AI The air thickened before it thinned, pressing against Rory’s ribs like a held breath. She rubbed the crescent-shaped scar on her left wrist, a nervous habit that did nothing to steady her pulse . Ahead, the ancient oaks stood in a loose circle, their bark carved with spirals that seemed to drift when she didn’t look directly at them . Isolde waited just beyond the threshold, her silver hair catching a light that had no visible source. She stood barefoot on the damp Richmond grass, yet left no impression on the earth beneath her. A half-fae seer exiled from her own courts, and somehow, the only person who could guide them through what lay ahead.
Nyx materialized at Rory’s shoulder, their solid form resolving from a pool of dusk-darkness. Six-foot-two of living shadow, faintly glowing violet eyes tracking the ancient wood. They shifted, boots pressing into the soil one moment, edges fraying into smoke the next. The change never made a sound, only displaced the air with a faint static chill . It breathes differently here, Nyx murmured. The voice carried like wind through dry reeds, barely there, yet perfectly clear in Rory’s ear. Not like the mortal air. Heavier. Older.
Time does not march in a straight line within the grove, Isolde said, turning. Her pale lavender eyes met Rory’s. It pools. It fractures. Step carefully , delivery girl. Your years are precious to the world outside, but inside, they are merely currency.
Rory swallowed. She had dealt with impossible before. She had fled an abusive ex, navigated London’s backstreets with takeout containers strapped to her back, and learned to read the subtle tells of supernatural encounters that left her with a moonsilver dagger at her hip. But this was different. This was crossing a line drawn in reality itself. She checked the Heartstone pendant beneath her wool coat. The deep crimson gem, roughly the size of a thumbnail and suspended on a silver chain, stayed cool against her collarbone. Good. No Hel portals nearby. The unknown benefactor who had pressed it into her hands months ago had warned her about the warmth . Warmth meant a tear in the world. Warmth meant danger.
Her boot crossed the line. The world folded.
Sound dampened, then returned layered with something harmonic, like glass bells struck underwater. The ground yielded beneath her soles, not with compacted earth but with something springy and alive, carpeted in wildflowers that defied every season she had ever known. Foxgloves bled into night-blooming jasmine. Moss glowed a soft, bioluminescent green. The air tasted of petrichor and crushed mint, thick enough to coat her tongue. Rory’s hand found the pommel of the Fae-forged blade at her belt. The moonsilver hilt was ice-cold, leaching the warmth from her palm. A good sign. It only grew colder around active magic or things that did not belong. The leaf-shaped dagger had been a parting gift from Isolde, carved from the silver of the Fae Courts. It was always cold to the touch, designed to drink heat from demons and slice through magical wards like paper. Right now, it felt like an anchor .
The Veil has thinned, Nyx observed, their form rippling. One moment they stood solid, boots pressing into the luminous moss. The next, their edges dissolved into shadow, drifting toward a curtain of hanging vines that shimmered with the same faint, oily distortion Rory had only ever seen in shattered mirror glass. A rift. Not wide enough to walk through, but wide enough to listen .
Listen carefully , Shade, Isolde said without turning. The spaces between realms are never empty. They are merely waiting.
Rory followed, her bright blue eyes scanning the canopy. The oaks’ branches wove overhead, blocking out whatever sky existed, replacing it with a filtered, pearlescent gloom . Shadows did not fall naturally here. They clung, pooled, and stretched in directions that defied the light. Nyx seemed to breathe easier, their violet gaze drinking it in. Rory guessed they felt at home in places that bled from one world into another. A human sorcerer trapped between realms for centuries would develop a taste for the in-between. She felt like she was walking through a dream that might wake and swallow her whole.
Why bring us here? Rory asked, keeping her voice low. Her cool-headed practicality warred with the primal urge to turn around and sprint back toward Richmond’s tarmac and streetlights.
Because the wards are failing, Isolde replied, her voice drifting back, melodic and maddeningly calm. And because you carry a blade that can reforge them. Or break them entirely. It depends on the hand that holds it.
Rory’s fingers tightened on her coat. The Heartstone pendant gave a sudden, sharp pulse against her collarbone. Warmth. Real warmth . Not the gentle thrum of proximity, but a violent, rhythmic heat that made her breath hitch.
Hel, she breathed.
Nyx drifted behind her, their solid form snapping back into focus with a sound like tearing silk . Not a portal. An echo . Dymas bleeds through the soil sometimes. Gluttony leaves a residue. Can you smell it beneath the mint? Overripe peaches. Spiced wine. Ash.
Rory did. Underneath the grove’s wild sweetness, a cloying, decadent rot lingered. It made her stomach turn. She unclasped her coat, pulling the pendant out. The crimson gem glowed with a faint inner light, vibrating against her thumb. It was pulling toward something.
Toward the heart of the tear, Isolde said, stopping at the base of a massive oak whose roots formed a natural stairwell descending into the earth. The Veil weakens when the sun dies and the earth rests. This is not the solstice, and yet the barrier frays. Someone is pulling at the strands from the other side.
Rory knelt, pressing two fingers to the moss-covered roots. They pulsed in time with the pendant. The Fae blade at her hip grew so cold it bit through her jeans, a warning she had learned to respect. You said we could not lie, she reminded Isolde, looking up. So tell me what you are not saying.
The half-fae’s silver hair shifted as she tilted her head. I have not lied. I have only omitted that the tear does not lead to Dymas alone. It leads to all of Hel. Gluttony is merely the first course. You will need both your wits and your weapon, delivery girl. The dead are hungry.
Rory stood, brushing damp soil from her palms. Great. Just a snack before the main meal. She adjusted the strap of her bag, feeling the familiar weight of her delivery routes, her flat above Silas’s bar, her pre-law books packed away in boxes she had not opened in months. That life felt paper-thin now. Irrelevant.
Panic is a luxury, she muttered to herself, shaking it off. Stay sharp. Observe. Adapt.
She drew the moonsilver dagger. It slid from its sheath with a whisper , the slender blade catching the grove’s strange light. It was meant to luminesce in moonlight, but here it cast a pale, silver sheen regardless, pushing back the clinging shadows. The cold radiating from it made her knuckles ache, but it centered her.
Nyx stepped past her, their silhouette dissolving into the root-stair as they descended. The stone remembers pressure, they called up, their voice echoing from below, layered with whispers. It was built to keep things out. Now it invites them in. Come. The air grows thinner, and the stone tastes of iron and regret.
Rory followed. The roots narrowed, forcing her to turn sideways. The walls closed in, not with damp earth, but with woven roots and smooth, dark stone carved with the same spirals as the oaks above. The pendant’s warmth intensified, syncing with a low, rhythmic thrum that vibrated in her molars. It was not just heat. It was a heartbeat. Or something trying to mimic one.
The grove’s ambient light shifted, dimming to a bruised purple as they descended. Wildflowers clung to the walls here, their petals translucent, revealing vein-like structures that pulsed with the same crimson rhythm as her pendant. Rory realized with a jolt that the plants were not growing toward light. They were growing toward the heat. Toward the tear.
They are feeding, she whispered.
All things feed, Isolde’s voice came from just ahead, calm as still water. The question is whether they choose what they consume, or are consumed by it.
At the bottom of the stairwell, the roots parted. A cavern opened, vast and silent. In the center, suspended over a pool of black water, hung a shard of the Veil. It looked like fractured glass caught in amber, shimmering with a distortion that made Rory’s eyes water. Through it, she caught glimpses of a sky painted in warm amber. Branches heavy with impossible fruit. A distant sound of clinking glass and laughter that sounded too loud, too sharp. Dymas. Gluttony. The excess bleeding through.
Nyx stood at the edge of the pool, their form flickering between solid and smoke. It is not just a tear, they murmured. It is a wound. And something is picking at the scab.
Rory stepped forward, the Fae blade raised. The pendant burned. She felt the weight of centuries in Isolde’s pale gaze, the ancient hunger of the grove, and the cold, precise certainty of the dagger in her hand. She did not know what would happen when she touched the shard. She did not need to. She had learned to move first and think fast.
Tell me how to stitch it, Rory said, her voice steady despite the tremor in her breath.
Isolde smiled, faint and sorrowful. You already know. You have been cutting through illusions your whole life. Now cut through the veil itself.
The shard shimmered . The amber sky flickered . The pendant burned hotter. Rory stepped into the light, and the world held its breath.