AI The standing stones in Richmond Park were older than the trees around them, though the trees had grown up through their shadows and twisted their roots around the stones’ bases. Rory had passed them dozens of times without seeing anything but lichen and old oak. Tonight, the stones glimmered at their edges, as if moonlight had found a way beneath the bark of the world.
The Heartstone warmed against her chest.
“Is that supposed to happen?” she asked.
Isolde’s pale eyes rested on the silver chain at Rory’s throat. “It happens when a door is near.”
“That’s not the same as supposed to.”
“No.” Isolde’s silver hair stirred in a wind Rory couldn’t feel. “But it is an answer.”
The crescent scar on Rory’s left wrist prickled beneath her sleeve. She flexed her fingers around the Fae blade’s hilt. Its slender, leaf-shaped length stayed cold, even where her palm sweated.
Nyx stood beside the nearest stone, a tall silhouette cut from the dark. Violet eyes shone in its face—or where a face ought to be. The shadows beneath the oaks gathered toward them, thin tendrils stretching like grass in a current.
“Something is pressing through,” Nyx whispered. Their voice seemed to come from behind Rory’s ear, though they stood several feet away. “It has a taste.”
“Can you tell what?” Rory asked.
“Sweetness. And rot.”
Isolde turned her head toward the gap between two stones. The clearing beyond looked no different from the rest of the park: damp earth, tangled bracken, the silver lattice of branches against a black sky. Rory could hear traffic far off, a soft, ordinary hush.
Then the Heartstone pulsed .
Warmth flooded her sternum. The air between the stones shivered. The night bent inward, drawing the clearing long and narrow, until the far trees seemed to stand at the end of a tunnel.
Rory swallowed. “That’s the door?”
“It is the place where the Veil has thinned,” Isolde said. “A door is what we make of it.”
“And if we make it badly?”
“Then it may open onto something that does not want to be found.”
Nyx’s shadow shifted along the ground, spreading over the roots. “We can go first.”
“No,” Rory said. “You can disappear into the dark and leave me to explain that to whatever’s on the other side.”
A faint rustle passed through Nyx’s shape. It might have been amusement. “Then stay close.”
Isolde lifted one pale hand. “The thorn does not ask the rose to lead.”
Rory glanced at her. “I’m going to take that as ‘follow Nyx.’”
They stepped between the stones.
The air turned thick as syrup. For a moment Rory felt the ground vanish beneath her boots, and every sound in the park stretched thin: the distant traffic, the wind, her own breath. The Heartstone burned against her skin. She clutched it through her shirt and pushed forward.
The world gave way.
Warm amber light filled her eyes. Rory stumbled onto a slope of dark, springy earth, caught herself on one hand, and came up with the Fae blade raised.
Above her, the sky glowed like the inside of a furnace. No sun hung there. Instead, bands of amber and molten gold ran from horizon to horizon, paling where they met the distant hills. The light had no heat in it, yet Rory felt it on her skin like a hand resting there.
Behind them, the standing stones stood in a ring of bare ground. On the far side of them, through a wavering seam, she glimpsed the oaks of Richmond Park. Then the seam winked out.
Rory’s stomach tightened. “So we’re in Hel.”
“Dymas,” Isolde said. She looked around, her face unreadable . “Or a piece of it.”
Nyx tilted their head toward the horizon. Their form had grown more solid in the strange light, a tall, dark figure with violet eyes. “It is loud.”
Rory listened. At first she heard only the soft hiss of wind through leaves. Then came a distant clatter—metal on metal—followed by a rising murmur of voices. A laugh rang out, bright and enormous, and somewhere beyond the nearest hill a chorus answered.
The slope was planted with vines. Their leaves were broad and dark green, beaded with dew that gleamed like coins. The grapes hanging beneath them were the size of plums, their skins pale as bone and faintly translucent. Rory reached toward one, then stopped.
“Don’t,” Isolde said.
“I wasn’t going to.”
“You were.”
Rory withdrew her hand. “What happens if I touch it?”
“I don’t know.”
That, at least, was honest.
They followed a narrow path between the rows. The earth beneath Rory’s boots was warm, soft enough to give slightly with every step. The vines smelled of crushed leaves and something richly sugary, like fruit left too long in a bowl. As they moved deeper, other scents gathered: smoke, cinnamon, hot bread. Her mouth watered despite the knot of unease in her gut.
Beyond the vineyard, orchard trees crowded the slope. Their pale trunks spiraled upward, branching into a canopy laden with strange fruit: red globes split open to reveal white, shining flesh; golden pears with blue leaves growing from their stems; clusters of tiny black berries that clicked softly together as the branches swayed. No birds perched among them. But something moved high in the leaves, keeping pace with the group.
Rory slowed.
The movement stopped.
She kept walking. It started again.
Nyx’s head turned. “We are being watched.”
“By what?”
“A thing that wants to be mistaken for a branch.”
A branch above them curled down, though there was no wind. Rory’s fingers tightened around the blade.
Isolde continued without looking up. “Some eyes are only hungry because they have never learned another way to look.”
“That’s comforting ,” Rory said.
“It was not meant to be.”
The path dipped between two low stone walls. On the other side, the orchard opened onto a garden that seemed too large to fit between the hills. Rows of flowering beds spread away in careful patterns, each bloom brighter than any Rory had seen on Earth. Blue petals shone like glass. White flowers opened and shut in slow, silent breaths. A fountain stood at the garden’s center, its water pouring upward from a shallow basin to vanish among the amber clouds.
Rory stopped. For one breath, the wonder of it crowded out everything else.
The upward-falling water caught the sky’s light and broke it into ribbons. Each ribbon curled, drifted, and vanished. The air smelled of rain on stone and ripe peaches. Somewhere among the flowers, tiny bells chimed.
Then the Heartstone pulsed again.
This time its warmth came with a sharp tug, pulling at Rory’s sternum toward the far end of the garden. The pendant’s red glow showed faintly through her shirt.
“Something’s drawing it,” she said.
“Or answering it,” Isolde replied.
The path led to a terrace of black stone. Beyond it stood a vast hall, its walls open to the garden on three sides. Columns shaped like twisting vines held up a roof of dark red tile. Long tables filled the hall, laden with silver platters and high glass vessels. Nothing moved there, but candles burned in every place setting, flames green as new leaves.
Rory could hear the voices more clearly now. They came from somewhere past the hall, beyond a row of columns. Conversation and laughter, the clink of dishes, the low, steady roar of a crowd enjoying itself.
“Is that where everyone is?” she asked.
“Someone is,” Nyx said.
“And what’s in there?”
“I cannot see.”
Isolde studied the tables. Her silver hair fell forward over one shoulder. “A feast remembers every mouth that has touched it.”
Rory looked at the food. A roasted bird lay on a platter, its dark skin glossed with honey. A bowl brimmed with fruit like those in the orchard. Beside it sat a silver dish of tiny, pale things that curled when the candlelight touched them.
“Is that another riddle?”
“It is a warning.”
A place at the nearest table had been set for three.
Rory stared at the plates. “They knew we were coming.”
“Or they expect guests,” Nyx whispered.
At the end of the table sat a chair carved from a single piece of red wood. A small crimson stone lay on its seat, thumbnail-sized, glowing faintly from within.
The Heartstone in Rory’s shirt went hot.
She took one step toward it. The warmth against her chest flared until it hurt.
“Rory,” Nyx said.
She stopped. The stone on the chair brightened, pulsing in time with the pendant. It looked identical, down to the deep red color and the tiny silver chain wound around it.
Her hand went instinctively to her throat. The chain was still there.
“Is that mine?” she asked.
“No,” Isolde said.
The word landed cleanly between them.
Rory breathed out. “Good.”
Isolde’s gaze stayed on the stone. “But it was made to be mistaken for yours.”
The chatter beyond the columns cut off.
Every candle in the hall leaned toward them.
Nyx spread one arm. The shadows around their feet surged over the terrace stones, black and quick as spilled ink. “We should leave.”
Rory didn’t argue. She backed away, keeping the blade trained on the empty hall. The table settings glittered in the amber light. One by one, the chairs scraped back from the table.
Not all at once. One after another, in a slow, measured sequence.
The sound traveled across the open hall.
Rory turned and ran.
They raced through the garden, past the flowers that closed as they passed, along the orchard path. Branches bowed overhead, fruit brushing her hair and shoulders. One berry burst against her sleeve, leaving a black stain that smoked faintly in the amber light. Behind them came the soft scrape of chairs, then the clatter of something heavy crossing the terrace.
At the standing stones, Rory’s pendant tugged hard toward the seam. The air between the rocks quivered , but no view of Richmond Park showed through.
“Open it!” she shouted.
“The Veil is not a latch,” Isolde said, breathless but unhurried . “It opens to a cut, a name, or a wound.”
Rory drew the Fae blade. Its edge caught a cold gleam. She slashed once across the empty air.
The blade met resistance. A clear, glassy note rang out. Then the world split along the cut.
The gap widened, revealing the dark oaks of the park.
Something came crashing through the vines behind them.
Nyx’s shadow rose between Rory and the sound, tall and broad, arms stretching across the path. Isolde slipped through the opening without a sound.
Rory backed through after her. The instant her boots struck Earth again, the cold night closed around her. She turned, blade raised.
Nothing followed.
The seam collapsed. The stones stood quiet beneath the oaks, their moss dull and ordinary.
Rory’s breath rasped in her throat. The Heartstone cooled against her chest. She looked down at it, then toward the space where the door had been.
A sugary scent lingered in the night air. Beneath it, faint as a whisper , she heard the clink of silverware.