Quicksilver (The Fae & Alchemy Series Book 1)

I tried to fall asleep in the room we slept in when we first arrived at Cahlish, but Carrion’s snoring was so bad that I dragged a duvet into one of the formal living rooms and passed out on one of the overstuffed couches.

I woke from a fitful sleep sometime after dawn and found Fisher in the high-backed armchair beside me, staring at Omnamerrin’s jagged peak out of the window. The beautiful scent of wild mint made me want to burst into tears, but I managed to stay calm as I folded the duvet and fluffed the imprint of my body out of the couch cushions. I wanted nothing more than to walk away without interacting with Fisher at all, but he caught my hand as I passed him, and I didn’t have the energy or the will to pull away. He rested his forehead against my arm, closing his eyes, and a tiny piece of me cracked and broke. I ran my free hand gently through his hair, screaming inside, so fucking angry at him, and at myself, and at the gods, and the whole fucking universe for doing this to us.

This wasn’t fair. None of it was.

He didn’t fight me when I let go of his hand and walked away. I paused in the doorway, glancing back at him over my shoulder, and immediately wished I hadn’t. He’d gone back to staring out of the window, but he’d covered his mouth with one hand, his fingers digging into his cheek. The pronounced shadows under his eyes told of countless sleepless nights. Even the defeated set of his shoulders showed how exhausted he was. I couldn’t walk away from him when he looked like that. I just fucking couldn’t.

I dropped the duvet there in the doorway. Fisher closed his eyes when he realized that I was coming back to him. All of the nerves and trepidation I used to feel over touching him were gone. He leaned into me, resting his head against my stomach, wrapping his arms around my legs, placing his hands lightly on the backs of my thighs, and I held him. Seconds passed. Long minutes. I rubbed a hand between his shoulder blades in circles, hurting, and aching and wishing.

Eventually, he sat upright and sank back into the chair, his cheeks flushed. He refused to look at me, but he nodded, as if to say, ‘It’s okay. I’m okay.’ And so I left.

“The last of the witches abandoned Yvelia a hundred years ago,” Lorreth said. “No one’s seen a member of the Balquhidder Clan in twice as long. We don’t even know where they went! We have less than thirty-six hours before we need to be in Gillethrye, and we can’t spend those hours looking under rocks and shouting into holes in the ground, looking for a bunch of flatulent old hags who don’t want to be found.”

Danya snorted.

No one else in the library laughed.

Not even Carrion. But that was probably because he didn’t realize that flatulent meant gassy.

From behind the huge mountain of books piled on the table in front of me, I watched Ren massage his temples, his face drawn. “Without a witch, we’re screwed,” he said. “They’re the only ones with powerful enough blood magic to break an enthrallment. They’re also the only ones powerful enough to keep Malcolm’s venom at bay while Te Léna draws it out of Layne’s system.”

“It’ll take weeks to flush it out of her, and that’s if we’re lucky,” Te Léna said, standing by the window. She hugged herself as she turned around and faced us all. “It’s more likely that it’ll take months. I can call on other healers to help, but Malcolm’s venom is like acid. It eats away at everything it touches. The injury to Everlayne’s body will be catastrophic by the time we reach her. It’s a formidable witch indeed that can hold a body in stasis long enough for us to heal it from that kind of damage.”

“Fantastic. So we don’t just need a witch. We need the most powerful witch of all time,” Ren said in a distant voice. He hadn’t seemed at all like himself since Everlayne had shown up by the river. Normally, he was ready to brainstorm a way out of a corner no matter how tight it was, but this situation had knocked him for six. Over the past hour, I’d found him staring at the table four times, unblinking, as if he were in shock.

Fisher had shown up shortly after breakfast had been served. He’d picked over his food, but at some point, he’d rallied and started pulling books from the library shelves like a madman. Hands flecked with ink, he twisted the quill he’d been making notes furiously with, then set it down, tapping the spot on the table where Ren was staring to get his friend’s attention. “There are still some half-witches at Faulton’s Gap. That’s about as far as I can travel by shadow gate without Belikon sensing the magic and showing up to the party. You and I will go there and see if any of them are strong enough and willing to help us this afternoon.”

Ren perked up a little at that. I saw the hope kindle in his eyes, and I had to look away. “A solid plan,” he said. “I’ll go and get ready.”

“I don’t suppose you’d let me come?” Carrion asked. “I’ve always wanted to see a witch in real life.”

“No,” Fisher said blandly. “I would not. You’ll only try and fuck one of them, and we’re trying to petition them for help, not spark a war with them because you can’t keep your cock in your pants.”

Lorreth pretended to swallow down vomit. “Urgh. He would not try and fuck a witch.

“No, he’s right,” Carrion said with a sigh. “I would. Y’know. Just to say that I’d done it.”

“I’ll go with you,” Danya declared. She hadn’t said much since she’d shown up at the library. Mostly, she’d sat and flexed her new hand, inspecting it closely like she was looking for imperfections. Te Léna had done a remarkable job working some pretty heavy-hitting magic to replace it—more than Danya deserved— and yet I hadn’t heard the warrior thank the healer once. “I’m not sitting here flicking through stuffy books with these idiots when I could actually be doing something useful.”

Scouring the books for ways to help Layne was useful. There could be something in here that solved our problems in the blink of an eye, but Danya wouldn’t care. She thought problems could only be resolved by hitting something very hard or else by stabbing someone repeatedly until they were dead, and she had no interest in being proven wrong.

“We vote she goes with you as well,” Carrion said, holding up his hand. “We don’t want a dark cloud hanging over the library while we’re trying to work, either.”

Danya bared her teeth, her canines elongating, earning her an intrigued grin from Carrion, but Fisher stepped in before Danya could say anything truly vile. “All right, you can come with us. The rest of you will keep looking through the texts in case something pops up, yes?”

Lorreth, Carrion, Te Léna, and I all nodded. The healer placed a hand on Fisher’s arm as he began closing the books he’d been searching through. “Make sure you come and see me before you leave. And when you get back.”

I hadn’t wanted to own it, but I’d been jealous of Te Léna. I’d been so sure something was going on between her and Fisher, but now I knew better. After listening to her talk about her husband and seeing how happy she was when she showed me her marks, there was no doubt in my mind that she wasn’t interested in him. This left only one option: she was helping him somehow with the quicksilver in his head. And if he had to go and see her before he left and when he got back, then it really must be getting bad.

Hours later, the world beyond the library windows had turned a peculiar shade of blue-grey, and it was snowing hard. The temperature inside Cahlish was warm as always, but the wintery scene outside made me shiver uncontrollably. We still hadn’t found anything to help either Layne or Kingfisher, and I was beginning to grow frustrated. In a land full of magical or supernatural threats, how was it that there were no books on how to deal with them when problems inevitably arose? It made no sense. I was familiar with all of the books Fisher had on quicksilver, and I already knew they held no information about what to do if it got inside someone.

We’d made absolutely no progress whatsoever by the time the library doors swung open and Ren stormed in, swearing fitfully under his breath. His sandy hair was windswept, his leather armor gone. He was covered in mud and looked like he was going to put his fist through something.

“What the hell happened to you?” Lorreth demanded.

“Fucking Danya,” he spat. “We found them. We explained what’s happened to Everlayne and why we came. They weren’t happy about it, but they were going to help. And then Danya made some shitty comment about how it was the least they could do since the witches left the Fae to clean up their mess, and how they’d turned their back on Yvelia, and that was it. All hell broke loose.”

“That female is feral,” Lorreth growled. “Next time she tries to hit me, I’m gonna put her over my knee and spank her. And not in a fun way. Fisher isn’t bringing her back here, is he?”

“No.” Ren threw himself into a chair and then got right back up again, gnawing on his lip. “He’s taking her back to Irrìn and then returning to Faulton’s Gap by himself to try and smooth things over with the witches.”

“There was someone there who was strong enough to help Everlayne?” I asked.

“One witch, yes.” Ren blew out a frustrated breath. “And she was possibly the most irritating, foul-mouthed creature I’ve ever met. She’s barely old enough to curse, but she had some very choice things to say about us. Said we were warmongering heretics. She used some energy hex to knock me on my backside, and I wound up flailing in a mud pit like a pig.”

Lorreth was on the verge of smirking. I shook my head frantically, eyes wide, and he stopped himself. Clearing his throat, he said, “But Fisher thinks he can convince her?”

“Yes. It’ll be a godscursed miracle if he does, though, considering the mood in their camp when we left.”

Fisher returned three hours later with a female in tow. She looked roughly my age, but that meant nothing in Yvelia. She was probably nine hundred years old. Her hair was a fiery red and wavy, her eyes a vivid, bright blue. Freckles dominated her face, even scattered across her forehead. Her clothes were practical—a loose cream shirt with billowing sleeves, a velvet waistcoat in hunter green with gold buttons down the front, and fitted black pants.

“Everyone, this is Iseabail.” Fisher pronounced it Ee-sha-bhal, the name flowing nicely off his tongue, like he’d known twenty other females with the same name. “She’s the granddaughter of the Balquhidder High Witch, Malina. She’s kindly agreed to help us break Layne’s enthrallment once we bring her back here tomorrow night.”

The Balquhidder Clan heir surveyed us all gathered around the table, poring over our books, and wrinkled her gently upturned nose. “This is it?” she said in a lilting accent. “You’re planning to take on Malcolm and kidnap his newest thrall with just three Fae males and two humans?”

Fisher moved around her and came to stand by the fireplace, holding his hands out to warm them against the flames. “No, of course not. The humans are staying here,” he said.

Had he purposefully turned his back to me so he wouldn’t have to see my reaction? I was sure he had. He probably thought that I wouldn’t argue with him in front of everyone if he didn’t make eye contact with me, but he was deluding himself. “Of course we’re coming,” I said. “Everlayne’s our friend.”

“I’ve actually never met Everlayne,” Carrion chipped in. “But I’m still coming. Solidarity and all that.”

Fisher put his back to the fire, resignation already carved into every line of his face. “You’re sure you’re ready?”

“I fought perfectly well at the river, didn’t I?”

“Yes. But those were feeders. Mindless and stupid. We won’t be facing feeders at Gillethrye, Saeris. We’ll be facing Malcolm and his lords. Monsters, all. Not one of them knows the meaning of mercy. They’ll fill you full of venom and watch you scream yourself to death for sport. If you come, are you ready to face that possibility?”

He was trying to scare me with the truth. A thrill of fear did tiptoe down the ladder of my spine, but he knew me better now than to think I would let my fear stop me from rescuing my friend. “Yes, I’m ready,” I told him.

Fisher’s face was unreadable. “And you?” he said to Carrion. “You’re ready for that?”

“Sure. Why not. I’m too pretty to die old, anyway.”

Fisher hung his head, folding his arms over his chest so that his shirt pulled taut, highlighting just about every muscle in his body. When he looked up again, he shrugged and said, “Okay. Fine. Who am I to stop you?”