Quicksilver (The Fae & Alchemy Series Book 1)

Kingfisher had books written by the Alchemists before they all died out. Stacks and stacks of them. They were centuries old, the parchment crumbling. A lot of them were written in Old Fae. I barely understood any of the text, which meant that they were next to useless. When I asked him how I was supposed to glean any useful information from them when none of his own kind had been successful in doing so, he muttered something about using my initiative and left the forge in a cloud of black smoke.

At midday, a plate of food arrived out of nowhere on the bench. Some kind of meat pie with the most delicious gravy filling, along with some chunks of cheese and an apple that had been cut into slices. I only noticed that Onyx arrived with the food when I heard him whining underneath the bench. He wore a hopeful look, his black eyes staring intently up at my plate, ready should the smallest morsel fall to the floor. I didn’t know how healthy human, or rather Fae food, was for him, but the pastry was so buttery and crumbly, the filling so savory and good, that I couldn’t help myself and I wound up sharing half the pie with him. He was content to run outside amongst the snow once we were done, chasing any birds that landed. I spent a good fifteen minutes laughing at him as he coiled back onto his hind legs, wriggled his fluffy butt, and then sprang into the air, bringing his front feet crashing down on the snow as he pounced. I stopped laughing when I realized that he was hunting, and more often than not, when he pounced like that, he came up from the loose snow with a small rodent in his mouth. At least he was entertained.

After I’d wasted another hour poring over the books and getting nowhere, I decided to say screw it and focus on more practical matters. My first thought was to melt down one of the rings and just start experimenting, but then it occurred to me that if I wasn’t successful (and I probably wasn’t going to be), I’d have ruined one of Fisher’s warrior’s rings, and that wouldn’t go down well at all. I found some scrap metal in a bucket by one of the benches and settled on using that for some trial-and-error experiments instead.

The first problem I ran into was that I literally had no idea where to start. By holding a piece of the twisted scraps and concentrating, I could feel what kind of metal it was by the vibrations it gave off. When I first noticed those vibrations back in Zilvaren, they had scared the shit out of me so badly that I’d trained myself to ignore them. Now, I used that alien sensation to differentiate between plated metals, silver, and a whole slew of different variants of iron that we didn’t have back home. They each had their own frequencies.

It didn’t take long to isolate the frequency for Yvelian silver. I simply held a bunch of the rings and closed my eyes, learning what that energy felt like when it traveled up my arms, and I committed it to memory. Then, I went through the bucket and separated out any scraps that shared that same frequency. I had a respectable amount of the shining metal ready to melt down after only half an hour.

For my first attempt, I melted down about a ring’s worth of silver and poured it into a crucible. From there, I added a variety of different ingredients from the glass mason jars on the shelves to the molten silver with no sense that I was accomplishing anything. Most of it just burned up the moment it hit the metal’s scalding hot surface. The salt seemed to combine well, though. I let the silver cool and hammered it out into a flat surface, and then went looking for the quicksilver to somehow test the rough medallion I’d created.

But there was no quicksilver. None that I could find in any of the jars or crucibles. How the hell did Fisher expect me to unravel this problem for him if he wasn’t going to trust me with any of the quicksilver? Did he think I was going to try and escape with it, for fuck’s sake? I’d learned my lesson after the last time. I didn’t have a relic of my own yet…

Here.

Here.

I’m here…

Just one whisper. So small.

When I’d heard the quicksilver back at the palace, the sound had been a chorus of whispers. But this was subtle. Quiet. I had to close my eyes and focus all of my attention just to hear it. It was inside the forge, though. And close. I walked around the bench I’d been working at until I felt the gentlest of tugs, so weak it was barely even there, and then I moved toward it.

A silver box sat on a shelf above a small basin, tucked into the corner by the wall. A leafy potted plant hid it from view. I took it back to the bench and prized the lid open, laughing when I saw just how little quicksilver was inside it. It was solid, naturally, but in its liquid state, it would only be a couple of tablespoons’ worth at best. This was what he’d left me to work with? I huffed, plucking the metal out of the box with a pair of tongs, and then placed it at the bottom of the smallest crucible I could find.

It was getting easier, changing the quicksilver from its solid to liquid state. A hand reaching out into the dark. A finger flicking a switch. There was so little of it this time that I hardly had to will it at all. One moment, it was a lump of scuffed metal, and the next, it was a puddle of shining silver rolling around the bottom of the cast iron bowl. I dropped the medallion into the crucible, grimacing when I noted that there was barely enough quicksilver to submerge it.

And nothing happened.

I waited.

Still nothing.

Here. Here. I’m here, the quicksilver whispered in its singular voice. Alone. Alone. Come to me. Find me. Be with me.

The medallion changed nothing.

I tried a second again, adding what looked like sand and some salt water to the molten silver this time. Again, nothing happened. My third attempt, I tried to combine a dull red powder from one of the jars into the silver, but it burst into flames before it even reached the rippling surface, producing a cloud of noxious red smoke that made my face prickle and go numb. Onyx wouldn’t come back into the forge after that, so I sat with him out on the bench in the cold afternoon light, stroking his fur, shivering as flakes of snow dusted my pants.

My fourth and final attempt of the day—adding a pinch of charcoal and a sprig of an herb labeled ‘Widow’s Bane‘—rendered no results again, by which time I’d officially had enough. I whistled for Onyx to come—he begrudgingly did—and stomped out of the forge, leaving the mess I’d made with my failed attempts behind.

Back in the hallways of Cahlish, Onyx chittering animatedly, darting between my ankles, tongue lolling as he jumped up my legs. Apparently, he was very happy to be away from the forge. I hadn’t paid a whole lot of attention this morning when Fisher escorted me to the forge, but I was fairly adept at finding my way in new places. It might take a while, but I’d find my way back to the room I’d woken up in eventually.

It didn’t come to that, though. I’d only taken a couple of steps from the door when Ren appeared around the corner up ahead, dressed in a dark red shirt and faded brown leather pants. He was covered in mud, and there was a long gash across his cheek, which was leaking blood. His hair seemed to be wet with sweat, and the dark shadows under his eyes made him look exhausted. He scrounged up a smile when he saw me, though, wiping his filthy hands on the towel he was carrying as he approached.

“Thought I’d come and check in on you,” he said, grinning. “I heard you’ve been assigned quite the task.”

“An impossible task.” I scowled darkly. “I only made four attempts, but I’m exhausted. What happened to you?”

“Oh, y’know, just a couple of skirmishes up on the pass. When the clouds are so heavy with snow and the days are so dark like this, it’s a safe bet that there’ll be an attack. We were outnumbered, but we didn’t lose anyone. Took down thirty or so of the enemy.”

“Congratulations?” It felt weird to congratulate anyone on killing so many people, even if they were enemies of the Yvelian Fae.

Ren noticed the uncertain rise in my voice and laughed quietly under his breath. “Thank you. Believe me, killing thirty of them has already saved a couple of hundred innocent lives. If they’d gotten through the pass, they would have wrought havoc on our side of the border. It wouldn’t have been pretty.”

“I’ll have to trust your word on that,” I told him.

Ren rubbed the towel against his dirty fingers, his eyes resting steadily on me. “Would you? Trust my word? If I told you something?”

Onyx jumped up Ren’s legs, turning in circles. The general dipped to scratch his head distractedly—his focus was all for me.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I s’pose that would depend.”

He sighed. “That’s fair. Well, I’m about to tell you that I gave Fisher hell this afternoon for that oath he made you swear. And I told him the only way he could make it up to me would be to start getting to know you a little better.”

I fought the instinct to take a step back. “Why would you do that?”

“Fisher’s very single-minded sometimes. There’s no grey. Only black and white. I fear that part of him has only gotten worse while he’s been away. He has to keep things very straight in his mind, otherwise lines get blurred. Right now, you’re a tool he feels he has to use to make life better for us all. My concern is that a tool pushed to its limit is a tool that will probably break. And to be blunt, Saeris, you’re a tool none of us can afford to let Fisher break. He needs to see you as a person. He needs to know that you’re more than our way out of a tight corner. And the only way to accomplish that is if he learns more about you.”

Why didn’t I like the sound of this? “Okaaaay.”

“I told him he needed to have dinner with you tonight.”

“Oh.”

“And I think he agreed.”

“You think he did?”

He grinned sheepishly. “You’ve met him. It can be tough to tell what he’s agreeing to sometimes.”

“He’s the slipperiest bastard alive,” I grumbled.

“Right. But…please. Just go. Have dinner with him. Tell him about yourself. It’ll be over quickly, I swear.”

If “it’ll be over quickly, I swear’ had to be said in order to convince me to attend an event, it was not an event I wanted to go to. I couldn’t imagine anything less fun than having dinner with Fisher. But Ren was looking at me so pleadingly. He genuinely, sincerely wanted me to go. And what else was I going to do? Hang out with Carrion back in our shared room? On second thoughts, maybe dinner with Fisher would be less painful than that.

“All right. I’ll go. But only because you asked. And only if you swear there’ll be alcohol.”

The dining table was a league long.

All right, all right, it was maybe only thirty feet long, but still far too big for two people to sit at and share a meal. Alone. Fisher sat at one end. I sat at the other. In between us, a mountain of food had been delivered by an army of fire sprites led by Archer. A massive floral centerpiece with purple and pink blooms sat in the dead center of the table, and it was beautiful, it really was, but I couldn’t even see Fisher around it.

Maybe that was the point.

Carrion had been gone when I got back to the room, which was a blessing since I still wanted to bathe and wash away the sweat from the forge. I hadn’t even bothered to look at the dress that had magically appeared at the end of my bed while I was in the tub. All I knew was that it was black. I’d found a clean pair of pants and a fresh shirt in one of the drawers that were my size (obviously meant for me), and so I’d worn those instead.

I was comfortable enough in the pants, but I got the feeling from Archer’s sidelong glances that I was underdressed to have dinner with his master, and he disapproved of the fact. Stabbing a piece of fish with my fork, I grabbed the empty wine glass that sat to the right of my plate and held it up. “I don’t suppose I could get something poured into this?” I called down the table.

I saw a flick of Fisher’s wavy hair around the flowers and not much else. When he spoke, he sounded close, as if he were standing right behind me, not at the other end of the table. “Tell me how you fared today, and I’ll consider it.”

The proximity of his voice and the way he spoke felt…intimate. As though his lips were so close to my ear that his breath should have stirred my hair. “How are you doing that?” I whispered.

“Magic runs through this place the same way your blood runs through your veins. It lives in the very air. The things you’ve already seen here are surely enough to suspend your disbelief…and yet you’re shocked by something so small as me casting my voice?” Amusement dripped from every word. I had no retort for him, though. I had seen so many remarkable things. In comparison, this wasn’t that impressive. It was the way it made me feel, having his voice so close, that had me on the back foot.

I cleared my throat. “As you might expect, I fared very badly. I made four attempts, all of which resulted in failure. I wasted nearly all of the scrap metal I found. I’ll need more if I’m going to be able to run more trials tomorrow.”

“Can it be refined? The silver you used today?” he asked.

“Yes, but that’ll take even longer. I’ll waste a day between experiments…” I huffed, setting down my fork. “But let me guess. You don’t care about me wasting a day to purify between experiments, do you?”

“I do not,” he confirmed.

“Y’know…” I dropped my fork; it hit my plate with a clatter. “You just love contradicting yourself. One minute, you’re kidnapping me because it’s urgent that I make these relics for you. And then, the next, you’re throwing up obstacles and doing everything you can to make the process as difficult and as time consuming as can be. You really need to make up your mind. What’s more important? The relics for your people, or whatever sick pleasure you seem to derive from keeping me at your beck and call?”

From down the other end of the table, I heard the scrape of a knife against a plate. At least he wasn’t letting my annoyance ruin his dinner. Asshole. “I assure you, our need for those relics far outweighs how fun it is to mess with you. But I’m not refusing you more silver to toy with you. Resources are tight at Cahlish. The regular silver can’t be spared.”

“What are you talking about? This place is dripping in finery. There’s gold—” I glanced around, gesturing to the wall sconces that held the candles lighting our dinner, and the serving platters on the sideboard, and the picture frames. Even the cutlery on the table. “There’s gold literally everywhere. Half the knick-knacks in this place are plated in it, and you’re telling me resources are tight?”

“If it were gold you needed for your trials, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.” I saw the bottom of Fisher’s wine glass around the side of the cursed flower arrangement and my temper spiked. Ducking to one side, I peered around the centerpiece and scowled as I watched him sip from his glass.

“If you have wine, I should have wine,” I growled.

“Oh, is that what you think?”

My skin broke out into goosebumps, the tiny hairs on the back of my neck standing erect. His voice was even closer this time. His words felt like a caress against the skin of my neck. I did my damnedest to shake off the shiver that chased up my spine. “Ren promised me—”

“Renfis knows better than to make promises on my behalf. But…if you’re so desperate for a drink, feel free to come and pour yourself some.”

Had he poured his own wine? I doubted that very much. Archer had probably done it. But I wasn’t some stuck-up High-Born asshole like he was. I had no problems pouring my own wine. I got up, grabbed my glass, and was about to storm down the other end of the table but then I paused and grabbed my plate and my fork while I was at it. Whatever game this was, seating me so far away from him, blocking our view of one another, then using magic to speak into my ear like he was whispering sweet nothings to me? Yeah, I wasn’t playing.

The corners of Fisher’s mouth twitched when I slammed down my plate and fork on the table to his right. I dared him to breathe a word about it as I sat down next to him. He ran his fingertips over the rim of his wine glass, shifting in his seat to turn toward me as he watched me pour myself an obnoxiously large glass of wine from the carafe he was hoarding.

The wine was dark as ink. I took a defiant swig, my eyes locked with his over the rim of my glass.

Kingfisher pointed loosely at my glass when I set it down. “Do you like it?” He spoke to me normally. No magic this time.

“Yes. It’s…it’s interesting.”

He pouted, nodding to himself. Something told me he was desperately trying not to smile. “Please. Help yourself to more. I don’t have to speak to the men for a couple of hours. I’ve got time to share the bottle.”

I looked at him properly. Really took him in. There was something different about him. Something I couldn’t put my finger on. Not at first. But then I realized what it was: his clothes. I had never seen Fisher in anything other than black, but tonight the shirt he wore was a hunter green. Very dark, but still green. It was simple, but the material was fine and tailored perfectly. The way it hung from his frame emphasized how broad he was in the shoulders and how corded his arms were. The dark green color highlighted the raven’s wing black of his thick hair. It threw his pale skin into contrast and…and…

Gods, get a grip on yourself, Saeris Fane. Focus!

I forced my gaze down to my half-eaten fish. “Why is silver in such short supply here if you have all this gold?”

“Because silver serves a very specific purpose here. We need as much of it as we can lay our hands on.”

“Then why not sell all of the gold and buy some? Gold’s worth more.”

Fisher slowly shook his head, smiling as if to himself. Gods, why was it so hard to look at him sometimes? I’d never had this problem before. “Maybe where you’re from,” he said. He observed me, toying with his wine glass where it rested on the table, spinning it around lazily by the stem. With his lips parted, I could just make out the points of his teeth. It was rude to stare, but I couldn’t help it. My heart missed a step whenever I saw his canines. As if he knew perfectly well what I was focused so intently on, Fisher opened his mouth a fraction wider, his top lip rising a little so that more of his teeth were on show. It was a subtle difference. Perhaps only a millimeter more of those sharp, white canines were visible, but heat exploded between my legs of all places, and suddenly…Gods, I needed another drink.

I buried my face in my wine glass. Fisher ran his tongue over his bottom lip, also looking away. The tendons in his neck stood proud, his jaw clenching ever so slightly as he frowned at something over by the window. “We can’t buy more silver. The entire realm’s been picked clean. Belikon has an embargo on it, too. Any silver found within Yvelian borders must be given to the crown. That’s part of the reason why we need to use the quicksilver so badly. Other realms have an abundance of silver. We could trade for more than we need if we could just cross between realms.”

“If Belikon has all of Yvelia’s silver, then surely he’d give it to you? If it’s so vital to win the war?”

Kingfisher snorted. “You’d think so, wouldn’t you? But no. Belikon won’t give us silver. He won’t give us aid. He won’t give us food, or clothes, or weapons. He doesn’t give a fuck about this war.”

“But that’s just…it makes no sense.” I took another deep pull of my wine. The unique taste bloomed into floral notes in my mouth. It tasted smooth, rich, and complex all at the same time. The flavor had surprised me at first, but it was really starting to grow on me.

Kingfisher watched me with steady eyes. The quicksilver lacing his right iris pulsed and caught at the candlelight, shifting and twisting amidst the green. It seemed to be extra active tonight. As if confirming this, Kingfisher’s hand tightened around his wine glass. His shoulders tensed, his nostrils flaring momentarily, but then he exhaled, letting out a deep breath, and he loosened again. It all happened very quickly. I might not have noticed it at all had I looked away for a second.

Kingfisher’s eyes bored into me. He knew I’d seen him flinch, and from the way he was staring at me, one of his eyebrows curving in question, he was waiting to see if I would ask him about it. I wanted to, but I already knew I’d find myself frustrated and angry if I did. He’d use my interest against me somehow. He’d find a way to be cruel—it was just in his nature— so I gave the topic a wide berth. I was about to ask him what experiments he had tried in order to make a relic, but then the crew of fire sprites bustled into the room, their charcoal-like bodies throwing up sparks and wisps of smoke as they approached the table. The two sprites at the head of the group were carrying large dishes full of food. Two different kinds of dessert, by the looks of things. They nearly dropped the dishes when they saw me sitting up at the head of the table next to Fisher.

“Lord!” one of them—a female—squawked. “My Lord!” She spun in a circle, her mouth flapping open. The rest of the fire sprites registered that I’d dared to move next to their precious master and also proceeded to lose their minds.

“It’s—”

“She’s—”

“The human!”

“Lord Kingfisher!”

Archer was the last sprite to enter the dining room. The second he laid eyes on me, he slumped down on his backside, right where he was, sitting heavily on the plush rug, and started hyperventilating. “Forgive…me…Lord. I…wasn’t…expecting…”

“It’s all right, Archer. Everybody calm down.” Fisher hadn’t changed his position. He was still sprawled out in his chair in a very relaxed manner, but he’d shielded his mouth with his hand, trying to hide his smile. He looked down and coughed, appearing to pull himself together. “You can leave the plates for now. And the dessert. Just set it on the table, and you can all go. Thank you.”

The fire sprites were all emitting black smoke. The cracks and crevices across their compact little bodies flashed and glowed like stirred embers. When one of his friends tried to help Archer up, a small flame formed on Archer’s arm. He released a mortified shout, and all of the sprites started slapping at him, trying to put him out.

“Sorry, Lord! So sorry! I’m so embarrassed!” Archer wailed.

Kingfisher finally got up and went to the knot of panicking sprites. He ushered them out of the dining room, reassuring Archer the whole time, his laughter bouncing off the walls. He was still grinning when he sat back down in his seat.

“Martyrs. Did they think I was going to try and stab you with my fish fork?”

Fisher rubbed at the back of his neck, his smile fading. “Fire sprites are just very emotional. They love to overreact, that’s all.” By the time he was done speaking, his blank mask was back in full effect. “They’ll have forgotten all about it by tomorrow.”

“I’ll be eating dinner in the forge tomorrow,” I said. “They won’t have to deal with a filthy, mannerless human breaching Cahlish etiquette.”

“You’ll be eating here,” Fisher corrected.

“I don’t get a say in the matter?”

“You’ll poison yourself if you eat in the forge.”

“In my room, then.”

“You’ll be eating here,” Fisher repeated. He continued before I could suggest any of the other one million places I’d rather take my meals. “As for the fire sprites, they like humans. Far more than they like the Fae.”

“Right. They treat you like you hung the moon.”

“I’m different,” he said, as if that were obvious. “Archer helped raise me. After my parents, he was the first of the lesser Fae to hold me. He has a soft spot for me, I suppose.”

A soft spot? It was more than that. The fire sprite loved Fisher. Me, on the other hand? “He looks at me like I’m unworthy to breathe the same air as you.”

Fisher’s head rocked from side to side. “No, he doesn’t. He’s interested in you. He wonders if you’ll be staying.”

I picked up a roasted carrot from my plate with my fingers, biting the end off of it. “He’ll be glad to hear that I’m not.”

Not a word passed Fisher’s lips. He sat as still as can be, watching me eat the carrot, his jade eyes picking over my features. Eyes first, then the bridge of my nose. Over my cheekbones and then down to my mouth. His gaze lingered there for longer than seemed proper. When he didn’t look away, I said the first thing I could think of to break the silence. “You should send Carrion home, even if you refuse to let me go yet.”

He looked surprised at this. “Should I?”

“He has family in Zilvaren. His grandmother. She’ll be worried about him. And he can tell Hayden and Elroy that I’m okay if he goes back. That would probably stop them from doing anything regrettable for the time being.”

“Mm. We’ll see what the boy has to say for himself.”

“He’s twenty-six years old. He’s hardly a boy,” I muttered.

“He’s an infant with a smart mouth, as far as I’m concerned. But…you’re defensive of him,” Fisher mused. “I suppose that’s only to be expected. I’m honestly surprised that you would want him to leave.” He took a sip of his wine.

“Defensive of him?”

An unfamiliar tension radiated from Fisher. He seemed to be working very hard at nonchalance. “Mm. I wouldn’t have thought he was your type, but it explains a lot.”

My type? A weightless, falling sensation made me sit back in the chair. I felt so dizzy all of a sudden. “What are you talking about?”

“He mentioned that you were infatuated with him. Back in your room.”

“Well, he was lying!” I spluttered. “Carrion’s a pain in the ass. He’s known for making up stories on the spot.”

“When I went to Zilvaren to fetch him—”

“When you went to Zilvaren, you were supposed to fetch Hayden.” My stomach stopped rolling, replaced by a prickle of anger. I set down my wine. “Which reminds me, you didn’t hold up your end of our bargain. Not properly. How is it that I’m still expected to hold up my end of our oath, but you’re free to walk away from it?”

It was so easy for him to dismiss me. One flick of his wrist and a roll of the eyes, and anything I said was rendered inconsequential. It was infuriating. “I’m not walking away from anything. I swore I would try to bring your brother back. I tried to bring your brother back,” he said. “Oath fulfilled.”

“You couldn’t have tried very hard.”

“I didn’t say I would try very hard, did I? And anyway, you’ll find that I did the best anyone could have, given the circumstances.”

“You said you could find my brother because we had the same parents. That it’d be easy since you were covered in my blood.”

Fisher paused. I’d spent enough time around him now to know when he was about to say something I wasn’t going to like. The unholy delight in his eyes promised that I would hate whatever he was about to say next. “That’s right. But I wasn’t just covered in your blood, was I? I was wearing another of your…perfumes.”

Perfumes. He deliberated over the word. Luxuriated over it. The dark, suggestive way he said it left nothing to the imagination. He had no mercy, so there was little point in begging for it, but I had to try. “Don’t. Do not, Fisher. Please. Just…”

“When you were grinding yourself all over my lap, you marked me up very efficiently,” he purred.

A fire burned in my throat, causing my voice to crack. “I hate you.”

“You keep saying that. I’m still not convinced that it’s the truth. Either way, your brother wasn’t where you said he’d be. And when I reached your ward, I detected your scent from three miles away—”

“Just stop talking, Fisher.”

“—plastered all over that boy.” He gave me a cruel smirk. “Pheromones are signal flares to our noses, Little Osha. I was rushing, so I didn’t differentiate between blood and sex at the time. But when I walked into that room earlier, and your friend Carrion mentioned your little obsession with him—”

“Shut. The fuck. Up.”

“It became very clear what had happened. He still smells of you even now.”

“I slept with him months ago. Months. It was once, and I was drunk, and he’s never let me live it down since. There is no way you can still smell me on him.”

“There’s every way,” Fisher rumbled, his eyes darkening. “I’d know the smell of you anywhere. On anyone. I’d know it blind and in the dark. Across a fucking sea. I’d be able to scent you—”

BOOM!

The windows along the eastern wall of the dining room blew in.

It happened quickly, and with staggering force.

One moment, I was staring at Kingfisher, watching his mouth in horror, withering a little more with each of his words. The next, a glittering explosion of glass was raining down on us. Shards the size of my hand cut through the air like daggers, striking the table, tearing through the flowers, slashing at my skin. I brought my hands up instinctively, protecting my face and head. “Fuck!”

Kingfisher became death.

His expression transformed to one of rage, his lips curling back, his canines extending. He was a flash of shadow, already on the other side of the table with Nimerelle in his hands before the dark shapes had finished dropping from the windows.

There were four of them—tall monsters with patchy, stringy hair and white, waxy skin. Gaunt cheeks spiderwebbed with black veins. Crooked fingers that terminated in claws. Red eyes. Not just the irises, but the whites, too, as if every capillary had burst and bled beneath the surface. Each of them bared a mouthful of elongated, yellowed fangs that dripped with ropes of viscous saliva. They wore clothes, but the garments were in tatters, barely clinging to their emaciated frames.

The largest of the four, a male with a thick black runic tattoo across his forehead, released an almighty roar of rage and launched himself at Fisher. Fisher moved like water. Nimerelle flashed around him, the tarnished black blade whipping through the air, trailing smoke. The sword was an extension of Fisher himself. For a moment, it was all I could do to sit and stare at him, watching in awe as he fell upon the monster. He was powerful and quick, his body twisting effortlessly when the monster tried to claw him. The hand that had swiped at Fisher fell to the floor with a dull thud, rolling under the table. Black, steaming ichor arced from the stump Nimerelle left behind, the pungent stench of sulfur flooding the dining room.

Fisher threw a glance back over his shoulder at me and shouted, “MOVE!”

The dining room came into sharp focus. I leaped to my feet, my blood hammering at my temples. Two of the sickly-looking creatures prowled toward me, their awful fangs snapping as they came.

I reached for and found the dagger strapped to my thigh, clutching it tightly, my eyes jumping from one of the monsters to the other. The one on the right, a woman with pale silver hair and torn lips, launched up onto the table, landing on all fours. She moved jerkily, her head tilting from side to side as she craned her neck toward me, sniffing the air like an animal. The one on the left was smaller than the woman. Somewhere between adult and child. He snarled, producing a hair-raising clicking sound from the back of his throat, knocking over Fisher’s chair when he came for me, sending it crashing to the floor. His eyes were blank. Both of their eyes were. There was no intelligence there. No real thought. Only the desire to rip and tear and kill. Hatred radiated from them, polluting the air, thick enough to choke me.

The woman came first. She had no weapons, but she didn’t need them. Her claws were weapons enough. She swung, raking her talons toward my chest. I darted back, barely avoiding their blackened, disgusting tips, but she was already coming again, lashing at me. I struck out with the dagger, slicing the blade at the same time, and the metal made contact, leaving a deep gash across her sinewy forearm. Reeking blood, thick as oil, sprayed across my shirt.

A grating, awful scream came from the other side of the dining room. The sound of it set my teeth on edge. A series of crashing, clattering sounds followed, but I couldn’t afford to look. The moment I let my focus slip was the moment I died.

The female roared, shaking her arm as if she couldn’t understand why it was hurting. I spun the dagger, slicing her again, this time across her shoulder. The shirt she was wearing split apart, the thin, black-veined skin beneath bursting open like a piece of rotten fruit. Tiny white flecks spilled from the wound. They hit the rug and started wriggling.

Maggots.

The boy to my left snaked forward, his teeth gnashing. I whipped the blade out, aiming for his throat, twisting at the same time to try and avoid his claws, but I wasn’t quick enough. He moved so quickly. Unnaturally so. The air rushed out of me in a breathless ‘Ooof!’ when he slammed into me. The dining room tilted. I went down hard, my ribs exploding with pain as I hit the ground. I let out a panicked shout as both the female and the boy fell on me.

Gods and martyrs, I was going to die.

They were going to eat me.

I had no doubt in my mind about that. Those teeth were built for one purpose and one purpose alone: ripping flesh. I gasped, pain lancing up my leg like a lightning bolt. Their claws dragged at my clothes. They cut into my skin. I couldn’t see. Couldn’t breathe. The female reared back, wet strands of her saliva dripping down onto my chest. She opened her mouth, her jaw cracking open far wider than it should have been able to, revealing a blackened, mangled, pulsing stump where her tongue should have been. She snorted, then dove.

I braced, waiting for the horror of those teeth plunging into my flesh, but it never came. A streak of black smoke wrapped around her throat. The smoke became metal, and then the female’s head was parting from her neck, and it was fucking gone. Her twitching body flew off of me, flopping and thumping, bones cracking as it rolled across the rug.

Kingfisher towered over me like the god of death himself.

His chest heaved, his eyes flashing with green, and silver, and murder.

“You all right?” he panted.

I was still clutching hold of the dagger, its short blade covered in sticky black blood. I swallowed, nodding, even though I was pretty sure I wasn’t all right. Not all right at all. “The boy…” I panted.

Kingfisher’s expression darkened. He turned, and we both saw the adolescent at the same time. Eight feet away, on his hands and knees, he was moaning as he licked a patch of blood on the rug. Just as the female’s had been, his tongue was a raw stub of meat. Without hesitation, Kingfisher brought Nimerelle down onto the creature’s neck, decapitating him, too. The boy’s body sagged instantaneously, his gnarled hands relaxing, claws uncurling against the destroyed rug.

I rolled over and threw up.

Kingfisher was probably going to mock me for losing my stomach, but I didn’t care. I was shaking too hard to even pull myself up onto my knees.

What…

…the fuck…

… just happened?

Strong hands found my sides. I gasped, the bright sting of pain dancing up my leg again. Kingfisher repositioned his hold on me, muttering unhappily to himself as he lifted me into his arms. “You’ve been clawed. The wound needs scourging,” he said.

“Scourging?”

“The poison will kill you otherwise. Did either of them bite you?”

“N—no. I don’t…” My head swam, another wave of nausea hitting me hard. White pinpricks flared in my eyes, making it look as though Fisher’s hair was full of stars. They streaked across the ceiling, first one shooting star, then another, then a million of them, racing across my vision. It was…really beautiful, actually. Kingfisher was, too. His throat was flecked with black ichor, and his hair was disheveled. His eyes were wild, but he looked breathtaking. I could feel his heart beating like a drum against my side. Thum thum thum thum.

I couldn’t feel my fingers.

Why…couldn’t I…feel them?

Why was Kingfisher running?

“What…were those…things?” I rasped.

Stars raced above Kingfisher’s beautiful head. He clenched his jaw, his throat muscles working as he kicked open a door and carried me through it.

“Sanasrothian foot soldiers,” he answered tightly. “Feeders. They are the reason why we need silver so badly. It’s the only thing that can kill them. NOW CAN SOMEBODY FUCKING HELP!”