AI The vineyard tried to eat Rory’s boot.
She yanked her foot free with a wet rip, staggered into Nyx’s solid shoulder, and watched the black soil close over the print she had left as if the ground had a mouth and a grudge.
“Charming,” she said. “Does everything in Hel have teeth?”
Nyx tilted their shadowed head. Violet eyes glimmered in the dark hollow of their face.
“Only the hungry things.”
“That narrows it down beautifully.”
Behind them, the tear in the Veil shivered like heat above tarmac. It hung between two warped trunks, a thin, vertical wound in the world. Through it, Rory could still see the Fae Grove, if she squinted, ancient oak standing stones, impossible wildflowers, and Isolde Varga’s silver hair catching a light that did not belong to any season.
Then the tear flexed.
The Fae Grove folded away.
Rory grabbed the Heartstone Pendant at her throat. The deep crimson gemstone pulsed against her palm, warm enough to sting. Its faint inner glow pushed red light between her fingers.
“Isolde said it would hold the way open.”
Nyx drifted closer to the shrinking slit. Their outline frayed at the edges, smoke tugged by a silent wind.
“Isolde said the door would remember you. Doors remember many things. Mercy seldom counts among them.”
“That is the least helpful sentence anyone has ever said to me.”
“Untrue. In 1689, a bishop told me eels cured possession.”
The Veil snapped shut.
Silence rushed in, thick as cream.
Rory stood very still.
The place around them breathed.
Dymas spread before them in rich, impossible abundance. Not a forest, not quite a garden, not quite a kingdom, but a feast grown into landscape . Vines climbed black trellises of bone-white stone, their leaves broad and glossy, their grapes swollen to the size of plums. Orchards rolled away in neat rows, heavy with fruit that glowed under thin skins, gold pears, blue figs, pomegranates with seams like stitched wounds. Far off, tiered gardens rose along the flanks of a copper-coloured hill, each terrace spilling herbs, flowers, and pale fungi in careful, beautiful excess.
Above it all stretched a warm amber sky with no visible sun. Light soaked everything, honeyed and soft, yet Rory felt no comfort in it. The glow made the fruit look ripe, the shadows look patient, and her own hands look borrowed.
A scent drifted over the vineyard, baked sugar, crushed herbs, spiced meat, and beneath it, something sour. Overripe. Split open. Left too long on a silver plate.
Rory swallowed. Her mouth filled with saliva.
“No,” she muttered.
Nyx’s violet gaze slid towards her.
“Do not eat.”
“I gathered.”
“Do not lick your fingers. Do not taste the rain, should rain come. Do not accept cups, bowls, spoons, knives, kisses, or condolences.”
“Oddly specific.”
“Dymas trades in appetite. It learns the shape of yours.”
Rory released the pendant and checked the weapon at her hip. The Fae-Forged Blade rested in its sheath beneath her jacket, cold against her side even through the leather. Isolde had pressed it into her hand before the portal opened, all pale lavender eyes and riddles sharp enough to cut bread.
The knife that drinks moonlight may yet dine on kings.
Rory had asked if that meant she had to stab someone important.
Isolde had only smiled.
A low pluck-pluck-pluck sounded from the nearest trellis.
Rory turned.
One of the grape clusters trembled . The fruit shifted as if something moved beneath the skins. A grape split down the middle. Not juice inside. An eye. Wet, black, and blinking.
Another grape opened.
Then another.
Dozens of tiny eyes watched her from the vine.
Rory took one slow step back.
“Nyx.”
“I see them.”
“Good. Hate that.”
The vine shuddered. Leaves curled inward, their undersides lined with small hook-like thorns. A tendril unwound from the trellis and quested through the air, tasting, blind except for all those eyes.
Rory drew the Fae blade.
Moonsilver slid free with a soft hiss. The dagger’s leaf-shaped edge held a faint cold shimmer, and every eye on the vine snapped towards it.
The tendril recoiled.
Nyx leaned close to the plant, their body thinning to mist at the edges.
“The Courts do enjoy making an impression.”
“I’d prefer if they made instructions.”
“Stab what offends you. Avoid bargains. Bleed less than your enemies.”
“See? You can be useful.”
A sound answered from deeper in the vineyard, a distant bell, one clear note, followed by a murmur like a crowd behind closed doors.
Rory lowered the dagger.
“People?”
“Souls. Servants. Chefs. Courtiers. Predators wearing napkins.”
“Belphegor’s realm?”
“One of his tables.”
The path ahead widened between trellises. Pale gravel crunched under Rory’s boots, though she had not seen gravel a moment before. Dymas rearranged itself with the manners of a host and the morals of a trap. On either side, the vines bent away from the blade, making room.
Rory gave them a tight smile.
“Much appreciated.”
The eyes blinked in sequence, like applause.
They moved deeper.
The vineyard did not repeat itself. Every row brought a new wrongness wrapped in beauty. White roses grew from the mouths of marble cherubs. Tiny silver fish swam through the air between branches, nibbling pollen from blossoms shaped like open hands. A fountain poured red wine into a basin carved with laughing faces, but the liquid climbed upwards after it fell, looping in a lazy stream before pouring down again.
Rory kept her knife out.
Her trainers, scuffed from London pavements and Golden Empress deliveries, looked stupid against the pale path. A smear of black soil clung to one sole and pulsed now and then, as if it had a heartbeat.
“Is the ground still on me?”
“Yes.”
“Can it hear us?”
“Yes.”
“Can it understand sarcasm?”
The soil on her boot tightened.
“Brilliant.”
Nyx made a sound like dry leaves dragged over stone. Laughter, perhaps. With Nyx, Rory often had to guess.
They passed beneath an arch of braided vines. Fruit hung above them in heavy clusters, each one glass-clear and filled with tiny moving scenes. Rory slowed despite herself.
Inside one grape, a banquet hall glittered. Guests in masks raised cups while musicians bowed over instruments strung with hair.
In another, a woman in chef’s whites cried as she plated a dish of golden birds no bigger than her thumb. A demon with ram’s horns tasted one bird, smiled, and set a contract aflame.
Rory stepped closer to a third.
A London alley blinked inside it. Rain slicked the bricks. A younger Rory pressed herself against a wall, breath caught, phone clutched so tightly her knuckles blanched. Evan’s voice slurred somewhere beyond the frame, coaxing, angry, sweet as rot.
Rory crushed the grape in her fist.
Hot juice ran over her fingers.
The whole trellis sighed.
Nyx turned sharply .
“Do not taste it.”
“I’m not an idiot.”
“No. You are furious. Dymas seasons fury well.”
Rory wiped her hand on her jacket, then regretted it. The red stain smoked against the leather and left behind the smell of mulled wine.
The path narrowed into a tunnel of leaves. As they entered, sound changed. The distant bell faded. In its place came whispers, cutlery on china, knives chopping against boards, soft chewing, soft weeping. The leaves brushed Rory’s shoulders with a touch like damp satin .
“Rory,” Nyx whispered.
She stopped.
A figure stood between two trellises ahead.
At first glance, it looked human. A man, thin, bald, wearing a spotless white apron over a dark suit. He held a silver tasting spoon in one hand and a ledger in the other. His skin had the waxy sheen of a peeled lychee, and his mouth stretched too wide when he smiled.
“Guests,” he said. “Unannounced, unseated, unseasoned. How rustic.”
Rory lifted the blade a fraction.
“We’re passing through.”
“No one passes through Dymas.” He tapped the spoon against his lower lip. “They partake, are partaken of, or they are packed for later.”
“Lovely policy. Very welcoming.”
His eyes dropped to the pendant. For one heartbeat, his smile faltered.
The Heartstone burned hotter.
Nyx’s shadow spread across the gravel, reaching around the man’s shoes.
“Name your station.”
The man’s nostrils flared.
“Second saucier to the Orchard Kitchens. Contracted, witnessed, preserved.”
“Preserved?” Rory said.
The saucier’s smile returned, but it had cracks now.
“Prince Belphegor honours talent. Earth wastes it. Here, genius ripens.”
His spoon hand trembled . Not fear. Hunger.
Rory noticed the apron then. Not cotton. Fine, pale hide, stitched with thread that moved like little veins.
“Where are the Orchard Kitchens?”
“Beyond the tasting stairs. Past the fermentation choir. Under the Hall of Nine Courses.” The spoon rose. “I could escort you. A guest without guidance becomes waste.”
“We’ll manage.”
“Will you?” His gaze fixed on her wrist. On the small crescent-shaped scar there. “You have been bitten by life and did not learn to bite first. The kitchens adore tender stories.”
Rory’s fingers tightened on the dagger.
Nyx’s voice thinned to a blade.
“Careful.”
The saucier’s ledger opened by itself. Pages flicked , fluttering faster than wind could turn them. Names crawled across the parchment in brown ink. Some lines glowed. Some bled.
“Two travellers. One shade, unsalted. One mortal, marked by Heartstone, carrying stolen moon-craft.” His tongue slipped over his teeth. Too many teeth. “Oh, that is not passing through. That is a recipe.”
Rory moved first.
She slashed the ledger.
The Fae blade cut through parchment, ink, and the small ward hidden in the book’s spine. Blue-white sparks burst out, cold as sleet. The saucier shrieked and stumbled back. His apron-mouth, because it had a mouth now, opened across his stomach and screamed with him.
Nyx flowed over the gravel and rose behind him. A black hand closed around his throat.
“Which way?”
The saucier clawed at Nyx’s arm. His fingers passed through shadow, then stuck as Nyx made themself solid.
“Left at the fig trees. Down the stairs that chew. Do not take the golden lift. It charges interest.”
“Who holds the Heartstone’s twin?”
The saucier went still.
Rory glanced at Nyx.
“Twin?”
The saucier’s eyes rolled towards her. His lips peeled back, showing gums inked with tiny contracts.
“Little mortal came with a crumb and thought it bread. The pendant is a dinner bell.”
The ground split beneath him.
A root as thick as Rory’s thigh burst from the path, wrapped around the saucier’s waist, and dragged him down. He screamed once, high and brief. Gravel sealed over his head. His spoon landed at Rory’s feet with a musical ping.
For a moment, nothing moved.
Then the vineyard began to whisper her name.
Aurora.
Rory.
Laila.
Carter.
Malphora.
The last name crawled over her skin.
Nyx’s violet eyes flared.
“Do not answer.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
“You already did.”
Rory looked down.
The Heartstone Pendant blazed crimson. A thin thread of light stretched from it, leading away between the vines, towards the left.
“Right,” she said. “Dinner bell. That would’ve been useful earlier.”
“The saucier would not have spoken if he expected to survive.”
“He didn’t.”
“No. Something silenced him.”
The vines parted.
Beyond them waited an orchard.
Rory had seen orchards before, neat apple rows in Wales, fenced cherry trees in posh London gardens, cheap pears stacked outside corner shops beside newspapers and lottery tickets. This place took the idea of an orchard and taught it vanity.
Trees rose from polished black earth in spirals and curves, each trunk a different material. Some had bark like dark chocolate scored by knives. Some gleamed like green glass with amber sap trapped inside. One tall, ancient, silver tree seemed carved from bone, its branches hung with fruit shaped like sleeping hearts .
The air changed here. It thickened with warmth and spice. Cinnamon, anise, roast fat, orange peel, smoke. Rory’s stomach tightened so hard it hurt.
Tiny bells hung from the branches, but no breeze moved them. They rang as she passed, soft notes in uneven rhythm, tick-tock, ding-dong, a nursery tune with a butcher’s hand behind it.
Nyx kept to the shadows beneath the trees. In Dymas, shadows had flavour. Rory did not know how she knew that. They looked rich, oily, edged with purple. Nyx moved through them with a caution that made her grip the blade harder.
“You don’t like this place.”
“I remember hunger.”
“From before?”
Nyx paused beside a tree whose fruit whispered in Latin.
“Aldric starved three days before he opened the wrong circle. Hunger makes doors look kind.”
Rory looked at them. The name hung between them, rare and human.
“Aldric.”
“An old bone. Do not trip on it.”
The bells chimed louder ahead.
They found the stairs in a clearing of fig trees.
Each fig tree bent over a wide pit in the earth. The stairway descended into it, carved from ivory stone veined with red. Each step had a seam across its front edge. Teeth, Rory realised. Flat, grinding teeth.
She crouched and held the Fae blade near the first step.
The teeth clacked.
“Nope.”
Nyx peered down. Far below, golden light flickered . Voices rose from the depths , not whispers now but song . A choir of many throats hummed a single deep note while something wet bubbled beneath it.
“The fermentation choir,” Nyx said.
“Sounds like a pub cellar possessed by monks.”
“Accurate.”
The thread of crimson light from the pendant ran down the stairs and vanished into the glow below.
Rory scanned the clearing. No other path. The fig trees watched with purple fruit split just enough to show red interiors like tongues.
“How do we get down stairs that chew?”
“Feed them.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Not flesh. Names, coins, memories, blood, promises. Old constructions crave old tolls.”
Rory knelt closer, careful to keep her boots away. The first step opened and closed, slow and smug.
“What happens if I cut them?”
“You insult the craftsman.”
“Is he nearby?”
“In Hel, offence travels faster than scent.”
Rory frowned at the steps. Her mind moved the way it did on bad delivery runs, when streets closed, customers lied, rain soaked through her socks, and she had to find a route no map admitted.
The stairs ate weight . They expected tolls. They reacted to the blade. They had mouths.
She picked up a fallen fig.
Nyx’s head turned.
“Do not eat.”
“I swear that’s going on my gravestone.”
She tossed the fig onto the first step.
Teeth snapped shut. The fig vanished. The second step opened, eager.
Rory smiled.
“Greedy little bastards.”
She gathered more figs, keeping her sleeves clear of the branches. Nyx watched the trees while she worked. One branch lowered towards her hair, a silver leaf grazing a black strand. Nyx’s hand became a hooked shadow and severed the twig. The tree hissed sap that smelled of burnt caramel.
Rory dropped figs one by one.
Snap. Step.
Snap. Step.
Snap. Step.
The stairs chewed their payment and allowed them down, but only for a breath after each bite. Rory moved fast, timing her feet between jaws. The pit swallowed the orchard above. Warm gold light climbed the walls. Moist heat slicked her neck.
Halfway down, the choir’s sound settled into words.
Rise, sweet rot.
Breathe, old grape.
Break, soft soul.
Make, make, make.
Rory’s tongue tasted metal. The walls sweated wine. It ran in thin red threads down the ivory stone and gathered in grooves underfoot. The Fae blade glowed faintly, not with moonlight, but with irritation, as if the weapon disliked the place on principle.
A step snapped early.
Rory jerked back. Teeth grazed her boot and tore the sole.
“Oi!”
Another step below opened wide.
Nyx caught her around the waist and pulled her against the wall. For a second, their body felt solid as cold marble . Then the wall behind Rory softened.
Hands pressed out from the ivory.
Not carved hands. Real hands beneath a skin of stone, fingers straining, nails scraping soundlessly. Faces followed, cheeks, mouths, closed eyes. People trapped inside the stairwell, pushing towards air they could not reach.
Rory froze.
One face opened its eyes.
A woman stared at her through the ivory film. Her lips moved.
Rory leaned closer despite Nyx’s grip.
The woman mouthed one word.
Run.
The stairwell convulsed.
Every step opened at once.
Nyx lifted Rory clean off her feet as the stairs became a throat. Teeth clattered up and down the spiral, chewing empty air. The figs tumbled from Rory’s arms and vanished in wet snaps.
“Nyx!”
“Hold the blade out.”
Rory thrust the dagger forward.
Nyx plunged into shadow.
The world turned black, cold, and tight. Rory’s lungs seized. For one dreadful second she felt nothing beneath her, no stairs, no air, no body. Then they burst out at the bottom of the pit and crashed onto a slick stone floor.
Rory rolled, shoulder first. Pain flashed down her arm. The Fae blade skidded from her hand, spinning towards a gutter of red liquid.
She lunged and caught it by the hilt.
“Still got all my limbs?”
Nyx rose from a puddle of darkness, edges ragged.
“For now.”
“For now can get stuffed.”
They stood in a vast underground chamber.
The fermentation choir filled it.
Hundreds of glass vats towered in rows, each one taller than a London bus. Golden liquid churned inside them, slow and luminous. Shapes floated within, fruit, herbs, bones, and human silhouettes curled like unborn children. Tubes ran between the vats and into the walls, pulsing with red, gold, and black fluids. Platforms criss-crossed overhead. Figures in aprons moved along them with hooks and ladles, their faces hidden behind porcelain masks painted with smiles.
At the centre of the chamber, a choir stood waist-deep in a circular vat. Men and women, young and old, all with iron collars locked around their throats. They sang with blank eyes while demonic overseers adjusted levers beside them. Each note made the liquid rise, bubble, and glow.
Rory’s anger sharpened into something clean.
“Contracted talent?”
Nyx stared at the singers.
“Preserved genius.”
A porcelain -masked worker on the nearest platform stopped stirring.
Its head turned.
Then another.
And another.
The singing faltered.
Rory stepped back into Nyx.
A bell rang above them, harsher than the first. An alarm. The platforms erupted with movement. Hooks rose. Ladles became blades. Masks tilted down.
The Heartstone Pendant flared so hot Rory cried out.
Across the chamber, beyond the choir, a pair of bronze doors groaned open. Red light spilled through them. In that red stood a man in a velvet dining coat, broad and smiling, with rings on every finger and a goblet full of something that steamed.
Beside him hung a second crimson gem on a silver chain.
Its glow answered hers.
The man raised his goblet.
“Ah,” he called. “The missing course has arrived.”
The choir stopped singing.
Every vat began to boil.