AI The first thing Aurora noticed was the sky.
It was the colour of honey held to a lamp: warm amber, streaked with slow currents of gold and russet that might have been cloud, smoke, or something larger moving far above. There was no sun she could find. Light simply existed, poured across the land with the thick, flattering glow of late afternoon.
The second thing she noticed was that the air smelled edible.
Not merely pleasant. Edible.
Cinnamon bark, hot sugar, crushed mint, roasted meat, rain on black soil. Beneath it all lay a richer scent that made the back of her tongue ache with hunger, though she had eaten two bacon sandwiches at the bar before Silas had sent her away with a grim look and a muttered, “Don’t come back dead.”
Aurora gripped the Heartstone pendant through her shirt.
It had gone from warm to hot the instant she stepped through the rupture. Now the deep crimson stone pulsed against her palm, its faint inner glow bleeding through the fabric in time with her heartbeat.
Behind her, the rift snapped shut.
The noise was small. A wet click, like a mouth closing.
Aurora turned sharply .
There was nothing behind them but a wall of pale, densely flowering hedge. Its leaves were broad as dinner plates, their veins glimmering silver. White blossoms as large as her hand opened and shut in a leisurely rhythm. Each breath they took made a soft, papery sigh.
“No,” Aurora said.
Nyx stood a few paces away, taller than the hedge, their body a narrow human shape cut from a piece of midnight. The amber light did not touch them properly. It skated along their edges and vanished. Two violet points regarded the hedge.
“The door has folded,” they whispered.
“That means what, exactly?”
“That we are no longer standing near it.”
Aurora stared at them. “That was not an answer.”
“It is the answer I have.”
The third member of their little expedition drifted past them without disturbing the grass.
Isolde Varga moved through the strange orchard with her silver hair spilling down her back like water under moonlight. She had not changed clothes for the journey. Her pale grey coat, narrow boots, and dark gloves looked more suited to Richmond Park than this impossible place, but the realm seemed to approve of her. The thorny vines leaning from the hedge drew back from her sleeves. A pale yellow flower bent on its stem as she passed, as though bowing .
Aurora looked down automatically.
No footprints.
The grass beneath Isolde’s boots remained smooth and unpressed.
Ahead, a narrow path wound between massive trees whose branches bore fruit in impossible profusion. Pears of smoky blue glass hung beside clusters of red berries that flickered like coals. Some of the trees carried round, pale fruits with skin like velvet . Others bore things that looked uncomfortably like little golden hearts.
Farther out, beyond terraces covered in vines, rose a city.
Or perhaps a palace.
Its towers climbed from the rolling fields in tiers of cream-coloured stone, each roof glazed in copper and green. Bridges threaded between the upper levels. Waterfalls spilled from balconies and disappeared into gardens below. At this distance Aurora could still see moving points of colour on the terraces—people, perhaps—and flashes of light from what might have been enormous mirrors.
A bell rang somewhere in the city.
The note rolled through the air in a deep, mellow wave.
All around them, the orchard answered.
Fruit shivered on branches. The grass bowed flat, then stood again. Something winged shrieked in the distance, high and hungry.
Aurora swallowed.
“Dymas,” she said.
“Dymas,” Isolde agreed.
The name landed heavily.
Gluttony, Aurora thought. Prince Belphegor’s realm. The words had sounded ridiculous in the old stories Isolde had let slip over tea and honey cakes: hellish kingdoms with names like sins, demon princes holding court over the damned. Yet here she was, standing beneath a sky the colour of molten sugar, with a sealed portal behind her and a Fae-forged dagger tucked inside her boot.
The dagger was cold against her ankle. That helped.
“What are we looking for?” Aurora asked.
Isolde’s lavender eyes shifted toward the distant city. “A flame swallowed by a feast.”
“That could not possibly be less useful.”
“It could,” Nyx said. “She might have said, ‘The answer is where it is not.’”
Isolde gave the Shade a faint, knowing smile. “And yet you came.”
Nyx’s violet eyes dimmed slightly . Aurora had learned that this was the closest they came to a scowl.
“We came,” they said, “because the pendant chose this crossing.”
Aurora’s fingers tightened around the Heartstone. She had found it in the pocket of a coat she did not own, delivered to the flat above Silas’s bar with no note and no explanation beyond a name written on the parcel: Aurora Carter. Ever since, it had pulled at her attention in odd places. Underground stations. Alleyways. The edge of Richmond Park. Tonight, under the bare oak branches near the standing stones, it had burned bright enough to show through her jacket.
Then the Veil had split.
She had hoped, absurdly, that on the other side she would find answers waiting in a tidy line.
Instead she had found an orchard that smelled like a banquet and a horizon full of unfamiliar towers.
“Fine,” she said. “We move toward the city. We keep close. We don’t eat anything, drink anything, bargain for anything, or agree to anything anyone says without discussing it first.”
Nyx inclined their head.
Isolde said, “Sensibly spoken.”
Aurora gave her a look. “You’re included.”
“Oh, naturally.”
They took the path.
At first Aurora kept expecting the ground to change beneath her feet, for the landscape to reveal itself as a painted backdrop or a dream with poor structural integrity. But the earth was solid. It gave faintly under her boots, warm through the thin soles. The grass brushed her calves, soft as fur. A low hum ran through it, not quite music but too deliberate to be wind .
The path descended between the trees.
The fruits grew stranger as they went. One tree bore loaves of crusty brown bread directly from its branches, each loaf warm enough to steam in the amber air. Another had clusters of tiny glazed cakes flowering from its boughs, frosted in pink and blue. Their smell wrapped around Aurora’s head, making her stomach cramp.
She forced herself to look away.
On the trunk of a nearby tree, a face opened in the bark.
It had long-lashed eyes, a narrow nose, and a mouth formed from a dark seam in the wood. It watched them pass.
“Travelers,” it crooned.
Aurora stopped.
Nyx flowed between her and the tree in a movement that had no footsteps in it.
The face smiled wider. Sap glimmered along its lips.
“You have come far,” it said. “You must be empty.”
“We’re not,” Aurora said.
“Everyone is.”
The tree’s branches dipped. A bread-loaf detached itself and fell gently into the grass at Aurora’s feet. It split open along the middle, releasing a warm burst of garlic, butter, and something savoury that made her mouth flood.
Her body took a half-step before her mind caught up.
Nyx’s shadowy hand closed around her forearm.
Their grip was cold enough to sting.
“Do not,” they whispered.
Aurora stared at the bread. In the open loaf, something small moved.
A pale finger curled out from the soft white centre.
The tree’s face laughed.
Aurora backed away so hard she nearly trod on Isolde.
The loaf folded in on itself, becoming a smooth brown lump again. It rolled through the grass toward the tree’s roots, where the earth opened and accepted it.
“Rude,” the tree called after them. “Rude little hunger.”
Aurora walked faster.
For several minutes, nobody spoke.
Then Isolde said, “You did well.”
“I nearly ate a hand.”
“Nearly is the space in which most people survive.”
“That’s not comforting .”
“It was not intended to be.”
The orchard thinned as they descended into a broad valley. Vines climbed every slope in neat rows, their leaves the deep green of bottle glass. Instead of grapes, they bore translucent spheres filled with swirling colours: wine-red, gold, black, opalescent white. Every so often one swelled, detached from its stem, and floated lazily upward.
Above the vines, dozens of the globes drifted beneath the amber sky.
A flock of long-winged creatures wheeled among them. Their bodies resembled eels with feathered fins, their transparent bellies full of blue light. They punctured the hovering fruit with needle-thin beaks and drank the liquid out in shining streams.
Aurora watched one turn in the air. Its wide black eye fixed on her.
For a moment, it resembled a bird.
Then it opened a mouth full of human teeth.
She looked down.
At the valley’s centre stood a low building made of dark red stone. It might once have been a chapel. Its roof had collapsed, and thick vines spilled through the broken arches. From where they stood, Aurora could see a single iron door set into the front wall. A lantern burned above it, though no flame moved inside the glass.
The Heartstone pulsed harder.
Once.
Twice.
Then it became hot enough that Aurora hissed and yanked it free of her shirt.
The crimson gem glowed in her hand.
“There,” Nyx said.
Isolde’s gaze had gone distant. Her expression, usually serene in its irritating way, tightened.
“The stone remembers this place.”
“That building?” Aurora asked.
“The building is a mouth,” Isolde said. “The question is what it has eaten.”
They made their way down the slope.
The vines shifted away from Aurora’s boots as she passed, though not as politely as they had for Isolde. Tendrils curled around her ankles, testing. One brushed the crescent scar on her left wrist when she pushed it aside, and a sharp prick of pain ran through her.
She jerked her hand back.
A bead of blood welled at the edge of the old scar.
The nearest vine trembled .
Its leaves turned toward her.
Nyx swept an arm through the air. Shadow rippled across the ground, and the vine recoiled with a sound like a kettle shrieking.
“Keep your blood covered,” they said.
Aurora wiped the cut on the inside of her sleeve. “Was that one of the rules you were planning to mention after it became relevant?”
“There are many rules here.”
“Start listing.”
“Do not eat. Do not drink. Do not give your name. Do not spill blood. Do not accept a gift. Do not promise anything. Do not follow music you cannot see. Do not look into a mirror if it speaks first.”
Aurora stopped midway down the slope. “How many things in this realm speak first?”
Nyx glanced toward the chapel.
“Enough.”
The iron door stood open when they reached it.
Aurora was certain it had been closed before.
Beyond it lay a narrow passage, cool and dark. The air inside smelled different from the orchard. No sugar, no roasted spices. Only damp stone and an old, mineral scent, like a cellar beneath a church.
She drew the Fae blade.
The moonsilver dagger slipped free with a whisper . It was slender and leaf-shaped, its edge holding a pallid gleam despite the lack of moonlight. Cold climbed into her fingers around the hilt.
Isolde looked at it with a flicker of sadness .
“Keep it clear of the walls,” she said.
“Why?”
“Because they will remember being cut.”
Aurora decided not to ask what that meant.
Nyx entered first. Their body loosened at the edges and seeped into the darkness until only the faint violet of their eyes remained visible. Aurora followed, one hand on the Heartstone, the other holding the blade low. Isolde came behind without a sound.
The corridor stretched farther than the chapel’s size allowed.
Its walls were built of red stone, each block carved with bowls, goblets, knives, forks, and open mouths. Some of the mouths had teeth. Most had tongues.
They moved carefully .
At intervals, shallow niches held offerings: a silver platter of blackened figs, a porcelain cup filled with something that breathed, a mound of glittering coins fused together by waxy pink flesh. Aurora kept her eyes ahead.
Then she saw the first person.
He sat folded into an alcove on the right-hand wall, so still that at first she mistook him for a statue. He wore the remnants of a dark suit, the jacket rotten at the shoulders. His skin was grey and thin over his cheekbones. A gold chain vanished under his collar.
His eyes opened.
Aurora froze.
They were human eyes.
Not demon-black, not glowing, not monstrous. Just brown, bloodshot, and terrified.
“Please,” he said.
The word came out cracked.
Nyx turned toward him. “Do not answer him.”
The man’s attention snapped to Aurora. “Please. I’m English. I’m from—”
His face convulsed.
Something underneath his skin moved from his throat to his jaw. He clamped both hands over his mouth.
“I didn’t know,” he gasped through his fingers. “I only wanted—”
The wall behind him gave a wet, sucking sigh.
His shoulders jerked backward.
Aurora took an involuntary step forward.
The man screamed once as the stone swallowed him to the chest.
Nyx’s shadow-hand caught Aurora’s shoulder, holding her in place.
“Don’t,” they said.
“I can’t just—”
The man clawed at the corridor floor. His fingernails broke. Blood streaked the stone, and the carved mouths along the wall opened one by one, breathing in.
The wall pulled him in.
His hands vanished last.
For a long moment, the passage held only the echo of his scream.
Then the stone smoothed over.
A new carving appeared above the alcove: a man seated before a loaded table, his mouth open wide .
Aurora’s throat tightened.
“What was that?” she asked.
“A contract,” Isolde said quietly.
“He was a person.”
“He is,” Isolde corrected.
Aurora rounded on her. “That is worse.”
“Yes.”
The Heartstone burned in her fist.
Ahead, the corridor ended at a pair of doors made from some dark, glossy wood. No handles. No hinges. Between them was set a small circular hollow, precisely the size of the pendant.
Aurora looked at Nyx.
They did not tell her to stop.
She looked at Isolde.
The Seer’s pale lavender eyes reflected the red gleam of the gem.
“The crimson seed opens the starving flower,” Isolde murmured. “And behind it, a road that chooses its traveler.”
“That sounds ominous.”
“All true roads are.”
Aurora let out a slow breath.
There was no point pretending she had not come here to do exactly this. The pendant had dragged them across a tear in the Veil. It had brought them through the orchard, past the hungry tree and the chapel that ate men who had made bad bargains. It wanted the doors.
Or someone did.
She stepped forward and pressed the Heartstone into the hollow.
For a second, nothing happened.
Then the doors exhaled.
A deep vibration rolled through the floor and up Aurora’s legs. The pendant sank into the hollow as if the wood had turned to water. Crimson light streamed along the grain, outlining shapes that had been hidden there: branches, roots, flames, and hundreds upon hundreds of tiny reaching hands.
The doors parted.
Beyond them lay a cavern vast enough to contain a city.
Aurora stood on a narrow balcony carved into the stone wall. Below, terraces spiralled downward around an immense black lake. The water did not reflect the amber sky. It reflected night—real night, scattered with hard white stars.
At the lake’s centre rose a tree.
Its trunk was silver-white, broader than the chapel and split by veins of crimson fire. Its branches spread across the cavern roof, laden with shining fruit. Some were pomegranates the size of carriages. Others looked like lanterns, hearts, or sleeping faces curled inside clear skins.
Roots plunged into the star-filled water.
All along the terraces, figures moved between long tables groaning beneath impossible feasts. Demons, Aurora thought, though she could not have said how she knew. Some wore velvet and jewels. Some had horns curling through perfumed hair. Some were beautiful enough to make her glance twice, then ashamed of herself for it. Others were too many-limbed, too smooth-faced, too wrong.
Human souls in torn finery served them.
Music drifted from somewhere below: strings, pipes, the soft percussion of clapping hands.
And beneath it all, almost too low to hear, the tree was crying .
Aurora felt the sound in her teeth.
At the far side of the cavern, beyond the black lake, a bridge of pale bone led to a single throne set among the tree’s roots.
It was empty.
For now.
Nyx went very still beside her. Their violet eyes brightened to sharp points.
“We should leave,” they whispered.
Aurora could not take her gaze from the tree.
At the base of its trunk, framed by the crimson fire under the bark, something gleamed.
A small silver chain.
On it hung a second deep-red stone, identical to the Heartstone that had vanished into the door.
Isolde’s voice was nearly lost beneath the music.
“The first hunger is never fed,” she said. “It only learns what shape to take.”
Far below, one of the demons lifted its head.
Then another.
A hundred faces turned toward the balcony.
Aurora’s hand closed around the cold hilt of the Fae blade.
The empty throne waited across the lake, and the tree continued to weep beneath the warm, terrible sky.