AI The oak stones stood in a ragged circle among the ferns, each one taller than Rory and dark with rain.
Beyond them, Richmond Park continued as it always did: wet grass silvered by moonlight, bare branches clawing at the sky, the distant hush of traffic. Inside the circle, the air bent.
Rory could see it now that she knew where to look—a faint shimmer between the stones, as if someone had stretched clear silk across the clearing and forgotten to pull it tight. The distortion trembled without wind. Through it, the darkness looked greener.
Isolde stood before the largest stone, silver hair spilling over her shoulders to her waist. Her pale lavender eyes reflected no moon at all.
“Are you certain?” Rory asked.
Isolde tilted her head. “Certainty is a door with no handle.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It is the truest one I possess.”
Nyx waited beside Rory, a tall humanoid silhouette cut from the night. Their violet eyes glimmered faintly within the shadow of their face. The drizzle passed through one shoulder and vanished, then found solidity again as it struck the ground near their feet.
Rory glanced at the pendant beneath her coat. The deep crimson stone had begun to pulse against her breastbone, warm as a living thing.
“We go in,” she said.
Nyx’s voice moved like breath through dead leaves. “And if the door closes?”
“Then we find another way out.”
Isolde smiled, though there was no comfort in it. “The girl who flees the wolf may yet choose the cave.”
Rory touched the hilt of the Fae-forged blade at her hip. The moonsilver dagger was cold even through its sheath. “I’m getting tired of being compared to wildlife.”
“Then stop behaving like prey.”
Isolde lifted one hand.
The grove answered.
No thunder cracked. No flash of light split the clearing. The shimmer simply deepened, and the air on the other side rolled toward them in a warm, scented breath. Rory smelled crushed grapes, dark soil, cinnamon, and something roasted over an immense fire. Beneath it all lay a sweet, sour tang like wine left too long in a copper cup.
The boundary opened without moving. One moment there was distortion between the stones. The next, there was a path.
It descended beneath an amber sky.
Rory stared.
The sky was not merely yellow. It glowed from horizon to horizon in layers of honey, ochre, and molten gold, with no sun anywhere in its vastness. Clouds drifted overhead like bruises in the light. Their shadows moved in the wrong direction.
A vineyard spread across a sloping valley beyond the stones. The vines were black-trunked and enormous, their leaves broad as hands and veined with red. Clusters of grapes hung from them in colors Rory had no names for—blue-white, green as old glass, black with sparks trapped beneath the skins. Farther off, orchards climbed the hills in neat terraces. Their branches bent under strange fruit: pear-shaped things with scales, scarlet bulbs that opened and closed like mouths, pale globes that hummed softly in their nests of leaves.
Beyond the fields rose towers and domes, all golden stone and dark glass. Smoke curled above them, carrying distant music and the roar of a crowd.
“Where are we?” Rory whispered.
Isolde stepped through the opening. She left no footprints in the wet earth or on the red-gold dust beyond.
“In the belly of a feast,” she said.
Nyx followed. Their shadow stretched across the threshold, thinning into a black ribbon. Rory went last.
The moment she crossed, warmth closed around her.
The rain stopped touching her. The cold vanished from her fingers. Even the ache in her shoulders, earned from a full day of deliveries and a night of chasing impossible answers, eased beneath the amber air.
Then something screamed in the vines.
Rory spun.
A cluster of grapes quivered three rows over. The sound came again, muffled now, followed by a wet rustle. Several leaves folded over themselves. A pale, fingerlike tendril slid between them and withdrew.
Nyx shifted closer. “Do not eat anything.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
“You looked at the fruit.”
“I look at a lot of things.”
“The fruit looked back.”
Rory kept her eyes forward.
They walked down the path. The soil gave slightly under her boots, springy as damp bread. Tiny white flowers bloomed along the edges, opening as she passed. Each released a puff of warm air that smelled of butter and salt.
The path curved between the vines. Somewhere nearby, water trickled. Somewhere farther off, a bell rang three times, each note deep enough to vibrate in Rory’s ribs.
The boundary behind them remained open. Through it, she could see the standing stones and a slice of Richmond Park’s ordinary darkness. It looked impossibly far away.
“How long do we have?” she asked.
Isolde glanced back. “Long enough to regret haste. Brief enough to regret lingering.”
“Isolde.”
“Time is a river here. It does not ask which shore you prefer.”
Rory sighed. “You could say ‘I don’t know.’”
“I could.” Isolde’s gaze moved to the pendant beneath Rory’s coat. “But that would be a lie.”
The Heartstone pulsed again, harder this time.
Ahead, the path divided. One branch climbed toward a grove of trees whose fruit shone like lanterns. The other descended toward the distant towers. Between the two stood a statue carved from red stone.
Rory slowed.
It depicted a man with a round, smiling face and hands folded over his stomach . His robe was covered in painted scenes of banquets, hunts, and overflowing tables. His eyes had been set with polished black stones.
As Rory passed, one eye turned toward her.
She stopped.
The statue’s smile widened by a fraction.
Nyx’s hand closed around Rory’s arm. Their fingers were solid, cold, and stronger than they looked. “Keep moving.”
The statue spoke.
“First course.”
Its voice came from everywhere—the vines, the earth, the amber sky. The words vibrated through Rory’s teeth.
A second voice answered from the direction of the towers, followed by laughter.
“Fresh course.”
Rory drew the Fae blade.
Moonlight had no business existing beneath that golden sky, but pale radiance spilled along the dagger’s leaf-shaped edge. The warmth of the realm recoiled from it. Flowers along the path snapped shut.
The statue’s head turned.
“Ah,” it said. “A knife.”
“Keep walking,” Nyx whispered.
They moved downhill.
The sound of the city grew louder. Music threaded through the air: strings plucked too quickly , drums beating out of time, voices rising in cheers. The scents thickened until Rory’s stomach twisted. Roasted meat. Honey. Charred fruit. Fresh bread. A sharp mineral smell that reminded her of blood.
They crossed a low bridge over a narrow stream. The water ran red, but not with blood. It was wine—dark, foaming, and warm. Things swam beneath its surface. Rory saw a silver eye roll upward, then disappear.
On the far side, a garden opened around them.
Rows of plants grew from black soil. Some were recognizable—thyme, rosemary, tangled vines of mint—but their leaves were the size of dinner plates. Others rose on jointed stalks, their blossoms shaped like porcelain bowls. Inside each flower lay a different substance: bubbling blue liquid, tiny golden bones, a miniature storm cloud that flashed with silent lightning.
A woman in a white chef’s coat knelt among them, cutting herbs with a pair of shears.
She looked human until she glanced up.
Her face was young, perhaps thirty, but her eyes were ancient and empty. A black brand marked her throat. She watched Rory with the weary irritation of someone interrupted during work.
“Visitors,” she said.
“Are you lost?” Rory asked.
The woman gave a humorless laugh. “No one gets lost in Dymas. They are brought where they belong.”
The name settled over the garden like a lid.
Dymas.
Rory had heard it once in a whisper from Silas, delivered with a warning never to repeat it near an open flame. A place on the far side of the Veil. A realm ruled by Prince Belphegor, where indulgence became law and hunger became a chain.
She tightened her grip on the dagger.
“We’re looking for someone,” she said.
“Everyone is looking for someone.” The chef turned back to the herbs. “Most are looking for themselves. They usually find a menu.”
Nyx’s shadow lengthened over the soil. “We seek a passage.”
“Then seek the kitchens. The gates are beyond them.”
“Which kitchens?”
The woman looked toward the towers. Her face hardened.
“The largest.”
“That’s helpful,” Rory said.
“It wasn’t meant to be.”
A bell rang again, closer now. The garden trembled . Every plant bent toward the sound.
The chef gathered her cuttings and rose. “If you hear your name, don’t answer.”
“Why?”
“Because it may not be calling you.”
She hurried away between the rows, boots sinking into the black earth.
Rory watched her go. “That was not reassuring.”
“Reassurance is a mortal luxury,” Isolde said.
“So is not being murdered by talking fruit. I’d like to keep both.”
They reached the end of the garden. Ahead, the city sprawled beneath the amber sky, larger than Rory had first imagined. Its walls were built from pale stone veined with gold. Bridges arched between towers. Balconies overflowed with plants and lanterns. Crowds moved through the streets below, some human, some not. She saw figures with horns, figures with wings folded like cloaks, figures whose faces were hidden behind porcelain masks.
A procession entered through a gate.
At its center rolled a table on wheels, burdened with silver dishes. A dozen people followed behind it, dressed in white, their mouths covered by iron bands. One stumbled. A guard with a fork-shaped spear struck them between the shoulders.
The crowd applauded.
Rory’s breath caught.
Then someone called her name.
“Rory.”
The voice was soft and familiar .
She froze.
“Rory, wait.”
Evan.
The sound of him reached inside her before she could stop it—the old softness, the practiced regret, the way he used to say her name when he wanted her to believe she had misunderstood the bruise on her wrist or the broken glass by the sink.
Her hand spasmed around the blade.
“Rory.”
Nyx stepped in front of her. Their body became almost entirely solid, a wall of darkness.
“Do not answer,” they said.
“I know.”
The voice came again from behind them, closer now.
“You always run.”
Rory’s scar burned beneath her sleeve. The crescent of old white skin along her left wrist prickled as if a thread had been pulled through it.
She looked back.
There was no one on the path. Only the garden, the strange flowers, the red soil.
But between two tall plants stood a doorway.
It had not been there before.
Beyond it was a narrow Cardiff street under gray rain. Her parents’ old house waited at the end, yellow light glowing in the windows. Her father stood on the front step. Her mother waved from behind him.
For one aching second, Rory could smell tea and damp wool. She could hear the familiar creak of the gate.
Isolde’s hand closed around hers.
The Seer’s fingers were cool. “A door may wear the face of home and still open into a grave .”
Rory stared at the false street until the longing inside her hardened into anger.
“Can it hear us?” she asked.
The doorway shivered.
Nyx looked toward the city. “Everything here can hear.”
“Then let it.”
Rory raised the Fae blade and crossed the garden in three strides. The dagger struck the doorway’s frame.
The world screamed.
The false Cardiff street folded inward like wet paper. Rain, house, parents, and yellow light twisted into a black point. The doorframe split from top to bottom, spilling a gust of foul heat over Rory’s face.
Something on the other side hissed.
She drove the blade deeper.
Silver light burst through the garden. The plants recoiled. The amber sky flickered , and for an instant Rory saw what lay beneath it—not clouds, but vast red membranes stretched across a bottomless dark .
Then the doorway shattered .
The pieces fell upward and vanished.
Rory stood panting, the dagger trembling in her hand.
Behind her, the city had gone silent.
Every head on the bridges and balconies had turned toward the garden.
The Heartstone thudded against her chest, hot now, glowing through her coat like an ember.
At the far end of the city, a palace door opened.
A figure stepped onto its balcony, too distant to make out clearly. He wore a crown of curved gold and a robe the color of spilled wine. Even across the miles, Rory felt his gaze settle on her.
A smile moved across his face.
The bells began to ring.
Isolde looked toward the palace. “The host has noticed his guests.”
Nyx’s form thinned at the edges, ready to slip into shadow. “We should leave.”
Rory sheathed the dagger and faced the city.
The open boundary behind them had vanished. In its place stood a wall of thorn trees, their branches braided together and covered in glossy red fruit.
No way back.
The palace bells shook the ground beneath her boots. From the city came the rush of thousands of feet, the clatter of weapons, and the rising cheer of a crowd hungry for spectacle.
Rory touched the pendant.
Its warmth beat in time with her heart.
“Then we go to the kitchens,” she said.
Nyx’s violet eyes narrowed . “Why?”
She looked up at the amber sky, at the impossible orchards, at the palace waiting beneath its crown of towers.
“Because someone in this place brought me here,” Rory said. “And if they wanted me dead, they wouldn’t have given me a knife.”