AI Rory held the pendant against the split in the air.
Its crimson stone warmed her palm. Between two oak standing stones, the split widened from a thread to a gap broad enough for a person. Amber light spilled across the wildflowers at her feet.
Nyx leaned toward it, their violet eyes bright within the darkness of their face.
“The other side smells like peaches.”
Rory sniffed. Beneath the damp scent of Richmond Park came sugar, smoke, and something sharp enough to make her mouth water.
“You first, then.”
Nyx slipped through without disturbing the light. Their shadow stretched across the gap, gathered itself, and vanished.
Isolde watched from beside the stones, her silver hair caught on a branch of winter blossom.
“A door that smells of fruit,” she murmured. “It knows which hand to offer.”
Rory tucked the pendant beneath her shirt.
“You’ve never been there?”
“Not once.”
“Good. I’d hate to be the only one lost.”
Isolde stepped through. Rory followed before the gap could narrow.
Warmth struck her face. She stumbled onto a path of red clay, catching herself against a tree whose bark felt soft as bread crust. The air tasted of ripe fruit and woodsmoke. Behind her, the opening hung between two copper posts in the middle of an orchard; through it she could still see the grove, its wildflowers small and bright against the grey afternoon.
Nyx stood beneath the nearest tree, studying a peach larger than their head.
“I’ve never seen one grow like this.”
The fruit hung inside a cage of its own leaves. Rory reached up and touched the skin. It gave beneath her finger, then tightened around it. She pulled back.
“That peach touched me.”
Isolde passed her hand beneath it.
“The branch grew a mouth before it grew teeth.”
Rory looked closer. A narrow seam ran around the fruit’s middle. It opened a fraction, exposing a row of pale seeds, then closed again.
“Right. No picking.”
The orchard stretched down a hillside toward a valley crowded with terraces. Vines covered the slopes in bands of green, purple, and a silver colour Rory first mistook for water. Beyond them stood a city of wide roofs and tall chimneys, all beneath a sky the colour of warmed honey.
The silver vines moved. Leaves turned in ripples, flashing one side and then the other, though the air around Rory stood still.
From somewhere down the hill came the knock of a knife against a board. Another knife answered it. The rhythm spread across the valley until dozens of blades struck in time.
Rory felt the pendant pulse against her chest.
“The portal’s still open,” she told the others .
Nyx glanced back at the grove. “Do you want it closed?”
“No. I want to know where it is.”
She took her phone from her pocket and photographed the copper posts. The screen caught the red clay and the orchard, but the opening appeared as a bright smear.
“Of course.”
Isolde had moved farther along the path. Her pale feet left no marks in the clay. Rory’s boots sank deep enough to gather red mud around the soles.
“Wait,” Rory called. “We agreed we’d look for whoever gave me the pendant. We haven’t agreed to eat anything, follow anyone, or hand it over.”
Isolde turned. “The stone brought you to a gate. It has not promised to lead you to its giver.”
“I know. It’s the only thing I’ve got.”
Nyx reached up and plucked a narrow leaf from a branch. The leaf blackened where their fingers held it, then regained its green when they let it fall.
“The trees know you’re here,” they whispered.
“They know you’re here,” Rory corrected.
“Then we should introduce ourselves before they decide what we are.”
The path forked around a basin carved into the hillside. Clear liquid filled it to the brim. Fruit floated on the surface: green pears, red plums, a cluster of grapes whose skins held tiny reflections of the amber sky.
Rory crouched. The basin smelled of cider and crushed mint.
Something moved beneath a pear. A small face pressed against the surface, flattening its nose. Rory jerked back as it opened its mouth and swallowed the pear whole.
The creature rose on thin arms, water streaming from its shoulders. Its skin had the translucent green of a peeled grape.
“You dropped that,” it told Isolde .
Isolde looked down. A strand of silver hair floated across the basin.
“It fell.”
The creature caught the strand and wound it around one finger. “May I keep it?”
“You may.”
It sank beneath the fruit. The hair followed, drawing a silver line through the liquid until it disappeared.
Rory stood.
“Was that a person?”
Nyx watched bubbles break around a plum. “It spoke.”
“That didn’t answer me.”
“No. It didn’t answer me either.”
They continued down the hill. The knife strokes grew louder, joined by bells and the steady rush of water. Between the orchards, channels carried dark purple juice downhill. Workers in white aprons stood at wooden gates, lifting and lowering them to direct the flow toward different buildings. One dipped a cup into a channel, tasted it, and spat the mouthful onto the soil.
Where the drops landed, a row of mushrooms pushed through the clay.
Rory stopped beside the worker. She had horns that curved back through a knotted black scarf, and her apron bore a stain shaped like a hand.
“Excuse me. What’s that?”
The woman glanced at the mushrooms.
“Bad vintage.”
“You grow food with it?”
“I grow a warning with it.” She lifted one mushroom by its stem and showed Rory the underside. The gills had formed a set of dark letters. “See? Too much heat in the press.”
Rory could not read the letters, though she recognised the irritation in the woman’s face.
“We’re looking for someone,” she began.
“Everyone’s looking for someone.” The woman tossed the mushroom into a bucket. “You’ll want the tables.”
“Which tables?”
The woman pointed down the slope with her cup. “The ones with people at them.”
A bell rang from the valley. The woman set down her cup, pulled the wooden gate shut, and hurried toward a staircase cut into the terrace wall. Others emerged from among the vines, carrying baskets, bottles, and bundles of herbs.
Nyx tilted their head. “We could follow them.”
“That’s following people.”
“You objected to following anyone. I suggested following them.”
Rory looked down at the crowd gathering on the stairs.
“Fine. We’re going the same way.”
The stairs led beneath a trellis so thick with grape leaves that the amber light fractured into green. The fruit hung in clusters along the beams. Each grape contained a fleck of gold that drifted when Rory moved her head.
A child reached up, squeezed one between finger and thumb, and held it over her tongue. Instead of juice, a single note rang out, high and clear. The child grinned and squeezed another.
Rory pressed a grape. It gave a low, round hum that vibrated through her fingertips.
Nyx reached for the next cluster. Their hand passed through the fruit, and all the grapes on the stem sounded at once. Workers turned to look.
“Sorry,” Nyx whispered.
A man carrying a basket of figs shook his head.
“Don’t touch the rehearsal vines unless you’ve got an invitation.”
He moved on before Rory could ask what the vines rehearsed.
At the bottom of the stairs, the terraces opened onto a garden filled with tables. They stood beneath pavilions of woven branches, each table long enough to seat fifty people. Platters covered every surface. Rory saw roasted birds glazed black and red, pyramids of fruit dusted with gold, and loaves split open to reveal centres full of steaming greens.
She had spent enough shifts at the Golden Empress carrying food past hungry people to recognise the sudden pull in her stomach . Here, the smell came from every direction. Garlic and smoke mingled with orange peel, pepper, and hot sugar.
Servers wove through the crowd with trays balanced on their shoulders. At one table, a woman in a blue coat lifted the lid from a pot. A cloud rose from it and gathered beneath the pavilion roof, where it turned into the shape of a fish. The diners applauded. The woman flicked her spoon, and the cloud-fish broke apart, raining salt onto their plates.
Rory stopped at the edge of the garden.
“This is a competition.”
Three figures sat on a raised platform at the far end, each with a plate, a silver bell, and a stack of cards. A server carried them a dish of coiled white noodles. One judge tasted it, rang her bell, and held up a card bearing a black circle. The crowd at the nearest table groaned.
Isolde touched a flowering vine that climbed the pavilion post.
“The cooks set their work before strangers and wait for judgment.”
Rory watched the woman in blue collect her empty pot.
“Sounds familiar .”
A man in a red apron approached with a tray of small cups. Steam curled from each one.
“Broth for the walk?”
Rory shook her head.
“Do you recognise this?” She drew the pendant out by its silver chain.
The man bent close. The stone’s inner glow caught in his eyes.
“Heartstone. That’s a handsome piece.”
“Do you know who made it?”
He held out his hand. Rory kept the pendant where it was.
“I can look without taking it,” he offered.
“Please do.”
He inspected the chain, then the setting around the gem.
“Silver’s not my trade. Ask at the weighing house.” He pointed across the garden to a low building with a roof of overlapping copper scales. “If it came through the city, someone there might have recorded it.”
“Thank you.”
He raised the tray again. “Sure you won’t have broth?”
Nyx leaned over the cups. Their shadow crossed the tray, and frost formed along one rim.
“What’s in it?”
“Onion, marrow, saffron, and a little pear.”
Nyx drew back. “I can smell it. That’s enough.”
The man gave Rory an odd look, then continued between the tables.
They crossed the garden, taking care around diners who had pulled their chairs into the paths. A woman cracked a nut against a small bronze anvil; inside lay a curl of pink meat that she offered to her neighbour. At another table, a man argued with a server over the proper way to eat a flower.
“The petals first,” the server insisted.
“The root’s the best part.”
“Then leave the petals for me.”
Rory smiled despite herself. A child darted past her carrying a loaf almost as wide as her shoulders. The crust shifted under the child’s grip, and a dozen tiny legs unfolded from its underside.
Rory caught Nyx by the arm.
“Did you see that?”
“The bread?”
“It had legs.”
The child set it on a table. The loaf scuttled between two plates before someone trapped it beneath a napkin.
Isolde’s mouth curved. “A meal with somewhere else to be.”
At the weighing house, the smell of food gave way to metal and old paper. Copper scales hung from the ceiling in rows, their pans empty and swaying. A broad counter divided the room. Behind it, shelves held boxes, folded cloth, and books with chains attached to their spines.
A woman with a shaved head sat at the counter, polishing a weight shaped like a pear. Her fingers had six joints apiece.
Rory placed the pendant on the counter but kept hold of the chain.
“We were told you might know where this came from.”
The woman set down the weight . She did not touch the gem.
“Dymas.”
“I knew that much.”
The woman’s gaze travelled from Rory’s face to Nyx, then to Isolde. It paused at the moonsilver dagger at Rory’s hip.
“Did you bring that to cut your dinner?”
Rory rested her hand on the hilt. Cold seeped into her palm.
“I brought it because I had it.”
“Fair answer.” The woman picked up a glass lens and leaned over the pendant. “Turn the setting toward me.”
Rory obeyed. The woman studied the tiny silver claws that held the stone.
“There’s a mark under the chain loop. A bowl with three lines through it.”
Rory squinted. The mark looked no larger than a grain of salt.
“Whose mark?”
“Not a person’s. A kitchen’s.” The woman set the lens down and pulled a book toward her. Its chain scraped across the counter. “There were six kitchens using that mark when this register closed.”
She opened the book. Thin sheets of metal formed its pages, each etched with rows of symbols. She ran a jointed finger down one page, then turned to another.
Isolde leaned beside Rory without touching the counter.
“Six bowls from one table?”
“Six cooks from one household,” the woman replied. “They kept the mark when they went their own ways.”
Nyx’s shadow stretched across the open pages. A few of the etched symbols filled with violet light.
The woman caught their wrist. Her fingers closed around solid darkness.
“Not on the register.”
Nyx withdrew their hand. “I didn’t mean to.”
The woman rubbed her fingers together, looking at them. Then she returned to the book.
Rory leaned closer. “Can you tell me where the kitchens are?”
“Two closed. One moved into the city. Another serves the vineyards north of here.” The woman tapped a line near the bottom of the page. “This one’s at the feast today.”
She reached under the counter, brought out a square of paper, and pressed it against the metal page. With a stick of charcoal, she rubbed across the surface. The kitchen’s mark appeared on the paper, followed by a line of angular writing.
“Take that to the tables. The servers know where each kitchen sits.”
Rory took the paper and slipped the pendant beneath her shirt.
“What about the sixth kitchen?”
The woman turned another page. “Let me find it.”