AI Rory kept her fingers curled round the silver chain, the Heartstone tucked cold against her palm until the air around her changed and the gem gave a small, hard pulse .
“Right,” she muttered.
Nyx drifted at her shoulder, all edges and smoke in the dark, their shape thinning and thickening with the shadows around the stone arch. “That sound in your throat usually meant trouble.”
“It meant I’d like to know where my feet were going.”
Behind them, Isolde stood barefoot on the cracked flagstones, silver hair sliding over one shoulder like a spill of moonlight. She looked at the arch as if she had once seen it in a dream and had not been surprised when it turned up in the world.
“You have reached the mouth,” she murmured. “The throat will not bite unless you feed it fear.”
Rory shot her a flat look. “That’s not comforting .”
“It was not meant to be.”
The arch had not been there the last time Rory had crossed this ruin in Richmond Park. Then, it had been only a dead circle of black stone half swallowed by briars, a relic the city forgot. Tonight it stood open, filled with a shimmer that wavered like heat over tarmac, though the air bit at Rory’s skin with a dry, baked cold. The standing stones around it hummed low enough that she felt the note in her teeth.
Nyx leaned in, their violet eyes burning faintly in the dusk. “The Veil has thinned here. It’s almost polite of it to show us the door.”
Rory let out a short breath. “If you start sounding pleased, I’m leaving you in the park.”
“That would be unkind.”
“It would be efficient .”
Isolde lifted a hand and touched the nearest stone. Her fingers did not leave a mark. “You came for the place beyond. The road is open. Step cleanly, or it will remember your doubt.”
Rory looked through the shimmer. Shapes moved on the far side, too wide and too tall, then vanished in a blink. The Heartstone warmed hard against her skin. The pulse matched something deeper, some beat that came from beyond the arch and seemed to answer the pendant like a distant drum.
She drew the Fae-forged blade from the inside of her coat. The moonsilver stayed cold enough to sting her fingertips. “If anything with teeth comes for us—”
“I will vanish,” Nyx whispered.
“You always say that.”
“And I always do.”
Rory snorted, then stepped through.
The world turned inside out.
For one sharp second she felt the pull behind her ribs, the tug of a tide dragging at her bones. Her stomach lurched . The air vanished. Sound snapped thin, like cloth tearing. Then her boots struck something solid and warm, and she staggered forward into a place lit by an amber sky that looked brewed instead of painted.
Heat rolled over her in waves. Not the dull summer kind that clung to pavements and made the lungs feel thick, but a rich, dry warmth that carried the smell of ripe fruit, smoke, and something roasted until the sugars had gone dark. The land before her spread out in terraces under the amber vault, all vines and orchard rows and fields of glossy leaves that caught the light like oiled skin. Beyond them rose white stone walls, half buried in green, and towers that bent in impossible curves, their tops shaped like chalices and twisted horns and braids of marble .
Rory stared.
A path of pale dust ran under her boots, but the dust shimmered with flecks of gold. She crouched and pinched some between her fingers. It stuck to her skin like salt and smelled faintly of cinnamon.
Nyx slipped through the arch after her, their form briefly spilling into shadow before gathering itself again. “Well,” they whispered, and for once the whisper held no mockery. “That’s new.”
Isolde stepped through last, and the arch behind her dimmed to a slow shimmer before settling into the air like a scar. She took one look at the horizon and tipped her head. “Dymas.”
The word landed on Rory with the weight of a place name from a map she had never seen.
“Dymas,” she repeated.
“Gluttony,” Isolde added, and her pale eyes moved over the vineyards. “A banquet realm. A court of plenty and hunger. The feast never ends.”
Rory looked over the nearest orchard. The trees there bore fruit the size of lanterns, skin translucent as amber glass, each one glowing from within with a soft amber light. Workers moved between the trunks in long aprons stitched with silver thread, carrying baskets, knives, bowls, trays. Some wore collars around their necks, but not the metal kind she knew from the real world. These ones seemed grown into the flesh, vine-thick and jewelled, and when the workers passed each other they bowed their heads without stopping .
Music drifted from somewhere deeper in the terraces. Not one tune, but many layered together: strings, bells, laughter, the clink of cups. Under that ran the sound of knives striking boards, the low murmur of a crowd, the hiss of something being basted over fire.
Rory’s grip tightened on the dagger. “People live here.”
Nyx tilted their head. “Some people. Some souls. Some things that used to be people.”
“Could you not do that?”
“Do what?”
“Say things like that while I’m standing in the middle of it.”
Isolde’s mouth curved with the faintest hint of amusement. “You stand in it whether he speaks or not.”
Rory glanced at her. “You knew this would look like this.”
“I knew it would look unlike your world.”
“That wasn’t the question.”
Isolde brushed a thumb over the standing stone by the arch, then stepped away with no sound under her feet. “I have walked here once before. The vines were younger then. The kitchens lower. The prince less patient.”
“Prince?” Rory echoed .
“The one who holds this place,” Isolde said. “Belphegor. He likes fine meals and finer bargains.”
The Heartstone gave another pulse , hotter this time. Rory looked down at it, then toward the nearest terrace where a gap in the orchard revealed a road paved in dark stone. It curved between the rows and vanished under a high archway cut from what looked like carved bread crust, all ridges and crusted gold, as if the place itself had been baked .
The air tickled Rory’s nose. She had not eaten since before they crossed, and the scents here landed with a nasty precision. Honey. Fat. Sharp herbs. Cider. Burnt sugar. Fresh bread split open under steam. Her stomach gave a hard twist.
“Don’t,” she told herself under her breath.
Nyx’s shadowed face turned toward her. “Hungry?”
“Not helpful.”
“It was a simple question.”
“It was rude.”
“Honest.”
Isolde moved ahead, and the path seemed to part for her. “This realm feeds on appetite. Keep your want in check, and it will show less interest in you.”
Rory looked up sharply . “Less interest?”
Isolde’s violet-gold eyes, pale as amethyst in the amber light, fixed on hers. “You are not what this place expects.”
Rory almost asked what that meant, then a laugh burst from farther down the path, bright and sharp. Two figures emerged from the orchard rows carrying a basket between them. Their skin held a bronze sheen, their hair was braided with herbs, and their eyes flashed gold when they looked up. One wore a chef’s apron over a tunic stitched with leaf patterns; the other had a knife tucked into a sash.
They stopped at the sight of Rory and the others.
The one with the apron frowned. “You’re out of place.”
Rory glanced at her own coat, boots, and black jeans. “Yeah. I was aware.”
The other worker’s gaze slid to the blade in Rory’s hand and lingered there. “Not from Belphegor’s kitchens.”
“Thank your stars,” Rory muttered.
Nyx leaned forward, their outline wavering like a candle in a draft. “We seek the road inward.”
The two workers exchanged a look. The one with the knife shifted the basket to one arm. Inside lay pale pears split open with red flesh and seeds like black pearls. “Everyone seeks inward. The hungry always do.”
Rory frowned. “We’re not here for food.”
At that, the apron-wearing one let out a low laugh. “Then you’re already in danger.”
The sound of that laugh rippled down the path. For a second Rory thought the orchard itself had listened, because the leaves on the nearest trees shivered though no wind moved. Tiny lights blinked on among the branches, like embers waking. She saw then that some of the fruit had eyes. Not all of them. Just enough to make the skin crawl along her arms.
She took a step back. “No. Nope.”
Nyx’s voice brushed her ear like smoke. “You noticed too late.”
Rory kept her gaze on the fruit. One lantern-sized orange split with a soft wet sound, and an eye opened in the centre of it, black pupil ringed in gold. It fixed on her, then closed again.
The apron-wearing worker gave a careless shrug. “They’re harmless unless plucked before ripening.”
Rory stared at them. “You say that like it helps.”
“It should.”
“Doesn’t.”
Isolde’s expression did not shift, but her tone sharpened a little. “Where does the road lead?”
The worker with the knife lifted a chin toward the high stone arches. “The lower kitchens. The counting halls. The galleries where the prince keeps the dishes he likes to look at before he breaks them open.”
Rory’s skin tightened. “He collects food?”
“Not just food,” the other worker said. “Tastes. Preserves. Contracts. Desires.”
Nyx made a soft sound, half laugh, half warning. “That list grows uglier by the second.”
Rory glanced between the two workers. “What do you mean, contracts?”
Neither answered straight away. The apron-wearing one ran a thumb over the edge of the basket, then said, “You should not carry a Hel-marked stone in plain sight.”
Rory’s hand closed over the Heartstone before she realised she’d moved. “You know what this is?”
The workers both went still.
The air changed around them, just enough to make Rory notice the silence beneath the music. Even the orchard seemed to hush, the leaves lifting and holding. The eye-fruit stayed shut now, but she felt them watching.
Isolde’s gaze sharpened to a blade. “Who gave it to her?”
The knife-wearer’s face had gone blank. “If you have a marked stone and a Fae blade, then someone has placed you between appetites.”
Rory felt the weight of the pendant. Warm. Living. It seemed to have grown more restless the farther they stepped from the arch.
“Helpful,” she said through her teeth . “Again, not helpful.”
The apron-wearing one lifted the basket a fraction, as if hiding it from her . “The stone wakes near a portal. If it warms, you should not stand still.”
Rory turned it over in her palm. The crimson gem beat under the silver chain, faint but certain.
Nyx hovered closer, their form lengthening. “She’s right.”
Rory looked at them. “You can feel it too?”
“I can feel the place listening.”
That got her moving. She slid the Heartstone back under her collar, tucked the dagger closer to her side, and took the first step down the path. The dust gave under her boots like fine flour. She kept her shoulders square and her eyes up.
The two workers parted without another word, one on either side of the road, heads bowed. Rory passed between them and felt their attention brush her skin like fingertips.
The path dipped under a trellis heavy with grapes the size of plums, each one dark as a bruise and shining with a wet sheen. She reached out before she thought better of it and touched one cluster with the back of her knuckles. The grapes trembled . A scent of wine hit her so hard she almost tasted it.
Nyx made a small, amused noise. “You looked tempted.”
“I wasn’t.”
“You touched it.”
“I was checking if it was real.”
“And was it?”
Rory pulled her hand back. “Worse. It was rude.”
Isolde walked ahead as if the ground had always known her. She did not look to either side, yet the vines bent away from her passing. “The deeper halls lie below the kitchens. Stone corridors. Oven vaults. Cellars carved under feast tables built for giants.”
Rory fell into step beside her. “You’ve seen all this before and you’re only telling me now?”
“You have eyes,” Isolde replied. “Use them.”
Rory opened her mouth to snap back, then caught sight of a courtyard ahead and stopped.
It spread wide and circular, paved in pale stone inlaid with dark spiral lines. A fountain stood at its centre, but no water rose from it. Instead, a thick amber liquid poured in a slow spiral from bowl to bowl, steaming with the scent of pears and cloves. Around the edges stood tables set with plates too large for ordinary hands, some still carrying untouched food, some stacked with bones polished white as ivory. Silk banners hung overhead, their colours rich and bruised and red as clotted wine.
And seated at the far end, half hidden in shadow under an arch of carved loaves, sat a figure in a crown of twisted gold, one hand resting on a goblet large enough to wash a face.
Rory’s breath caught.
The figure had not seen them yet. Or had seen them and chose not to move.
Nyx went utterly still.
Isolde’s bare feet made no sound as she stepped to Rory’s side. “Now,” she whispered, “you have entered the mouth.”
Rory kept her eyes on the crowned figure and tightened her grip on the dagger until the cold moonsilver pressed into her skin. The Heartstone throbbed once, hard and hot, against her chest.