AI The cold of Richmond Park’s November mud vanished under Rory’s scuffed Dr. Martens the second she stepped through the rift, replaced by warm, loamy soil that smelled of turned earth and heady jasmine. She blinked, and the gray London drizzle dissolved, replaced by a sky the color of warmed amber, stretched endless above her with no sun, no clouds, just that soft, constant glow that gilded the tops of the oak-like trees ahead. The Heartstone around her neck—thumbnail-sized crimson gem strung on a dented silver chain—pulses so hard it pressed into her sternum, its warmth seeping through her frayed flannel. It had started thrumming an hour earlier, when Isolde led her and Nyx to the ancient standing stones marking the Fae Grove’s edge, the gem heating until it burned, until a rent in the Veil tore open between two oaks, black and shimmering, to let them pass.
Nyx stepped through behind her, their form of living shadow coalescing into their 6’2” solid shape, the faint glow of their violet eyes cutting through the amber haze. Their voice, a whisper carried on wind, wrapped around Rory’s shoulders. This is Dymas. First layer of Hel that bleeds into mortal space. The Veil’s thinner here than any rift I’ve crossed in three hundred years.
Isolde followed last, her waist-length silver hair drifting around her like it floated in water, her pale lavender eyes scanning the tree line before she shifted her weight . Rory glanced down at the ground to check if she’d tracked any mud through the portal, and saw only her own deep boot prints in the loam, and Nyx’s faint shadow-streaked marks that already began to fade ten feet back. Isolde’s scuffed black leather boots left nothing. No indent, no displaced grass, just undisturbed loam where she’d stepped. Rory blinked, having heard the half-Fae mention she left no trace, but seeing it was a quiet, unshakable kind of magic.
They moved east, following a rutted dirt path that wound through trees Rory had never seen in any British woodland. Their leaves were the color of crushed pomegranate, and when the wind blew, they shed petals that glowed pale gold, floating through the air like embers. An hour in, they crested a low hill, and Rory stopped dead. Below them, rolling for miles, stretched vineyards and orchards that bore no resemblance to the Welsh orchards her mum had taken her to as a kid. The vines bore grapes that shifted from deep purple to electric blue, like crushed starlight, and the orchard trees held peaches that bleed golden light, pomegranates that hummed so loud Rory could feel the thrum in her molars, even from the hilltop.
What is that? she said, nodding at the thrumming fruit.
Isolde lifted a hand to brush a stray silver strand from her face. The fruit of Dymas grows fed on the wants of the souls trapped here. Each bite sates a hunger you never knew you carried. It is the realm’s curse and its gift.
Rory dug her hands into her jacket pockets, her left wrist brushing the moonsilver blade Isolde had given her three days prior, the metal always cold even through the canvas jacket’s lining. The small crescent scar on that same wrist, the one she’d gotten falling off her bike at ten, itched, a faint tingle that only flared around magic. She stepped down the hill, dirt soft under her boots, and stopped at the first vine, reaching out to pluck a grape. It was firm, warm under her fingers, and when she bit into it, flavor burst across her tongue: cinnamon, wild cherry, the sharp tang of rain on asphalt, the sweetness of her dad’s Irish soda bread she hadn’t tasted since she fled Cardiff, the tight, warm weight of her mum’s hug before she’d left for London. She stumbled back, juice running down her chin, and Nyx caught her arm, their shadow hand solid enough to ground her.
Don’t eat more than one. The excess eats you back before you even know it’s hungry.
Rory spat the remaining pulp into the dirt, wiping her chin on her sleeve, her heart racing . That single bite had dredged up every longing she’d buried since she left her abusive ex Evan, every want she’d pushed down to survive working delivery shifts and paying rent on the tiny flat above Silas’ bar. She adjusted the Heartstone under her shirt, the gem still thrumming, and kept walking.
The air shifted as they moved deeper, the sweet smell of fruit mixing with something sharp: rot and burnt sugar. An hour later, they passed an overturned wooden cart dumped at the side of the path, crates spilled open across the dirt. The fruit inside was black, mold crawling over it, the mold moving like it was alive, creeping across the loam toward a patch of clover and eating it away to dust. Rory leaned down, nudging a crate with her boot, and spotted a glint of silver under a rotting pomegranate crate. She knelt, lifted the wood, and picked up a small locket, its hinge rusted, a rose engraving worn smooth on the front. She flipped it open, and inside was a photo of a young woman grinning, a little girl on her hip, both in paper Christmas hats, the glossy paper yellowed at the edges. A date stamp in the corner read 2019. Four years prior. A mortal, trapped here. The crescent scar on her wrist burned, and she closed the locket, tucking it into her jeans pocket. That soul had been someone’s mum, someone’s daughter, same as her.
A scream cut through the low hum of the orchards, high and sharp, cut off mid-breath like someone had clamped a hand over the person’s throat. Rory’s hand flew to her jacket, wrapping around the hilt of the moonsilver blade, the metal growing colder, as if waking up . She straightened, scanning the tree line, and spotted shadow shapes skulking between the trunks, too big to be foxes, too fast to be deer.
Belphegor’s hounds. Nyx’s whisper sharpened, their shadow form coiling tighter, less solid, ready to slip into the undergrowth at a second’s notice. They hunt souls that run, that try to leave the realm before their contract is up.
What’s their contract? Rory’s voice was low, her eyes still locked on the shadows.
Culinary work. Chefs, prep, servers. They work the prince’s feasts for a century, and if they survive, they pass on to whatever comes next. Most don’t. The feasts eat through them.
They kept walking, and an hour later the tree line opened up, and Rory froze again. Ahead of her, rising above the last of the orchards, was a palace, its spires glazed with what looked like blown sugar, stained deep red and gold, its windows glowing with warm light. Music drifted from it: string instruments, laughter, the clink of crystal plates, the roar of a hundred voices cheering. Between them and the palace, a line of people dragged crates of fruit toward the kitchen doors at the estate’s back, their clothes ragged, their eyes blank, their shoulders hunched. One man stumbled, a crate of peaches spilling across the dirt, the golden glow of the fruit dimming as they hit the ground. A figure stepped out of the kitchen doors, a demon with bull horns curving from its forehead, its skin red as burned leather, a whip coiled in its hand. It cracked the whip, and the man fell, didn’t move. The demon dragged him by the ankle into the treeline, and the line of people didn’t even flinch. They kept walking, kept dragging their crates.
Rory stepped forward, her hand tightening on the dagger, ready to rush the demon, but Nyx’s shadow hand wrapped around her upper arm, held her back hard enough that she couldn’t move.
Don’t. You can’t take him on alone. There are a dozen more hounds in the trees, waiting for someone to make a move. We came to seal the rift under the palace, remember? The winter solstice is in three days. If we don’t seal that rift , Belphegor brings an army through to London, and ten thousand people die before the first frost melts.
Rory’s chest heaved, and she glanced at Isolde, who stood at the edge of the tree line, her lavender eyes fixed on the palace, her silver hair glowing in the amber sky.
The rift sings to your stone. Isolde’s voice was soft, laced with the riddles she always wove, the Fae compulsion forcing her to speak only truth. The prince waits for the girl who carries the stone that tracks his door. He hungers for what she carries, the blood of the line that first trapped him in Dymas four hundred years prior. The blade at your side can cut the ward that locks the rift shut, but only if you walk into the lion’s den while the lion feasts. Dusk never ends here, so the feast never ends. You must walk in when the roar is loudest, when his eyes are on his plates, not his doors.
The Heartstone around Rory’s neck pulsed so hard it ached, and she pulled it out from under her shirt, the crimson gem glowing bright, casting a red light over her palms. The Fae blade in her pocket glowed too, faint silver light seeping through the canvas, matching the gem’s glow. She tucked the locket she’d found into her palm, the cold silver pressing into her crescent scar, and nodded. She’d fled Cardiff to escape one monster. She wasn’t going to run from this one.