AI The oaks did not look like oaks once Aurora stepped between them.
From the path in Richmond Park, they had been ordinary enough—old, broad-trunked, winter-bare, their branches clawing at a washed-out London sky. The grass had been damp under her boots, the air cold enough to sting the inside of her nose. Somewhere behind them, traffic had muttered beyond the park wall, dull and human and blessedly familiar .
Then she crossed the ring of standing stones, and the world took a breath.
The trees straightened.
Not physically, not in any way her eyes could prove, but something in their presence rose to meet her . The ancient oaks stood like sentries, each trunk grown around a slab of dark stone veined with silver-green lichen. Their roots arched from the earth in knuckled coils, gripping soil that shimmered faintly as though the ground had been dusted with ground glass. Between the stones, the air trembled with a soft distortion, a heat-haze without heat. The Veil, perhaps. Rory had only glimpsed it twice before, both times near trouble, and never this close. Never with it humming against her skin like a plucked wire.
The moment she stepped through, winter vanished.
Warmth folded over her cheeks. Not summer warmth , not exactly. It smelled of rain on leaves, apple blossom, wild honey, and something sharper beneath—cold iron left in moonlight. The grass beyond the stones grew thick and impossibly green, starred with wildflowers in every colour she knew and several she didn’t. Tiny blue bells that glowed at their throats. Pale yellow cups cupping beads of light instead of dew. Red flowers like small open mouths turning toward her as she passed.
Rory stopped because her body forgot how to do anything else.
Behind her, Eva drew in a breath that broke halfway through. “Holy shit.”
Silas, who had been pretending not to be impressed since they left the flat above his bar, said nothing. That, from him, was practically a hymn.
Nyx slid through the boundary last.
The Shade did not step so much as gather. One moment a smear of darkness stretched long across the damp grass outside the grove; the next, they rose inside the ring in a humanoid shape, all black edges and faint violet eyes. The sunlight—if it was sunlight here—moved through them in strange ways. It did not illuminate Nyx. It bent around them, reluctant to touch.
Their whisper brushed Rory’s ear though they stood several feet away. “Careful. This place remembers footsteps .”
Rory looked down automatically. Her boots had pressed no print into the grass.
Neither had anyone else’s.
“That’s encouraging,” she muttered.
The Heartstone pendant warmed against her sternum, a slow pulse through the fabric of her jumper. She touched it through her coat. The deep crimson gem was no bigger than her thumbnail, but lately it felt heavier, as if it had learned the trick of dread. Warmth meant a portal to Hel nearby, according to Nyx. Or near enough. In London, that had been bad news. Here, in a Fae pocket between places, she wasn’t sure what counted as “near.”
The Fae blade rested hidden inside her coat, strapped against her ribs in a sheath Silas had modified after three pints and a lot of theatrical sighing. Even through leather and wool she could feel its cold, a narrow line of winter beside her heartbeat. Isolde’s gift. Slender. Leaf-shaped. Moonsilver. Beautiful in the way sharks were beautiful.
Rory had not wanted to bring it.
Rory had absolutely brought it.
The grove opened before them in a shallow dip of land that could not possibly fit inside Richmond Park. It stretched too far, falling away in terraces of moss and root and pools reflecting a sky that was not London’s. Above, twilight hung in layers. The west burned bruised gold; the east deepened to indigo; overhead, a pale green aurora rippled soundlessly between stars visible in full daylight. Clouds moved like slow fish beneath the branches.
A path revealed itself only when Rory looked aside. Face it directly, and there was only grass. Glance past it, and a ribbon of silver leaves led deeper between flowering hawthorn and black-barked birch. It seemed rude to mention that the path was being coy.
Eva tucked her hands under her arms. Her short curls shivered in the breeze though the air was warm. “Are we sure the half-Fae oracle actually wants visitors? Because this has strong ‘murdered by decorative shrubbery’ energy.”
“Isolde sent the message,” Silas said. “If she meant to murder us, I imagine she’d be punctual about it.”
Rory glanced at him. “That was almost comforting until the end.”
“Best I can do.”
Nyx drifted to the head of the path, their form thinning at the edges. “Stay between the flowers. Do not answer if anything calls you by a name you have not given it.”
Eva went still. “Sorry, what?”
Nyx’s violet gaze turned toward her. “And do not eat anything.”
“I wasn’t planning to nibble the magic weeds.”
“Plans change here.”
Rory started walking before her imagination had time to develop teeth. The silver leaves did not crunch beneath her boots. They chimed softly, each step sounding a different note, until the path sang around them in a delicate, uneven melody. A childish part of her wanted to step faster and see if she could play a tune. A smarter part pictured the grove noticing and deciding she was an instrument.
They moved under an arch of branches hung with lantern-fruit: translucent pods shaped like pears, glowing amber from within. Shapes swam inside them. Not seeds. Tiny curled things with wings folded over their faces. Rory slowed despite herself.
One pod pulsed brighter as she passed.
A miniature hand pressed against the inner skin.
Eva made a strangled noise. “Nope.”
“It’s not trapped,” Nyx whispered. “Not as you understand it.”
“That’s your worst sentence yet.”
The path curved toward a shallow stream. Its water ran uphill over stones white as bone. It made no sound at all until Rory crouched beside it. Then voices murmured from the current, too many to separate. Welsh, maybe. Irish. A language that tasted like snow when she heard it . She caught the shape of her mother’s laugh and nearly put her hand in.
Silas caught her wrist.
Not hard. Just two fingers over the small crescent scar on her left wrist, grounding as a nail through paper.
Rory looked at him. His face had gone carefully blank, the way it did when something rattled him enough that he refused to give it the satisfaction.
“Don’t,” he said.
The water whispered again. Brendan Carter’s voice this time, clipped and irritated, calling her Aurora in the tone that meant she had disappointed him.
The ache of it surprised her. Not because she missed being scolded —God, no—but because for one stupid second the sound made Cardiff feel close. Her father’s study. Rain on the window. Case files stacked in neat towers. The life she’d fled wrapped up in a voice coming from a stream that ran uphill in a place where flowers breathed.
She pulled her hand back. “Right. Murder water. Good catch.”
Silas released her. “I prefer to be useful before lunch.”
The stream had no bridge. Instead, flat stones rose from the bank as they approached, surfacing one by one like pale turtles. Each bore a carved symbol that shifted when Rory tried to focus on it. A crown became a mouth. A mouth became an eye. An eye became a key.
Nyx crossed first, weightless and silent. Eva followed, jaw clenched , arms out for balance. Silas went after her with exaggerated dignity and only slipped once. Rory stepped onto the first stone and felt it move beneath her, not physically, but in time . For a heartbeat she was five years old, crying in a hospital while her mother wrapped a bandage around her wrist. Then twenty-three, in a London bathroom, pressing a towel to a split lip and telling Eva through a locked door that she was fine. Then now, boot on stone, pendant warm, blade cold, mouth dry.
The stone hummed.
She stepped quickly to the next.
By the far bank, her palms were damp.
The grove deepened after the stream. Trees grew closer together, but the space between them stretched impossibly. Rory could see far ahead and only a few feet at once. Ferns taller than her shoulders unfurled fronds patterned like peacock eyes. Mushrooms clustered at the roots of trees, their caps glossy black and freckled with stars. Somewhere to the left, unseen bells rang once, twice, then stopped as if embarrassed to have been heard .
They found the first statue in a clearing no wider than a sitting room.
It was carved from green stone and half swallowed by ivy: a fox standing on hind legs, one paw pressed to its chest, the other extended as though offering a dance . Its face was too clever, too patient. Around its neck hung a chain of acorns lacquered in gold.
Eva leaned close. “Cute.”
The fox statue blinked.
All four of them froze.
Slowly, moss flaked from its muzzle. Stone lips parted around teeth like polished seeds.
“Guests,” it said, in a voice like dry leaves rubbing together. “Guests with warm blood and borrowed silver.”
Rory’s hand went inside her coat.
Nyx became less solid. Shadows pooled around their feet, spreading over the grass.
The fox tilted its head. “Not for you, knife-girl. Not unless you mean to cut a welcome.”
“Depends on the welcome,” Rory said.
It smiled. “Sharp tongue. Sharper fear. The Seer waits where the roots drink moonlight.”
Silas exhaled through his nose. “That sounds straightforward. Suspiciously so.”
“Straight paths are for those with short lives.” The fox lowered its paw toward a gap between two yew trees Rory would have sworn had not been there a moment before. “Go crooked.”
Eva gave a tiny, hysterical laugh. “Of course. Why wouldn’t we go crooked?”
Rory looked at Nyx. “Is it lying?”
“Fae things cannot always lie,” Nyx whispered. “They can arrange truth into traps.”
“Lovely.”
The fox’s stone eyes gleamed. “The shadow speaks from experience. Once man, now margin. Once Aldric, now almost.”
Nyx went utterly still.
The grove seemed to still with them. Leaves paused in mid-shiver. The amber pods dimmed. Even the upward stream behind them fell silent.
Rory had never heard anyone call Nyx by the human name they had once carried. Aldric. It landed strangely, too intimate and too old, like opening a grave and finding someone awake inside.
Nyx’s violet eyes narrowed to slits. “Mind your tongue, root-gnawed thing.”
“I have no tongue,” said the fox, and indeed its mouth was stone again.
The clearing released a breath.
Silas rubbed both hands over his face. “Right. Crooked, then.”
They took the gap between the yews.
The path beyond did not sing. It swallowed sound. Rory heard her own breathing louder than the others, the brush of her coat sleeve, the double pulse of pendant and heart. Branches interlaced overhead until the strange sky disappeared. In the dimness, the wildflowers gave off faint light. Blue, gold, violet. They lit Eva’s face from below and made Silas look like a man telling ghost stories at a bar he definitely did not own.
Nyx moved beside Rory now rather than ahead. Their outline wavered .
“You all right?” she asked quietly.
A pause. Then, “No.”
The honesty startled her more than a riddle would have.
“Can it hurt you? Knowing that name?”
“Names are doors,” Nyx said. “Some should remain closed.”
Rory thought of all the names she had shed and gathered. Aurora, when her father wanted obedience. Rory, when Eva wanted her to remember herself. Carter, barked by restaurant staff when orders piled up. Laila, the false name she had once used because being found had felt worse than lying. Malphora, whispered by things from Hel with hunger in their eyes.
“Yes,” she said. “They are.”
The path sloped down. The air grew cooler. Ahead, silver light leaked through the trees, thin as water under a door. The Heartstone flared warm enough that Rory hissed and yanked it out from under her jumper. The crimson gem glowed from within, its pulse quickening.
Silas saw it. “That normal?”
“No.”
Eva stared at it, then at the dark trees around them. “Define no.”
“Near a Hel portal, it warms.” Rory held the pendant away from her skin. The silver chain trembled . “This is more than warm.”
Nyx’s shadow fingers hovered over the gem but did not touch it. “Dymas.”
The word arrived with scent.
Ripe fruit. Roasting meat. Butter browning in a pan. Spiced wine. Sugar caramelising to the edge of bitter. Rory’s stomach clenched with sudden, violent hunger though she’d eaten toast less than an hour ago. Eva swore and pressed a hand to her belly. Silas looked furious at his own mouth for watering.
Through the trees on their right, the grove tore open.
Not a doorway. Not exactly. A vertical shimmer hung between two trunks, faint and wavering , like heat above tarmac. Beyond it lay warm amber sky and hills striped with vineyards. Orchards rolled into the distance, heavy with fruit too bright to be natural. Long tables gleamed under garlands of flowers, piled high with platters: glazed birds, jewel-coloured pastries, towers of figs, bowls of cream. Laughter drifted through, rich and lazy. Somewhere, knives chopped in perfect rhythm.
Dymas.
Gluttony.
Rory’s body stepped toward it before her mind agreed.
Nyx caught her by the shoulder, solid fingers cold through her coat. “Do not.”
The command snapped something taut in her. Rory stopped with one boot half lifted. The hunger remained, but now she could feel the hook inside it. Not appetite. Invitation. A hand under the chin, tilting her face toward a feast that would never let her leave.
On the other side of the shimmer, a chef in a white coat turned.
He was human, or had been. Broad face. Dark beard. Eyes filmed with gold. He held a spoon dripping sauce the colour of rubies. His smile widened when he saw them.
“Guests!” he called, voice muffled by the Veil . “Just in time. Taste and be cherished.”
Eva made a small sound. “I really hate that I want to.”
Silas took one step in front of her. “Back away.”
The chef lifted the spoon to his own mouth and tasted. Ecstasy slackened his face. Behind him, the feast-goers turned one by one. Too many teeth. Too-bright eyes. A woman in silk raised a goblet and beckoned.
The Heartstone burned.
Rory shoved it under her coat and drew the Fae blade.
Moonsilver slid free with a whisper like frost forming on glass. Cold bit into her palm. The dagger caught the silver light bleeding from ahead and answered, faintly luminescent, its leaf-shaped edge clean and cruel.
The shimmer recoiled.
Not much. Just enough.
The chef’s smile curdled.
“Borrowed silver,” he said, no longer welcoming.
Rory’s fear sharpened into something usable. “That’s me.”
She did not slash at the portal. Instinct told her not to cut what she did not understand, and experience told her instinct was often the only barrister she could afford. Instead she held the blade between them and the opening while Nyx spread darkness over the ground. The Shade’s shadow stretched toward the rift, thin tendrils stitching into the edges of the shimmer. The air smelled suddenly of smoke and overripe peaches.
“Move,” Nyx whispered, strain roughening the wind of their voice.
They moved.
Not running. Running felt like prey. Rory backed away, blade raised, until the trees swallowed the amber hills and the laughter thinned to a thread. The hunger faded last, sulky and resentful, leaving her shaky.
Eva bent over with her hands on her knees. “If anyone asks, I was very brave.”
“You were vertical,” Silas said. “In context, admirable.”
Rory sheathed the dagger with effort. Her fingers had gone numb from the cold. “Why is there a Hel portal inside a Fae grove?”
No one answered.
Which was, in its own way, an answer.
The silver light ahead brightened. The trees parted without ceremony, and they stepped into another clearing.
This one was vast.
At its centre grew an oak so large it made every other tree seem like a rumour. Its trunk rose wider than Silas’ bar, bark ridged in deep spirals that glimmered with embedded moonstone. Roots spilled across the clearing in great arches, forming hollows and bridges, cradling pools of still black water where stars burned beneath the surface. Its branches vanished into layers of twilight, hung with ribbons, bones, keys, feathers, broken mirrors, and hundreds of tiny glass bottles filled with captured lights.
Wildflowers carpeted the ground in impossible profusion. Snowdrops beside poppies. Lavender beside foxglove. Daffodils nodding next to black roses that drank the light around them. The air was full of wings: moths pale as parchment, dragonflies with stained-glass bodies, small birds made entirely of leaves.
And there, beneath the great oak, stood Isolde Varga.
She looked no older than Rory, and older than the stones.
Silver hair fell to her waist, moving in a breeze that touched nothing else. Her eyes were pale lavender, almost colourless, and when they settled on Rory it felt less like being seen than being remembered by someone she had not yet met. She wore a dress the colour of mist over moss, and her bare feet hovered just above the flowered ground.
No footprints. Of course not.
“Four come through the teeth of the wood,” Isolde said. Her voice was soft, musical, and every word seemed to choose itself with care. “One carrying hunger’s heart. One carrying moon’s thorn. One carrying a name buried badly. One carrying fear in both hands and calling it sense.”
Eva straightened slowly . “I feel attacked by how vague that wasn’t.”
Isolde’s mouth curved, not quite a smile . “The honest arrow wounds before it saves.”
Rory stepped forward. The pendant had cooled now to a dull, uneasy warmth . The blade pressed cold against her ribs. Behind her, the path they’d taken was gone , replaced by a wall of bluebells swaying though there was no wind.
“We saw Dymas,” Rory said. “A portal. Here.”
“A mouth,” Isolde corrected. “Small now. Hungry soon.”
“Can you close it?”
Isolde tilted her head. Overhead, the bottles in the oak chimed softly , though none touched. “The hand that shuts the oven may still burn. The knife that cuts the cord may free the cradle or loose the beast.”
Silas sighed. “I’d forgotten how much I enjoy prophecy.”
Rory ignored him. “Is that a yes?”
“I cannot lie, Aurora Carter.” Isolde’s gaze flicked to the scar on Rory’s wrist, then to the place beneath her coat where the Heartstone rested. “But truth is a cup, and you have not yet asked how deep.”
Unease crawled up Rory’s spine. Around the clearing, the flowers had turned toward them. Every bright little face.
She thought of the chef’s golden eyes. The tables under the amber sky. The way her own foot had lifted without permission.
“How deep?” Rory asked.
Isolde’s smile faded.
Beneath the great oak, one of the black pools rippled. Reflected stars scattered. For an instant, Rory saw not the sky but a banquet hall burning ; vines crawling through London brick; mouths opening in walls; Eva laughing with tears streaming down her face as she ate something red from her own hand; Nyx dissolving into a crack of light; Silas behind his bar, polishing a glass while shadows queued like patrons.
Then the pool stilled.
Isolde lifted one pale hand and pointed toward Rory’s chest.
“The heart remembers its kitchen,” she said. “Dymas has tasted you through the stone. Now it sets a place at the table.”
The grove, wondrous and warm and flowering in all seasons, seemed suddenly to lean closer.
Rory closed her fingers around the pendant until its edges bit her palm. Fear rose, quick and cold, but beneath it something steadier took shape. She had fled enough rooms in her life. She knew the difference between leaving and being chased .
“Then we uninvite it,” she said.
For the first time, Isolde truly smiled.
Somewhere high in the ancient oak, unseen bells began to ring.