AI The Heartstone Pendant in her palm throbbed like a heartbeat, crimson light flickering beneath Aurora’s skin as she yanked her hand back from where it nearly grazed the floating cluster of black grapes overhead. Nyx’s whisper came through the static in her skull: *“Beware what clings.”* Isolde’s laugh was colder than the Fae blade strapped to Aurora’s hip, a note of amusement buried under something darker. “He’s feeding you warnings, love. Again.”
Aurora narrowed her eyes at the Shade. Nyx had shifted from solid form to a suggestion of posture—a tall shadow flickering with too many fingers, a hollow where the collar of their coat would be. They didn’t seem phased by the air itself, which tasted of figs and burnt sugar, though their voice wavered like a half-remembered dream.
The ground underfoot was a patchwork of crushed amethyst grapes and obsidian paving stones. To the east, the horizon rippled with an amber sky, its glow casting the endless vines in a light reminiscent of a dying fire. The trees were twisted, their branches heavy with citrus the size of lanterns, pomegranates so swollen they looked ready to burst. Somewhere beneath the perfume of fruit and spice, Aurora caught the metallic tang of blood .
“You hear that?” she said, stilling .
Isolde’s fingers brushed some of the fallen grapes. They burst under her touch, releasing a plume of scarlet smoke that curled around her ankles. “Hear what?”
“The hum. Like—” Aurora gestured toward the clusters of fruit suspended midair. “This place isn’t just growing, it’s *vibrating *.”
Nyx shifted sideways, stepping through the shadow of a gnarled vine. “Dymas feeds on more than light.”
“Of course it does,” Isolde said. She tugged her coat tighter—though the air was thick, not thin, with warmth . “Prince Belphegor’s realm always tastes hungriest to mortals. Rory, your friend Evan’s soul would be marinated in fig syrup by now if he’s caught.” She arched one silver brow . “Unless you ’ve already served it to someone else.”
Aurora’s jaw tightened. The pendant throbbed again, its warmth seeping into the base of her thumb as if urging her forward . She took a step, her shoulder-length black hair catching a glint of sunlight that didn’t exist here. The air shimmered . “This path is a lie,” she muttered, noting the way the ground sloped leftward while the scenery refused to shift.
Isolde nodded—too easily. “The first rule of feasts, little oracle. *The plate doesn’t match the kitchen .*”
Nyx dissolved into the air, a wisp of shadow folding into the canopy. Their silhouette reappeared far ahead, hovering just above a grand marble archway half-buried in ivy. “A corridor of excess,” they said. “The cookhouse waits.”
Aurora didn’t wait. She sprinted. The vines bent to her movement, roots slithering sideways to block or guide depending on which direction made the pendant pulse brightest. Isolde followed, her silver hair catching glints of color from the fruits—plucked highlights of vermillion and indigo. Nyx reformed behind her , their voice low. “They’re watching.”
The archway swallowed them whole. Inside, the air thrummed with symphonies of laughter—too many to be human. Trestle tables stretched into the distance, piled high with roasted meats that bled golden fat into porcelain . Wines poured from goblets like molten rock, cooling mid-stream into perfect cubes stacked in ice crystal pyramids. Chefs in gilded aprons slid between the tables, knives longer than Aurora’s forearm slicing between dishes. One paused as they passed, lifting a brow through a mask of carved rhinoceros horn.
“Dress is optional,” Isolde said. “Survival is not.”
Aurora reached for the pendant again, its heat now a steady rhythm. Her ex’s name had never once passed her lips to Nyx or Isolde, but she could’ve sworn Nyx’s whisper curled into the shape of an eye. She shoved forward, ignoring Isolde’s sidelong glance.
“What was Evan good at?” Nyx asked.
“Eating other people’s problems and pretending he wasn’t full of spite,” Aurora said.
“And your father?” the Shade said. “He was a man who liked to *consume * injustice, yes? He devoured Hel’s paperwork for years .”
Isolde snorted. “He devoured Hel’s paperwork? That’s a nice try at a memory.”
Aurora didn’t pause. “Evan wanted *my * life. So maybe Dymas gave him a dinner invitation and he accepted.”
“Accepted what?”
The hallway shuddered. A dish of peaches—real peaches, with skin still taut, syrup already pooling—slithered across the table. One peeled itself from the plate, rolling to Aurora’s foot. She kicked it away.
A laugh echoed behind them, honey-thick. “Ah , a guest without a ticket.”
Three figures emerged from the food-laden shadows. Not human. Their forms flickered between cooks and something else—something with teeth where teeth shouldn’t be, eyes like cracked egg yolks.
“Iso,” Aurora said sharply .
“Relax.” Isolde’s fingers brushed the hilt of another blade strapped to her arm, but it was small, decorative. “They’re a *welcome * committee. Mostly.”
The lead figure tilted its head. Its mask slipped, revealing a mouth full of serrated spoons. “You bring a *hungry * companion,” it said, voice like a sieve of crushed nuts. A glance at Nyx, who flickered between visibility and shadow. “The prince has fresh shadows to test next week. But this one *tastes * reheated.”
“Let’s talk pastries,” Aurora said. She pulled the Heartstone Pendant from her pocket, holding it out like it was the most interesting thing in the room. It blazed bright, crimson bleeding into the amber air. The three figures froze.
“Where’s the portal?” Aurora demanded. “The one this side of the Veil.”
“Trespassing in *Dymas’* dining area,” the figure hissed, but its body slumped, drawn like a moth toward the pendant’s heat . “Come, before dessert spoils.” It drifted ahead, its body sagging with the weight of grapes. “The cookhouse is… *south *. Beyond the stewards.”
The portal marker was a door of hollowed-out honeycombs, its hinges made of braided thorns. Beyond it, the amber sky dimmed to a burnt umber. A courtyard sprawled beneath them, where pillars of meat roasted over flameless pits and a sky rained with sugar-dusted almonds.
“Evan didn’t come this way.” Aurora dropped the pendant. It dimmed, though not with disappointment—just absence.
“The feasts come first,” Isolde said. “The prince’s gardens after.” She turned in a slow circle, her footprints not reaching the ground as per her Fae-touched nature. “Follow the scent of desperation. And don’t drop your lemon tart.”
“No one eats the food here,” Nyx murmured. “Belphegor’s guests *are * the food.”
Aurora’s breath caught. Of course . Evan would’ve thought himself clever, signing away to Dymas without understanding what that meant .
The stewards were next—figures of porcelain , their faces unblinking smirks carved into smooth clay. One held a ladle long enough to stir galaxies.
“Garden,” the steward said.
“Where’s the entrance?” Aurora’s voice was steadier than she felt.
“Between the *vines * and the *vinegar *.”
Isolde blinked. “I’m not decoding that.”
The Fae blade was cold in Aurora’s grip, its edge already biting through the first wards. “It’s a joke. Vine and vine—*gar *den and *gar *den—”
“Less talking.” Nyx’s hand closed over her wrist. The Shade’s solid form pressed close enough she felt the absence of warmth in their touch. “The air smells like *rotting *. And *regret.*”
They slipped between the pillars to the courtyard’s edge, where the fruit vines turned into thorned brambles. Aurora stepped into the shadows, but Nyx hissed, “*No * shadows here.”
A warning came too late. The ground swallowed them.
The fall was soft. Not down but in . The landing cushioned by moss the color of bruised meat. Aurora rolled, hand pressing the Fae blade upright. Around them, the air was thick with a syrupy fog that stung the eyes. The trees here were older, their trunks split open to expose marrow where sap should’ve bled. The silence was the only noise, broken by the occasional drip of rot from the branches.
“Richmond Park’s oak stones won’t stop this,” Isolde said, her voice carrying unease for once . “We left the real world behind.” She tapped her fingers idly, and a tendril of violet light flickered beneath her nails. “Prince Belphegor’s gardens are where souls grow fattest with regret.”
“Is there an upside?”
“Usually not.” The Half-Fae gestured ahead. “But the plants here might remember Evan.”
Aurora’s jaw set. The pendant had gone still in her pocket. No more guidance. Just the three of them and a labyrinth of living vines . She stepped forward.
Twigs snapped. Not underfoot—*above *.
The trees shuddered, their exposed marrow veins contracting like lungs. A shape formed in the fog: a fox the size of a hound, its fur patterned with overlapping tapestries of faces. Each face mouthed silent screams.
“Wonderful,” Aurora said.
“Run if it opens its *mouth *,” Nyx said. “Otherwise, feed it the one thing it desires.”
“Which is?”
“Your name.”
Aurora didn’t flinch. “It’s *Aurora Carter *.”
The beast’s head turned fully, the faces in its fur contorting. It lunged.
The Fae blade was in her hand. She drove it upward. The blade passed through a ward of unseen threads, its moonsilver edge catching in a knot of *something * that smelled like Evan’s last dinner—overcooked steak, a bad Merlot. The beast let out a sound like a thousand shattered chandeliers and recoiled.
“Nice,” she said.
Nyx’s whisper came closer. “You bled the marrow, Rory. The garden’s memory is stirring.”
Flowers erupted in the fog, petals opening with the force of a shout. Each bloom held a mirror at its center, reflecting not this world but flashes of another —Evan, laughing at a party Aurora couldn’t afford to attend, Evan’s hand on her arm when he *meant * to control, Evan’s face turning to ash as he tried to choke the words out of her .
Isolde knelt beside the flowers. “He’s been here. They always come for the same reason.”
“What’s that?”
“*You *.” The Seer’s lavender eyes met her gaze. “The prince serves a different kind of wine when the *past * comes uninvited.”
Aurora’s scar throbbed , the crescent remembering its own story long before Evan ever left his . “Where do they keep him?”
The steward’s door had led them east, then north. Then time moved. Or *didn’t.* The moss underfoot had grown damp. Isolde touched her wrist and blinked—outside minutes would be years , perhaps.
“There.” Nyx pointed to a trellis of black vines , their knots forming a staircase into the sky.
The prince’s cookhouse was built on bones.
Aurora didn’t need the pendant to guide her now. Evan’s laughter came from within, but it was layered , warped. A chorus of voices overlapping, feasting on his own.
She didn’t knock. Not when the Fae blade was humming against her thigh.
The cook slid the knife across his thumb and caught a drop of blood mid-fall. “*Ah *, a mortal with a *sharp * tool.” His apron was stitched with the same threads as the fox’s ward—dinner was being planned. “And a *seer * who can’t see.” He tapped his own cheekbone, his eyes going hollow. Evan’s face floated there for a heartbeat. “The prince keeps *delicacies * in the wine cellars.”
Aurora stepped closer. “Where?”
The cook’s grin widened, knives replacing his top row of teeth. “*Ask * the corks.”
“Rory.” Isolde’s voice cut the air. “The wine cellars are *under * this room, yes?”
Aurora hadn’t noticed the ceiling—until Isolde gestured upward. Then she saw them.
Rows of corks, each as big as a man’s head, hung suspended in the amber light. Each cork had a faint glow around its rim, waiting.
The cook watched her . “Prince Belphegor’s collection is best *served * chilled .”
The ground trembled . A cork popped loose above them. It dropped, and Aurora didn’t flinch. She caught it. Inside, she heard Evan’s voice, strained and angry. She pressed the Fae blade to the cork’s surface. It cut cleanly, revealing Evan’s soul trapped inside—a shimmering, screaming thread.
Nyx’s whisper was a blade to her ear. *“He’ll escape if you hesitate. The prince’s cask is not meant to stop mortals.”*
Aurora twisted the blade down. The cask split, Evan’s soul writhing outward like liquid spilled. Isolde caught it—barehanded, the glow in her eyes turning sharp . Evan’s face coalesced in her palm.
“Do you *miss * her ?” Isolde purred. “Your *captain of the court *?” Her other hand flicked upward. Another cork popped free. Another soul. A young girl, no older than twelve, her eyes wide with terror as the cask shattered . “Prince Belphegor hosts all seasons, love. Even the kind that *tastes * of guilt.”
“Enough,” Nyx said. Their form was fully solid now, pressed into this realm like a shadow given the right to scream. “The prince’s wards are thinning. The feast is *awakening.*”
Aurora didn’t look back as the courtyard’s music began to swell. She pulled the cork from Isolde’s hand. Evan’s voice was faint within—a whisper of a man who’d learned to *feast * on others.
The ceiling shook. A chandelier of glowing corks hung loose. Nyx flickered toward it, their fingers closing around the chain that held it. The chandelier dropped. Corks exploded, souls pouring as Isolde laughed.
“Time to *eat,*” she said.
Aurora ran. She didn’t stop when the music rose to a crescendo. She didn’t check if the cookhouse followed. She just sprinted, Evan’s soul pulsing in her own grip like a heartbeat waiting to drown.
The portal marker—the honeycomb door—was gone . Replaced by a feast of stewards and a courtyard of thorns.
“Left or right?” she yelled at Nyx.
“*Neither.* The prince’s table is the only exit.”
Aurora skidded to a halt. The main courtyard was now a killing room. Dozens of stewards, their porcelain faces split by grins too wide for humanity.
Isolde spun, her other blade slicing through the air. “Well. No *need * to choose!”
“*Iso—*” Aurora started, but Isolde was *already gone *, her laughter trailing behind her like a spice in the smoke.
The stewards turned as one. Toward them. Toward the half-saved soul.
Aurora’s breath was a blade to her ribs. She sprinted again, not knowing if the direction was right but trusting Nyx would kill her if it wasn’t .
“*Rory.*” Nyx’s voice was a thread of wind through her ears. “The ward on Evan’s soul tastes of *iron.*”
“Like a *knife *?”
“Like a *contract.*”
The realization hit slower than it should have. Of course . Evan had signed something in real life—probably with real blood . Now Dymas was keeping the debt .
A steward grabbed her ankle. Its fingers were too long, the gilded sheen sliding off to reveal something raw like burnt pork under the skin. Aurora drove her knee upward, into its unblinking eyes. It didn’t flinch but its grip loosened enough for her to kick it.
“Evan’s *debt * is to the prince,” Nyx continued, their voice a shadow in her ear . “You ’ll need to *pay * it before leaving.”
Another steward lunged. Isolde’s blade met it, the moonsilver slicing not the figure but the invisible thread holding it to this place . “You didn’t *think * it’d be that easy, did you ?” The Seer spun again, her laughter now a weapon. “No one *escapes * the cookhouse without *tipping.*”
Aurora made it to the courtyard arch, the stewards now closing like a net. She slid the Fae blade through the first steward’s mask, its laugh cutting short. The second grabbed her arm—*hard *—and the world blurred.
“Evan’s *tip *,” Isolde hissed, her blade slicing through the steward’s porcelain skin and into Aurora’s wrist. The pain was a cold flame, the kind that didn’t burn but bound. “You must *offer * it to Belphegor. In person.”
A flash—of Evan’s face, of golden goblets, and of a prince with fingers like pastry cutters.
“I’m not his *waiter.*”
“You don’t get a *choice.* The Veil’s weakening in time for winter. He’ll come *through * if you don’t.”
The pendant throbbed once in her hand. Then again, slower. A countdown.
Nyx reformed beside her , their form now jagged like broken glass—tethered. “Prince Belphegor waits at the *bottom * of the stairwell. Through the wine cellar.”
“I don’t *do * stairs,” Aurora muttered, but she was already moving . She couldn’t let Evan come through *her * door, could she?
The wine cellar was a spiral of bottles, each label a shifting memory. Some held laughter. Some held screams. One, when she passed, showed a man in a lab coat slicing fruit for a child—her mother, probably. Others held Evan’s face. Evan’s choices. Evan’s *hunger.*
The floor beneath a cluster of bottles softened. Isolde yanked her back too late. The stairwell swallowed them.
The bottom was a kitchen the size of a cathedral. Meat hooks swayed from the ceiling like chandeliers. The prince sat on a throne of layered fat, his gilded hands wrapped around Evan’s throat. “Miss Carter,” he purred. A ring on his finger was a perfect mimic of Aurora’s pendant. “I was wondering when dinner would serve itself.”
Evan’s form flickered , caught between soul and memory. “*Help me,*” he mouthed.
“Help?” Aurora spat. “You *signed * up for this, didn’t you ?”
Belphegor’s grin widened. “He did. But *you * did, too. Your father. His father before him. A *legacy * of good service to *Hel.*” He tapped his temple. “You inherited the *invitation.*”
The Fae blade cut a line through the air. “Rory’s *done * with dinner parties,” Isolde said, her voice quieter now . “Hand over the portion, Belphegor. She’s here to *collect.*”
The prince’s grin didn’t waver. “I prefer the phrase *blood tax.*”
The room exploded. Vines erupted from the floor, corks fired like arrows, and the stewards reformed as something uglier—something with teeth and *kitchen * tools for fingers.
Aurora ran. Not at the prince. At the bottles.
One in particular shimmered with *his * face, her father’s. She yanked it free. The liquid inside burned as it spilled across her palm—*memory,* not wine. A vision bloomed, her father in his office, a fat black envelope addressed to *Cardiff * in smudged ink.
She tossed the bottle.
Nyx flickered , stepping between Belphegor and the explosion. Shadows devoured the shards, and the prince’s expression changed.
“Brave for someone about to *burn * under my table.”
“But I *know * your recipe,” Isolde said. Her blade was now a *threat *. “And I know what a *mess * we can make.”
The prince sighed. “Your mother always did enjoy *fire.*” He raised a hand. The stewards stilled. “But this evening’s menu is full. Unless…” His eyes met Aurora’s. “You bring a *course * you ’d rather *trade.*”
Evan’s soul was warm in her grip. She hesitated.
“*Trade,*” Belphegor said again. “Not *toss.*”
Then Nyx was beside her , their incorporeal form pressing a shadow into her ribs—urging. *“You have leverage, mortal. He’s hungry for it.”*
Aurora stepped forward, her blade a counterpoint to the prince’s fingers. “You ’ll *let * me walk away. With Evan.”
“Or?”
“Or I’ll bring the *winehouse * down. And not just on you .”
The prince raised a brow. The stewards, the bottles, the vines —everything paused.
“*Interesting *,” he said. “But do you *know * how many *years * are stacked in this house?”
“More than I’ve *cooked * for you ,” Nyx said. “But enough to taste.”
Aurora didn’t wait. She drove the Fae blade into the table. Belphegor didn’t bleed—just *rearranged *.
“Too slow,” the prince said.
The world changed.
The stairwell *reversed *. Aurora tumbled upward through the wine cellar as if it was now a *well * to be *pulled * from. The bottles exploded behind her , shards of memory and glass raining into a void.
She landed hard —on moss, not marble . Breath gone. Nyx flickered beside her . “The Veil’s closing. The prince’s wards are *tightening.*”
“Evan?” Isolde asked, already moving.
But Aurora’s hand was empty.
The cask *reformed * behind them, sealed and unbroken. Evan’s voice was a whisper trapped in the cork. “*You came all this way,*” it said. “*Wasn’t a rescue mission, was it?*”
She didn’t answer. Just stood.
The Fae blade had a mark in it now, faint as a scar. Aurora didn’t notice. Because the sky had gone black beyond the trees and her mother’s old envelope was now sealed with wax the color of *blood * and *bitter * wine.
Somewhere in the darkness, the prince chuckled. “*Next * season, Miss Carter. We’ll *serve * dessert.”