she nearly stepped through before Isolde’s voice stopped her.
“Do not eat the food, do not drink the wine,” the seer said, her words hard, no riddles this time, the truth sharp as the Fae blade at Rory’s ankle. “If you taste what belongs to Belphegor’s realm, you will stay forever, bound to his feasts, a slave to the hunger that never fades. The stone you carry was stolen from his vault by a hand that seeks to tear his reign down. What you run from, what hunts you, will meet you there. You are not running anymore, Rory. You are walking toward it.”
Rory tucked the Heartstone back under her shirt, adjusted the blade in her boot, and glanced at Nyx, whose violet eyes glowed as they stared through the rift, and Isolde, who had never lied to her, not once, and stepped to the edge of the oak’s split. For the first time in her life, she wasn’t looking over her shoulder. She was choosing to step into the unknown, with the only family she had left at her side. “Let’s go,” she said. “Whatever’s waiting for us there, we face it together.” She stepped through the amber light, the world of the Grove fading behind her as Dymas wrapped around her, bright and dangerous and more alive than any place she’d ever been.