AI The first vine tried to drink Aurora’s blood before she had both feet through the portal.
It snapped from the amber glare like a whip, green-black and barbed, and wrapped round her wrist. Pain flashed over the small crescent scar there. The Heartstone Pendant on her chest flared hot enough to sting through her shirt.
“Rory!”
“Don’t yank me.”
Eva had already grabbed the back of Aurora’s jacket, boots skidding on the slick threshold behind them. Nyx rose from the shadow at Aurora’s left like smoke learning the shape of a person, violet eyes narrowing in their dark, faceless head.
The vine tightened.
Aurora sucked a breath through her teeth, drew the Fae-Forged Blade from inside her coat, and cut.
Moonsilver kissed the stem.
The vine shrieked.
Not snapped, not rustled, shrieked, high and wet and furious, like a kettle full of teeth. The severed length writhed on the ground, leaking syrup instead of sap. The smell hit her at once, honey, wine, roasted meat, and something underneath it all that reminded her of a butcher’s drain.
“Lovely welcome,” Eva muttered. “Five stars. Would flee again.”
The portal folded shut behind them with a sound like a throat swallowing.
For three seconds, nobody moved.
They stood at the edge of a path paved in polished bones and peach-coloured stone. Ahead, Dymas opened in impossible abundance.
Vineyards climbed hills that curved the wrong way, their rows spiralling up into the amber sky and vanishing into gold mist. Orchards hung heavy with fruit the size of lanterns, some split open to show jewel-bright seeds beating like tiny hearts. Farther off, vast glass kitchens rose between cypress-black trees, their chimneys breathing blue flame. A river of red wine wound through the valley below, slow and thick, carrying petals, silver fish, and the pale hands of things that ducked under when Aurora looked too long.
Somewhere deep in the realm, a bell rang once.
The sound passed through her ribs.
Nyx’s voice slid over her shoulder, a whisper carried on wind that had never known Earth.
“Dymas.”
Eva wiped syrup from her sleeve with two fingers and sniffed it. Her nose wrinkled.
“That’s jam.”
“Don’t taste it.”
“I wasn’t going to taste it.”
“You were looking at it like it owed you rent.”
Eva flicked the syrup away. It hit the bone path and sizzled into a tiny pink flower.
Aurora stared at it.
The flower opened, revealing a small tongue.
It licked the air.
“Right,” Eva said. “No touching anything. No sniffing anything. No making eye contact with flowers.”
Aurora slid the Fae blade back into its sheath, though her fingers stayed near the hilt. The dagger’s cold had numbed her palm. It helped. Everything else here pressed too close, too warm, too eager.
The Heartstone pulsed again, deep crimson light leaking between her fingers when she touched it. The pendant had led them here from the tear in the Veil beneath a shuttered bakery in Soho, through a door painted on brick and opened with blood. Her blood, of course. Ancient things always had poor manners.
Behind them stood no bakery wall now. Only a pair of tall basalt pillars carved with mouths. Each mouth chewed slowly , though none held food.
“One hour,” Aurora said.
Eva looked at her.
“What?”
“In and out. We find the kitchen with the black crown mark, lift Yu-Fei’s contract ledger, and go back before London notices I’ve skipped the dinner rush.”
“That may be the bleakest mission briefing I’ve ever heard.”
“You wanted inspirational?”
“I wanted less mention of your part-time rota while we stand in Satan’s farmer’s market.”
Nyx drifted ahead, their lower half dissolving into a trail of dark vapour that avoided the bone path’s shine.
“Not Satan. Not precisely .”
“Comforting, Nightwhisper. Cheers.”
The path dipped between walls of vine. Grapes brushed Aurora’s shoulders as she passed, fat and translucent, full of flickering scenes instead of juice. In one, a woman in chef’s whites wept over a silver stove. In another, a horned child laughed while stirring a pot with a human femur. A third grape showed Cardiff rain on a kitchen window, her mother’s hands rolling pastry, flour caught in the lines of her knuckles.
Aurora stopped.
The grape swelled towards her face, skin stretching thin. Her mother turned in the tiny scene, mouth forming Rory, love, are you hungry?
Aurora crushed the grape in her fist.
It burst warm across her palm. The illusion died with a smell of burnt sugar.
Eva touched her elbow.
“Rory.”
“Cheap trick.”
“Still worked.”
Aurora wiped her hand on her black jeans and kept walking.
The vineyard thickened. Leaves shifted though no breeze stirred them. They displayed their pale undersides as the group passed, like eyes rolling back in skulls. From somewhere between the rows came laughter, cutlery clinking, the wet chop-chop-chop of a knife through meat.
They reached a low arch woven from antlers and flowering rosemary. Beyond it lay a terrace overlooking the valley.
Aurora stepped through first.
The terrace had no wall at its edge. It simply ended, dropping into a gulf where orchards hung upside down from the underside of floating islands. Chefs moved on those inverted groves with perfect ease, white aprons tied tight, knives flashing as they harvested fruit that dripped upward. Their faces varied wildly. Human, mostly. Some old, some young. One man had no eyes, only round black olives pressed into the sockets. Another woman wore a collar of written parchment that tightened whenever she slowed.
Eva’s usual sharpness drained from her face.
“Those are people.”
“Helbound souls,” Nyx whispered. “Contracted from Earth. Some sold skill. Some sold hunger. Some signed without reading.”
Aurora gripped the pendant.
Yu-Fei had not signed anything, not willingly. The old woman had given Aurora dumplings after late shifts, had scolded her for skipping meals, had pressed a paper bag of sesame balls into her hands after noticing the bruises Evan left and said nothing that would make pity sound like pity. Then the Golden Empress ovens had begun bleeding. Then the black-crowned invoice arrived, written in a language Aurora could not read but somehow understood.
Payment overdue.
Soul collateral pending.
“Where’s the mark?” Eva asked.
Aurora scanned the valley. The kitchens sprawled in terraces of copper, bone, and glass. Symbols burned above each roof, a silver fork, a pomegranate split by lightning, a laughing pig with too many legs.
Then she saw it.
A black crown above the largest structure , half palace, half abattoir, set into the side of a hill. Its doors stood open. Music poured out, strings and drums and a low chanting that made her stomach clench.
“There.”
The terrace shuddered beneath them.
Cracks raced through the peach stone. From the vineyard behind them came the soft drag of something heavy across leaves.
Eva turned.
A boar stepped onto the path.
No, not a boar. A banquet’s nightmare of one. It stood taller than a horse, plated in crackling skin that split in places to show red muscle glazed with fat. Tusks of polished ivory curled round its snout. Apples sat where its eyes should have been, roasted brown and bubbling. Steam puffed from its nostrils, carrying rosemary, smoke, and rot.
A silver serving fork jutted from its flank.
Eva lifted the iron crowbar she insisted on bringing.
“I hate this place.”
The boar lowered its head.
Aurora judged the distance to the terrace edge, the loose stone, the creature’s weight .
“Eva, left on my mark.”
“What mark?”
The boar charged .
“That one.”
Aurora threw herself right. Eva leapt left, swearing, as the beast thundered between them. Its hooves struck sparks from bone. Nyx dissolved beneath it, then rose behind as a blade of shadow that slashed across its haunch.
The wound opened. Gravy poured out.
The boar screamed and skidded. Its back legs slammed into an antler post. The arch collapsed in a clatter of bone and rosemary. Vines surged forward, excited by spilled meat.
Aurora ran at the terrace edge.
“Rory, if your plan is gravity, I object.”
“Noted.”
She dropped to one knee beside the widening crack in the stone and drove the Fae blade into it. Moonsilver bit deep. The terrace groaned.
The boar rounded on her.
Eva swung the crowbar into its snout. One roasted apple eye burst, spraying hot cider across her coat.
“Christ!”
The beast tossed its head. Eva flew backwards into the vines. Barbs closed round her legs.
“Nyx!”
Shadows speared through the vine wall, pinning three tendrils to the ground. Eva tore free, face pale, one boot smoking.
Aurora wrenched the dagger sideways.
The crack split open.
The boar charged again, all tusk and steam and blind hunger. Aurora waited until the last breath before impact, then rolled.
Its front hooves struck the broken section.
Stone gave way.
For a moment the beast hung there, too large to fall, too committed to stop. Then the terrace lip collapsed beneath it. The boar plunged into the gulf, legs kicking. It hit an upside-down orchard far below, smashing through branches and scattering floating fruit like sparks.
Silence followed.
Then applause.
Aurora froze.
Across the gulf, on balconies grown from white bone, figures had gathered. Demons in velvet coats. Pale women with mouths painted gold. Fat little imps perched on railings, clapping with all four hands. A tall creature with a stag skull for a head raised a crystal glass in salute.
Eva staggered to Aurora’s side.
“Did we just become entertainment?”
Nyx solidified beside them, taller now, edges fraying.
“In Dymas, everything becomes appetite. Hunger for food. Hunger for sport. Hunger for grief.”
“Do you ever say anything normal?”
“No.”
“Fair.”
A horn sounded from the black-crowned kitchen.
The applause stopped.
Every head on every balcony turned towards the palace-abattoir. Its great doors flexed wider, as if the building inhaled. Warm air rolled out, thick with cinnamon, charred bone, yeast, and blood.
A procession emerged.
Six servants carried a long table on their shoulders. The table had legs, dozens of them, thin and insect-like, kicking beneath the polished surface. Upon it sat covered dishes beneath silver domes. Behind the servants came three chefs in black masks, their aprons spotless, their knives chained to their wrists.
Last came a woman in a crimson gown cut like a wound.
She looked human until she smiled.
Too many teeth. Not sharp, not jagged, just too many, crowding her mouth in neat white rows. A black crown emblem gleamed at her throat.
Aurora stepped back. Her heel found empty air where the terrace had broken.
Eva caught her sleeve.
The woman in crimson looked across the gulf straight at Aurora, though the distance should have made that impossible. Her voice arrived at their ears as if she stood close enough to share breath.
“Guests from Earth. Unseasoned, unscheduled, and armed with stolen Fae silver.”
Aurora’s fingers closed round the dagger hilt.
The woman’s smile widened.
“How rustic.”
Nyx shifted, shadow pulling tight around them.
“Steward.”
Eva’s gaze flicked between them.
“You know Teeth Dress?”
“By reputation.”
“Flattering.” The steward lifted one hand. A servant removed the first silver dome.
Something beneath it sobbed.
Aurora’s throat tightened.
The second dome lifted. Under it lay a book bound in red leather, chained shut, its pages twitching like trapped wings. On its cover, a black crown had been branded deep.
The contract ledger.
The steward stroked it with one long finger.
“A delivery girl, a mouthy mortal, and a failed sorcerer’s shadow. Prince Belphegor will adore the joke.”
Nyx went still.
Eva’s expression sharpened.
“Failed sorcerer?”
“Later,” Aurora said.
“No, that sounded current.”
The steward tapped the ledger. The chain unwound from the book and rose like a metal snake.
“Come down, Aurora Carter of Cardiff. Come down and plead for your cook. We have prepared a tasting menu of terms.”
Aurora said nothing.
The steward’s eyes dropped to the Heartstone Pendant. For the first time, her smile faltered.
“Where did you get that?”
The pendant burned against Aurora’s skin. The crimson glow spread through the silver chain, bright and angry. Around them, the bone path began to hum. The mouths carved into the distant basalt pillars stopped chewing.
Nyx whispered, low and urgent.
“Aurora.”
The steward raised her hand higher.
Every vine in the vineyard turned towards them.
“Bring me the girl intact. Remove the others in portions.”
The terrace erupted.
Vines burst through stone, thick as ropes, barbs slick with syrup. Eva swung the crowbar and shattered one, but three more lashed round her waist. Nyx vanished into shadow as a net of golden hooks plunged through the space they had occupied.
Aurora drew the Fae blade.
The Heartstone flared once, hard as a heartbeat.
The ground beneath her feet opened into a red, hungry mouth.