AI Aurora Carter drove the silver chain of the Heartstone Pendant through the gap in the stonework, prying until the wall gave a soft, wrong shudder. The pendant pulsed like a heartbeat under her thumb, deep crimson warmth spreading through her skin, and the bricks around it fogged with something that wasn’t breath.
Nyx stood to her left as a silhouette cut from night. They didn’t lean, but their presence leaned anyway, flattening the air against Aurora’s ears.
“Tell me you feel that,” Nyx said. Their whisper slid between syllables like smoke looking for cracks. “It tastes of hunger.”
“It’s a Veil breach,” Aurora said, keeping her hands busy because stillness felt like permission . She hooked her fingers into a seam and pulled. Mortar flaked away in curls that smelled faintly of burnt sugar. “Or it wants to be one.”
The gap widened with a sound like paper tearing underwater.
From inside, amber light spilled out, thick and syrupy, and the stone around the opening grew slick with something gleaming . Aurora flinched back, but the Heartstone Pendant dragged her gaze and her body forward, as if the pendant recognised what it wanted.
Behind them, the alley they’d chosen for secrecy looked ordinary enough. Rusted bins. Damp brick. The usual London grit. In front of them, the air tasted like warm wine and spice, like fruit bruised on a chef’s thumb.
Nyx stepped into the opening first, or as close to “stepped” as you could get for a thing made of shadow. Their edges slipped across the threshold without bending like cloth or breaking like glass. The darkness folded, and Nyx became solid for the length of a heartbeat, violet eyes glowing brighter than the amber spilling from the tear.
“Careful,” Nyx murmured. “Hel doesn’t open doors the way you do.”
Aurora wiped her palms on her delivery jacket. The crescent scar on her left wrist tingled, the old pain reawakening with every wrongness in the air. She lifted the Fae-Forged Blade from its wrap, cold as moonlight on the tongue. Isolde’s moonsilver dagger didn’t belong in London alleys, not like this, not with the Veil actively bleeding.
“I’m not going through,” Aurora lied.
Nyx gave a quiet laugh, the kind that didn’t use any teeth. “You’re already in motion.”
Aurora braced her foot against the stone and pushed her shoulder through the gap.
Heat struck her first, then a roar that wasn’t sound but sensation, a pressure of taste flooding her mouth. Her eyes watered. Her nose filled with ripe fruit, roasted meat, and something like toasted grain, sweet enough to make her stomach clench in anticipation .
Then the world resolved .
They stood inside an enormous courtyard where vineyards should not have grown. Rows of vines climbed trellises in spirals, heavy grapes swaying as if they reacted to breath. Orchards bordered the courtyard, each tree heavy-limbed with fruit that glistened with juice. Gardens spread between them like a painter’s idea of abundance, flowers blooming in colours that hurt to focus on, their petals edged with gold.
Amber sky hung overhead, too close to the ground, as if Hel wanted to cup the place in its hands. The air shimmered . Aurora couldn’t tell if the shimmer came from heat or from the Veil’s distortion. Either way, it made everything feel half-remembered, like she’d dreamed it and forgot the ending.
Nyx reached up, touched a grapevine with two fingers.
The vine did not move away.
It leaned.
A faint wet pop echoed as if something succulent had been punctured by desire . Nyx’s violet eyes narrowed , then brightened with hungry amusement.
“They’re… listening,” Aurora said.
“Everything in Dymas listens,” Nyx replied. “Prince Belphegor keeps his court well-fed, and hunger makes its own ears.”
Aurora swallowed. Her throat tasted of copper and wine. She turned slowly, blade angled across her body, and tried to orient herself.
Vine arches led deeper into the realm. Beyond them, long tables stretched like bridges between buildings carved from pale stone. Candles flickered without any visible flames. Steam rose from dishes she couldn’t see, carrying aromas that tugged at her memories of meals she hadn’t had time to enjoy in London.
A procession moved along a colonnade in the distance. Not people. Not quite. Figures in chef’s aprons, half-glimpsed shapes that looked born from shadow and spice, glided past each archway with trays raised like offerings. Their faces didn’t anchor. Their mouths, where mouths should have been, opened and shut as if tasting the air rather than speaking .
Aurora’s boots sank slightly into a path made of crushed herbs and something like candied bark . Each step left no footprint, but the ground seemed to remember her weight anyway. The Heartstone Pendant pulsed again, stronger, as if it had been waiting for this exact kind of portal.
Nyx noticed. Their head tilted towards Aurora’s chest. “It’s warm,” they whispered.
“It shouldn’t be,” Aurora said. She tightened her grip on the dagger. “Hel portals aren’t supposed to invite.”
“Invitations cut deeper than swords,” Nyx said, and the violet glow of their eyes flared as they moved forward. Their shadow stretched unnaturally long across the herb path, as if the ground had hooked itself on their shape and refused to let it retract.
Aurora followed, because she had never been good at backing away from a problem that wanted to swallow her.
They passed a garden wall braided with vines and hung with fruit that looked too perfect , like sculptures. When Aurora brushed a pear, it emitted a soft chime, bright and wrong, like a bell struck underwater. The pear’s skin rippled, then settled as though it had decided Aurora was worthy of touch.
Nyx’s voice dropped. “That one’s bait.”
Aurora froze her hand midair, pear wobbling gently .
“Bait for what?” Aurora asked.
Nyx didn’t answer. They didn’t need to. The chime echoed once more, and from somewhere deeper in the gardens a sound responded, a slow, scraping inhale.
A ripple moved through the vines, not wind-driven. Something shifted behind them, careful and patient, like a predator letting her approach until she understood she had already approached.
Aurora angled the blade towards a hedge of gold-edged flowers. The dagger’s moonsilver shimmered , catching that amber light and throwing it back in colder tones.
The hedge quivered . A shadow pressed from inside it, thicker than the hedge should have allowed. It wasn’t Nyx’s shadow. It didn’t behave like living darkness. This shadow carried a shape, a suggestion of a face that couldn’t settle on one expression.
A voice rolled out, not through air but through taste .
“Courier.”
Aurora’s spine tightened. She didn’t speak first. She didn’t want the realm to choose the rhythm of her words.
Nyx stepped slightly in front of her. Their voice became a whisper with teeth. “She walks with a blade of the Fae Courts.”
The shadow-face flickered , then tightened, as if considering whether the information mattered . Its eyes, when they formed, glowed a dull, wet red. “Fae blade, yes. But belly still rules.”
Aurora felt nausea and hunger wrestle inside her like cats. Her stomach clenched. Her mouth filled with saliva.
She forced her hand to lower, blade still out, and met Nyx’s gaze.
“Wardens,” Aurora said, remembering the Veil lore she’d learned in fragments. “They monitor rift points.”
Nyx’s violet eyes narrowed . “And yet here we are, breathing Dymas through a crack.”
The shadow-face moved closer, but it didn’t cross the hedge line. It remained half-hidden, feeding on the distance. “Door cracks,” it said, tasting each word. “Hel hears. Hel answers. Heartstone brings. Hunger follows.”
The Heartstone Pendant throbbed against Aurora’s chest. It didn’t just pulse now, it pulled, dragging her focus toward a path that hadn’t been there a moment ago. The herb path bent, curving towards a gate of interwoven wood and thorn. Vines wound around it like veins.
No gate like that belonged inside a courtyard. Yet there it was, appearing with the confidence of something always meant to exist.
Nyx watched the gate with a calm that didn’t belong to a creature of shadow. “Your unknown benefactor underestimated the pull of the Veil,” they said. “Or they counted on it.”
Aurora leaned closer, studying the thornwork. The thorns weren’t sharp in a way that looked physical. They looked eager. They seemed to drink light.
“I didn’t ask for this,” Aurora said.
“Not who asked,” Nyx answered. “Who arrives.”
The scraping inhale deepened. Somewhere nearby, a table scraped against stone, a sound like cutlery sliding on a butcher’s block. Plates clinked. Then laughter, low and thick.
A small group of figures emerged from behind a row of grapevines, walking as if their joints didn’t agree with each other. Each figure wore a chef’s hat shaped like a horn. Their aprons were stained with reds and golds, but Aurora couldn’t tell if the colours came from sauce or from something older.
Their faces shifted when they looked at Aurora. One had too many teeth. Another had eyes that reflected the amber sky wrong. Another had no face at all, only a mouth where a face should have been, opening and closing like a tasting cup.
The lead one raised a ladle.
“Belphegor’s judges,” Nyx hissed, and their whisper turned brittle. “Now you’re paying for entry.”
Aurora adjusted her stance, blade angled. The dagger felt sharper, as if it had tasted the threat. She tasted it too, on her tongue, that hel-smoke sweetness sharpening into metal.
The lead judge smiled with a mouth that didn’t match the rest of its head.
“Courier with the warm stone,” it said. “Bring offerings, bring news, bring hunger. Or hunger brings you.”
Aurora’s hand tightened on the blade. She didn’t have offerings ready. Not in the way Hel wanted. Not in the way Dymas measured worth.
She looked down at the Heartstone Pendant.
It pulsed , brighter than before, drawing her eyes to the thorn gate again. As if the gate had a throat, and the pendant had a voice.
Nyx spoke fast, and their whisper carried sharper edges now. “Don’t feed it with fear. Feed it with defiance.”
Aurora didn’t have time to ask what that meant. The lead judge lunged forward, ladle-first, and the amber air thickened as if syrup had decided to become a weapon.
Aurora moved on instinct. She swung the Fae-Forged Blade in a tight arc.
Moonsilver light flared. The blade cut through the amber thickness with ease, slicing a path that looked like cold glass . The judge’s ladle separated from its arm with a sound like a bell shattering. For one breathless moment, the severed arm splashed something dark and glittering across the herb path.
Then the darkness gathered itself, coiling back like ink refusing to stay spilled.
Aurora didn’t wait to see whether the judge would reform. She kicked off the slick herb path and sprinted towards the thorn gate, because the Heartstone Pendant was pulling her faster with every pulse .
Nyx followed, their silhouette snapping between solid and shadow as if the air couldn’t decide which version of them belonged.
Behind Aurora, the other judges surged, their chef hats bobbing like grotesque mushrooms.
“Courier!” the faceless one shrieked, and the sound tasted like burned caramel . “Belly must open!”
Aurora reached the thorn gate just as the Heartstone Pendant burned hot enough to sting. She shoved the pendant towards the thorns.
The gate drank the crimson warmth .
Thorns bent away from her hand like eager fingers. The gate opened without hinges, splitting along a seam Aurora hadn’t seen before. Inside, a passage breathed out amber heat and fragrant steam, and the walls of the corridor looked like carved fruit wood, glossy and scarred.
Nyx slipped into the passage first, their violet eyes flashing as they turned their head back.
“Now,” Nyx whispered, “you choose what kind of hunger follows.”
Aurora went in right after, blade still in her grip.
The corridor swallowed her with a sound like a throat clearing.
Then the amber light changed colour, shifting from warm gold to something darker, almost bruised purple. The air thickened into a perfume of cooked meat and wine. The walls pulsed faintly, as if the passage had a heartbeat.
Aurora stumbled forward one step, and the floor beneath her turned slick.
Something slid up from the ground at her ankles, slow at first, then quick, formed out of shadow and steam.
Not roots. Not tentacles.
Threads.
Chef’s threads, Aurora realised with horror, thin strands of darkness that laced together like dough being kneaded by invisible hands. They tightened around her boots, then around her calves, as if Dymas wanted to tie her into a meal.
Nyx reached for her.
Nyx’s fingers met the threads, and their violet glow flared, cutting through the darkness with cold light.
The threads hissed, and a voice threaded through the corridor walls, deeper than any judge.
“Belphegor tastes new arrivals.”
Aurora thrust the Fae-Forged Blade down, slicing the threads apart.
The blade cut clean, but the threads didn’t bleed like flesh. They withdrew like silk , then reappeared higher, climbing for her waist, searching for the warm heart at her chest.
The corridor’s seam behind them slammed shut with a wet snap, and amber candles flared in rings along the walls, surrounding them like a ring of judges made of flame and taste.
Aurora stared at the lacing shadows tightening around her arms.
The Heartstone Pendant pulsed once, hard, like a command.
Then the thorn gate’s glow vanished, and the corridor ahead opened into a vast dining hall that Aurora had never seen, yet somehow already felt she had been served there. Tables stretched like rivers. Seats waited like teeth.
In the distance, a figure rose from the far end of the hall, too tall to measure properly, draped in robes that looked stitched from ribbons of aroma.
Prince Belphegor’s presence hit the room like a curtain of flavour.
The threads tightened.
Aurora lifted the blade, and the hall answered by roaring with voices that sounded hungry enough to be prayers.