Quicksilver (The Fae & Alchemy Series Book 1)

A dream of death and liquid fire.

No.

A nightmare.

I was trapped inside it with no way out. Darkened hallways stretched off into eternity, doors on all sides. Whenever I opened one, heart thundering in my chest, I was met with the putrid stench of rot and sharp, yellowed, snapping fangs. There were crowds of them. Feeders. That’s what Kingfisher had called them. He had also called them foot soldiers, but they didn’t seem like soldiers. A soldier had to be able to follow orders. To enact the will of another. The things behind these doors were monsters, capable only of obeying their thirst for blood. Women, and children, and elderly men, all of them insane and hungry. They tore at me with clawed fingers. They sank their rotting teeth into my skin. I screamed and thrashed, ripping myself away from them, barely escaping with my life, only to open another door and unleash a fresh wave of them.

There was no outrunning them. No fighting them. They sprinted after me, defying gravity as they sank their claws into the brickwork and swarmed up the walls, charging on all fours across the ceiling. Fell, evil demons, determined to drink me dry and drain my soul while they were at it.

I ran hard, but it was no good. There were too many of them. My lungs burned, the wound in my side on fire. Blood ran down my legs, coating my bare feet in a slick that made me slip and fall…

I didn’t stop falling.

I would fall forever, burning and burning, until my blood turned to crimson steam and my flesh sloughed from my brittle bones.

And still, I’d fall.

Fall and fall forever.

I—

I woke with a start, dragging in an audible, ragged breath as I sat bolt upright.

Where…

Where was I?

My mouth tasted of bile and ash. Everything fucking hurt. My limbs felt as though they’d been tied to four horses, and the shitty bastards had bolted in four different directions. It hurt to breathe. To swallow. To fucking blink. For a good minute, I braced my hands against the mattress beneath me, trying to wrangle my senses, waiting for the pain to pass.

It took a long time, but eventually, I could think around it enough to take in my surroundings. Light poured in through twelve-foot-tall windows to my left. Heavy velvet curtains hung at them, half drawn on one side. Paintings hung on the walls in gilded frames, though the artwork within those frames was slashed to ribbons. Above, the ceiling was painted black, pinpricks of white strewn across it in no apparent design or order. A chest of drawers made from a rich, dark wood sat against the wall by the door. An armoire made of the same wood was positioned in the corner, its doors flung open, displaying an array of dark garments within.

I was in a bed. A four-poster bed with birds, wolves, and dragons carved into the posts. The sheets were black. The cushions at the foot of the bed were also black. Along with the mostly black clothes hanging in the armoire…

Dread tapped me on the shoulder. The moment I inhaled through my nose and detected the smell of mint in the air, I knew I was in deep shit.

“Oh, look. She lives,” came a hushed voice.

I hadn’t noticed the wing-backed chair in the pool of shadows created by the drawn curtain. Nor had I noticed the Fae male sprawled out in it, feet crossed at the ankle, hands stacked over his stomach. Now that I knew he was there, he was impossible to miss. Fisher’s hair was a little mad, waves and curls springing every which way. His face was bone white against his dark clothes; as always, he was a creature of stark contrasts. Even from fifteen feet away, I could see the flecks of ichor staining his cheeks. He looked relaxed. His posture was one of boredom, but the energy he gave off hit me like a slap. With eyes of green fire, he stared at me so intensely that I almost gave in and recoiled under the weight of his gaze.

I clenched my teeth, bracing for the storm I could feel mounting on the horizon. “It wasn’t my fault,” I said.

Kingfisher blinked. “I never said it was.”

“You’re looking at me like it was,” I countered, gathering the sheets up to my chest, clutching them as though I might be able to use them as a shield against him.

“Sounds to me like you’re wrestling with a guilty conscience,” he rumbled.

“I do not have a guilty conscience. I have a hole in my side and my leg because you chose to relocate us to a place where rabid freaks hurl themselves through windows and attack us.”

“You aren’t injured,” he said evenly.

“What?”

“We have excellent healers here. Better even than at the Winter Palace. A perk of living on the outskirts of a war zone. You don’t need to replace your warriors if you can snatch them from the jaws of death in time.”

I gave him a dark look. “Stick really close, you said. Well, I was about as close as I could get without sitting in your lap and look what happened. We were attacked inside your fucking house.”

“Psshhh.” He made a dismissive sound, fiddling with a button on the front of his shirt. “It was nothing. Four rogue scouts taking a shot they were never going to win. It won’t happen again.”

“You can’t guarantee that.”

“I can. The house has been unguarded since we arrived. Ren wanted to post a unit here to patrol the grounds and ensure we didn’t have any uninvited guests, but I shut him down. I didn’t realize the feeders had gotten so…”

“Brazen?”

“Hungry.” He pressed the tip of his tongue against the point of a sharp canine, studying me. “You landed a hit on one of them,” he said.

“Two hits.” If he was going to commend me, he might as well get it right.

“Impressive.” This was supposed to be a compliment, but his tone made it backhanded.

“For a girl?” I asked bitterly.

He arched a dark brow. “For a human.”

“Oh, fuck you, princeling. What have you got against humans anyway?” I snapped. “You’re so determined to hate us, but we’re more alike than different.”

He snorted at that. Rose from the chair and approached the bed. Standing next to me, he reached out a hand and curled a piece of my hair around his index finger, staring at it thoughtfully. “We are nothing alike,” he said quietly. “You nearly died from a scratch that would have been a mild irritation to me. You are soft. You are fragile. You are vulnerable. You are a newborn fawn, stumbling around in the dark, surrounded by predators with very sharp teeth. I am the thing that exists on the other side of the dark. I’m the thing that puts the fear of the gods into the monsters who would eat you bones and all.”

Why was he looking at me like that? His eyes were hard, but his expression was carefully blank. I couldn’t figure it out. Couldn’t figure him out. His fingers twitched, the tips so close to my cheek. I was still delirious from the poison. I had to be, because if really felt like he wanted to trail them over my cheek and was forcing himself not to. “This is your room,” I whispered.

Fisher yanked his hand back, fast as lightning. He stood there, eyes wide, lips parted, as if he couldn’t understand how he’d found himself touching my hair. I watched his expression harden, a pit forming in my stomach. Why was he like this? What exactly was his problem? I’d asked him flat-out what his issue with humans was just now, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was more than that. That he had a problem with me specifically.

“It is,” he said. “It was the closest place to set you down,”

“Why are all the paintings torn up like that?” I demanded.

The tension crackling between us snapped like a cord pulled too tight.

“Because I destroyed them,” he said flatly.

“Why?”

He exhaled, whirling away. Taking long, determined strides, he headed for the door. And just as he’d done at dinner before all hell had broken loose, he cast his voice so that it was right next to my ear. The rough edge of it, so close, made me startle. “Because sometimes, my pendant can’t stave off the darkness that creeps in.”

Gritting my teeth, I shouted after him. “Really? That’s it? You’re leaving? If that’s the case, I can go back to my own room now!”

Fisher paused, hand resting against the doorframe. “Unless you need to relieve yourself, you won’t get out of that bed, Osha. Even then, you’ll go to the bathroom and get straight back into that bed. There are still trace amounts of poison in your veins. You need to rest until you’ve had time to properly heal.”

“I can heal in my own bed.” But even as I said this, the question sprang into my mind. Did I even have a bed here? A space to call my own? The room I’d woken up in was luxury beyond anything I could have ever hoped for back in the Silver City, but the prospect of sharing a bedroom with Carrion did not sound appealing, especially when I felt like shit.

“Stay in that bed, Little Osha.” The command was gentle, almost kind, but there was a resonant quality to it that left no room for argument.

My grip on the silky black sheets tightened. “Then where are you going to sleep?” If he thought for one second that I’d share a fucking bed with him, he was sorely mistaken.

He must have known what I was thinking because he smirked as he spoke. “I’m heading to Innír for a week. There are things that need my attention there.”

“Innír?”

“The war camp. On the other side of the mountains.” He nodded to the window. “They act as a barrier between this place and the carnage on the other side.”

“Oh.” I’d been right, then. The camp I’d imagined when I first heard of Cahlish did exist. Four thousand feet of jutting, jagged rock stood between it and this house, but it was out there.

“For the record, I’d never use an injury as an excuse to sneak my way into a bed,” Fisher said. His voice was even closer now. I could almost feel the brush of his lips against the shell of my ear. “I’ve never had a problem securing myself an invite.”

He was so sure of himself. His arrogance went beyond the pale. “Well, don’t count on an invite from me,” I snapped, drawing the sheets up even higher beneath my chin.

Fuck me. That smile. Slightly open-mouthed, flashing the smallest hint of pointed teeth. I had to be so, so careful around that smile. It would wreck me if I let it. “Mm. You’re right. I don’t think you will invite me. When the time comes, I think you’ll beg—”

I let out an infuriated scream. Grabbing the closest thing I could lay my hands on, I hurled a cushion at his head. Too heavy, it thudded to the floor, woefully short of its mark.

Kingfisher’s laughter rang out down the hall as he disappeared, his bedroom door swinging closed behind him. I tossed off the bed sheets, determined to hurl something much sharper at him, but when I tried to swing my legs out of the bed…nothing happened. My muscles didn’t move an inch. Didn’t even twitch.

Oh my gods, I was paralyzed. Something wasn’t right. The healers…they…I couldn’t move my…oh my gods. Oh no, oh no, oh no…

The second I stopped trying to get out of the bed and tried to flex my feet instead, my body obeyed. Relief rocked me so hard that I let out a sob, pressing the back of my hand to my mouth. I could move my legs. I just couldn’t get up.

I—

Wait.

No.

He hadn’t.

Unless you need to relieve yourself, you won’t get out of that bed, Osha. And even then, you’ll go to the bathroom and get straight back into that bed.

Understanding pressed down heavily on the center of my chest. That was why Fisher’s voice had sounded so firm when he told me to stay in bed and rest—because it’d been a command issued through the oath that bound me to him.

I had to stay in his bed.

I didn’t have a choice.

Five days.

Five long fucking days. I ate in Fisher’s bed. Slept in Fisher’s bed. Whenever I needed to go to relieve myself, as Fisher had so elegantly put it, my body allowed me to get up, but my feet carried me toward the discreet door over by the armoire and permitted me to enter the beautiful white marble bathroom there. I could do what I needed to do, and I could wash my hands, but as soon as I was done, my legs carried me back to the comfortable prison of his bed.

I had no idea what kind of magic kept the sheets so perfectly cool and clean, but it didn’t take me long to decide that it was tricky and evil. The scent of Fisher never faded from the black silk. I could smell him—the complex scent of a cold winter forest—every second of every hour of every day, until he was literally all I could think about.

I wanted to kill him.

And I was so bored, I thought I’d lose my mind. Onyx’s presence was the only thing that saved me. The fox had arrived shortly after Kingfisher had left and had stayed with me most of the time since. He curled up next to me and slept. He made quirky noises that sounded like he was laughing whenever I petted him or gave him neck scratches. Three or four times a day, he hopped down off the bed and slunk out of the room, nudging the door open with his nose, presumably heading outside to go to the bathroom himself or to hunt. He always came back, though.

Whenever the fire sprites brought me my meals, I begged them to fetch Fisher, but they shrugged sheepishly and told me that he hadn’t returned. After lunch, without fail, Te Léna, a Fae healer with beautiful bronze-colored skin and the most breathtaking amber eyes—came to check on me. She’d place her hands on my abdomen and ‘read my blood.’ I had no idea what that meant, but she did something all right. A shivery, not unpleasant sensation would skate through my veins, making my body hum a little. She’d smile at me apologetically and say, “Not yet,” then give me a new book to read. On the fourth day, her smile was brighter, though. More optimistic. “One more day,” she said.

“But I feel fine!” I’d felt good enough to run halfway across Zilvaren without breaking a sweat since Fisher had left for the camp, but there had been no reasoning with any of my visitors, least of all Te Léna.

“Even if I wanted to release you from his command, I couldn’t. The oath knows you’re not fully recovered yet, so it won’t let you out of this room.” She’d squeezed my shoulder reassuringly. “But not long now. There’s so little poison left in your system that I can barely detect it. Only twenty-four more hours.”

On the final day of my incarceration, Carrion brought me my breakfast instead of one of the fire sprites. He’d visited before, but he’d annoyed me so much with his pacing and his questions that I’d screamed at him and made him leave. He hadn’t returned after that. Not until now. He grinned at me over the top of the tray he set down on my lap, a mischievous glimmer in his eyes.

“You look pissed,” he said.

That wasn’t the understatement of the century. It was the understatement of the entire epoch. “I am pissed.”

Carrion threw himself down onto the bed, stretching out next to me. The disturbance woke Onyx from his nap; he snarled, baring his teeth at Zilvaren’s most wanted man, flattening his ears against his head, but Carrion just ignored him. He grunted, fluffing Fisher’s pillows, making himself comfortable. “You know what’d really piss him off?”

I knew he wasn’t talking about Onyx. “Just don’t, Carrion.”

“Revenge fucking on his bed.”

I shoved a piece of apple into my mouth. “Oh, yeah, sure. Sounds like a great idea. Idiot. What do you think he’d do to you if you fucked someone in his bed?”

Carrion waggled his eyebrows. “I think he’d never know.”

I nearly choked on the apple. “Oh, he’d know.” The snarky comment Fisher had made in the dining room rose to the surface of my mind like he were here himself, laughing as if he were repeating it in person. I detected your scent from three miles away, plastered all over that boy. Pheromones are signal flares to our noses, Little Osha.

“I’d be willing to risk inciting his wrath,” Carrion said. “Whatever his punishment was, it’d be worth it.”

Hah. Carrion hadn’t seen Fisher decapitating that feeder with one ruthless flick of his wrist. If he had, he might reassess that statement. I gave him a pointed look. “No.”

Carrion swiped a piece of toast from my breakfast tray. He bit into it, creating a shower of crumbs that magically disappeared before they hit the bed sheets. “Just so I know,” he said, chewing. “Is that a no to fucking in your captor’s bed? Or a no to fucking in general?”

“What do you think?”

He pointed at me with the corner of his slice of toast. “You could eviscerate a man with that expression. It’s one of the things I love most about you.”

I snatched the toast from his hand and threw it down onto my plate. “I don’t love anything about you.”

“Liar. There are so many things you love about me.” He winked roguishly, attempting to steal the toast again, but I slapped the back of his hand.

“Get your own godscursed breakfast. This one’s mine.”

“My hair. My eyes. My wit. My charm…” He counted them off on his fingers, making a list.

“You have zero charm.”

“I’m a hell of a lot more charming than Kingfisher,” he sputtered.

“You’re both as insufferable as each other. Now can you please get your filthy, muddy boots off of the bed?”

“What does it matter? The mud just disappears, anyway.” He demonstrated, wiping the mud-caked soles of his boots against the rucked-up sheets, looking very pleased with himself when the mess he made promptly disappeared. “See.”

“What the hell have you been doing?” I demanded. “Why are you so dirty? And…wait, where did you even get those boots? Last time I saw you, you were walking around barefoot.” I laughed scornfully. “You looked stupid.”

“Well, I was hardly gonna walk around with just one boot, was I? While you’ve been stuck in here, staring at the ceiling, I’ve been out training with the new guards. They have a fascinating fighting system.” It was an airy taunt. Payback for saying he’d look stupid. If there was one thing Carrion Swift couldn’t tolerate, it was being made fun of. “As for the boots, your friend Fisher gave them to me.”

I set down my fork. “He did?”

Carrion nodded. “That night, before you had dinner with him, actually. You’d already left for the dining room. He showed up with these in his hand and said he’d give them to me on one condition.”

“Which was?”

Carrion snagged a grape from the tray and popped it into his mouth. “That I take a bath.”

“A bath?”

“Yes, a bath.”

“That’s a weird request.”

“I know. Even after being kidnapped, dragged into a different realm, and carted for miles on the back of a horse, I still smelled great. But he was all wound up about not liking the way I smelled, so I figured fuck it. Whatever. A bath for a new pair of boots was a fair trade. And it felt great to soak in all of that hot water. Strange, right? All of that water? I still can’t wrap my head around the fact that there’s just so much…”

He prattled on, but the bite of toast I’d just taken had turned claggy, like glue. “He said he didn’t like the way you smelled?”

“Yes, and he was very rude about it. He had a bunch of sprites come in and scrub me with these stiff brushes until I was raw and pink all over. I swear they took off four layers of skin. They put this thick white clay all over me, then, and let it sit so long that it went hard, and they had to crack it to get it all off.”

“Gods.”

“And then,” he said, taking another grape. “They rubbed me down with this special kind of moss, which is where things got interesting. They paid particular attention to my…” His eyes trailed down his body until they rested in his crotch.

I raised my eyebrows at him. “You let a fire sprite jerk you off with a handful of Fae moss?”

“Not a fire sprite,” he said defensively. “These were water sprites. Three of them. They’re smaller than the Fae women and very nice to look at. I didn’t mind their attentions one bit.”

“You’ve been in Yvelia for five seconds, and you’ve already had a foursome with a different species of magical creature?” I didn’t know why I was surprised. It was absolutely something Carrion would do.

“Jealous?” he asked, winking again.

“No! I’m—I’m disgusted! What if you catch some kind of Fae disease?” I eyed his crotch for emphasis this time.

Another grape went into his mouth. “Ahh, I’m not worried about that. They were very thorough with that moss.”

“Gross!”

“Come on. Hurry up and eat. That gorgeous healer told me to let you know you’d be able to get out of here as soon as you finished everything on that tray.”

I let my mouth fall open. “Carrion Swift, you are such an asshole! That should have been the first thing you said when you came in here.”

I’d never finished a plate of food so quickly in my life. Not even when I’d been starving back in the Third.

The silver spat in the crucible, bubbling angrily. The combination of iron filings and the yellow powder I’d first mixed in saline solution and then added to the molten silver had not ended well. Neither had the experiment where I’d attempted to add a small sliver of gold and some human hair (mine) to the metal. Both times, when I’d placed the medallion I forged with the materials into the quicksilver, it had roiled, the voice within hissing furiously in a foreign tongue. This time, I’d burned some wood, ground up the coals that had remained, and sprinkled that into the silver. The two didn’t want to combine, but I poured the contents of the crucible into the mold and flashed the whole thing in the slack tub anyway, wincing as the water cooled the metal, creating a cloud of rank smoke.

The second I dropped the medallion into the crucible that held the quicksilver, I knew this attempt had ended in failure as well. The quicksilver laughed.

And that was that. I could only do three experiments a day. With so little silver to work with, I needed to spend the rest of the day refining it so that it would be ready to test with again tomorrow. Swearing angrily, I gathered together the scrap I’d created and dumped it into a firing chalice, my temper rising along with the temperature inside the forge. Even with one side of the workshop open to the elements, it was still as hot as the dungeons in Madra’s palace by the time I was done for the day.

When he wasn’t chasing the birds or hunting for mice, Onyx had taken to lying underneath the giant oak tree, watching me from a distance, cooling his belly in the snow.

It had been eight days since I’d fled Fisher’s room, which meant twenty-four failed attempts at creating a relic. The trunk full of silver rings sat by the bench where Fisher had left it, its presence a daily reminder that, until I’d turned every single ring inside it into a shield that would allow Fisher’s warriors to pass through the quicksilver unharmed, I was basically fucked. And then I’d see the other trunks full of rings tucked away in the corner, and I’d have to fight the urge to scream.

I didn’t want to think about what was going to happen if I didn’t make any headway soon. Every time I refined the scrap silver, I lost some of it. The amount I had to work with grew smaller and smaller every day, and with it, so did my chances of ever seeing Hayden and Elroy again.

As I worked, Onyx yowled, excited by something on the other side of the garden wall. He did that a lot. There were animals that roved Cahlish’s grounds and guards that now patrolled on the other side of the wall as well. I didn’t see them very often, but I heard them from time to time. I ignored Onyx’s sounds of outrage as I carefully placed the scrap silver into a vat of acid. Staring at the three small medallions, watching them slowly dissolve, I didn’t see the intruder climbing over the wall until it was too late.

My head snapped up when Onyx let out a very dog-like bark. And there it was. A dark figure, striding toward me across the garden.

Feeder.

My heart backflipped, my hand reaching for my dagger, a cry of panic building at the back of my throat…

…but it wasn’t a feeder.

It was Ren.

He gave me a warm smile as he entered the forge. “Afternoon, Saeris.”

“Really? You’re gonna climb the wall and scare the shit out of me instead of coming in through the door?”

“It was quicker that way,” he said. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

The general should have frightened me, but even after launching himself over a wall and surprising me, he didn’t. There was a warmth to him that made me feel at ease, no matter how imposing he was. The top half of his long sandy brown hair was tied back into two war braids. They gathered into a ponytail at the base of his skull. The rest hung well past his shoulders, almost as long as mine. His eyes—the deepest brown—looked a little wary as he peered past me into the forge.

“Are you all right?” I asked. “Is that…blood?” His hands were stained black, as were his pants. The golden chest plate he wore, engraved with a sigil of a snarling wolf’s head very similar to the one on Fisher’s gorget, was splattered with black liquid as well. It could have been very dark mud, but…no. He was close enough that I could smell him now, and holy hells, the general reeked of the same foul odor that had filled the air when the feeders had attacked us. It was definitely blood. He looked down at himself, his brows rising as if he’d only just noticed that he was filthy.

“Ah. Shit. Yes, uh…we don’t exactly have access to a bathhouse at the camp. There’s a river, but it’s frozen. I—I should go and clean up. Apologies, Saeris. I was so fixed on coming to say hello that…” He tried unsuccessfully to wipe his hands clean on his pants. “Yeah, I forgot about this. I’ll go and clean up. First, I was charged with the pleasure of letting you know that Fisher’s requesting your presence for dinner again tonight.”

“Oh, he’s back, is he?” I folded my arms across my chest. “And requesting my presence? Are you sure you don’t mean demanding it?”

Renfis winced, and I knew that I’d hit the nail on the head. Ren was a million times nicer than Kingfisher and had reworded the message he’d been given to pass along to me. “He doesn’t mean to be so brusque,” he said. “He’s been fighting this war for so long now that he’s forgotten what it’s like to interact with polite society.”

I turned back into the forge and dropped my heat-proof gloves onto the bench. “You really should stop making excuses for him. It doesn’t help him, me, or anyone else. He’s just a bastard.”

Ren smiled weakly. “He’s also my best friend. I have to believe that he’s still in there somewhere. The person I once knew. Not this cold, shutdown version of himself.” His sadness weighed him down, I could see it. “But anyway. I won’t keep you. You need to get ready for dinner and—”

“Are you going to be there this time?”

Ren looked down at his dirt-rimmed fingernails, a small smile playing over his mouth. “No. I do normally eat with Fisher, but I wasn’t invited this evening.”

I narrowed my eyes to slits. “And why was that, do you think?”

“I’d hate to hazard a guess.”

Coward. We both knew Fisher only invited me because he wanted to torture me for his own sport without anyone there to keep him in check. I wasn’t having it this time. “You’re coming to dinner,” I informed Ren.

“No, I don’t think so,” he answered slowly.

“Yes. I’m inviting you.”

“I’m honored, and thank you, but—”

“Look, do you want Fisher to have to come find me because I’ve refused to show up for dinner? Do you want him to force me to go? Do you think he’d do that?”

“No, of course not! He wouldn’t.”

I waited.

“Fine, he probably would,” he conceded.

“Good. So you’re coming.”

“Saeris.”

“Because you wouldn’t want him to command me to do something I didn’t want to do again. Because you’re a nice Fae warrior, unlike Fisher, who is the devil incarnate.”

Ren looked torn, but at last, he relented. “All right. Yes, okay. I’ll come. But he’s not going to be happy about it.”

“When is Fisher happy about anything?” I scowled. “Where is he, anyway? Why didn’t he come to torture me with news of dinner himself?”

Ren looked toward the doorway, more alert than he’d been a moment ago. I got the feeling that his superior Fae hearing had detected movement out in the hallway back in the main house, but if he had, he didn’t mention it.

“He’s with Te Léna,” he said distractedly.

“Oh. Right. Was he hurt or something?”

“Hmm? Oh no, he’s fine. Nothing to worry about. There was a skirmish in the eastern wood beyond the camp, but it was over quickly. He came out unscathed.” He nodded as if trying to convince himself that this was true. “I’ll see you at dinner, Saeris.”

“Wait. One last thing before you go. I’ve been thinking a lot while I’ve been stuck in here, trying to make these relics, and…Fisher’s sword, Nimerelle, still has some magic, doesn’t it? The smoke and that dark energy that crackles from the blade?”

Ren looked a little wary now. “Yes.”

“How—how is that?”

He rubbed his jaw, thinking for a second. “I’m not sure,” he said. “None of us are. All we know is that when the god swords went silent and abandoned the rest of the Fae who carried them, Nimerelle stayed. At a cost. The blade used to shine brilliant silver. As the centuries have passed, it’s blackened and tarnished. But Nimerelle has stayed. The spirit of that sword or the magic inside it, whatever you choose to believe it is, has stayed. No matter what, it’s never left him.”

“I don’t see why I have to come.” Carrion tugged at his shirt collar, grumbling as he hurried along behind me down the hall. “I was in the middle of a great sparring session. I’m filthy. I would have gotten changed if I’d known I’d be sitting down with my kidnapper for a nice meal. Speaking of which, you should really have changed after you left the forge, too.”

“I did,” I said blandly.

Carrion pulled a face. “Really? I seem to remember there being a very low-cut, sheer black dress on the end of your bed when I went back to the room earlier, and I can’t help but notice that you’re wearing a faded, threadbare shirt and some very dusty pants.”

“So what? They are clean.”

“That’s the only positive thing that can be said about them.” Carrion’s nose wrinkled in disgust. “I had a vested interest in seeing you in that dress.”

“Why?” I shoved open the door to the dining room.

“Your phenomenal tits, that’s why. They would have looked great in that dress. And your ass. The material was sheer as hell. Wouldn’t have left much to the imagination. Not that I need to use my imagination when it comes to your body, but—”

A sinister growl echoed around the dining room.

Carrion had enough common sense to stop talking.

The windows had been fixed after the attack. There was no huge floral arrangement in the middle of the table this time. Fisher sat at the head of the table, dressed in midnight black. A tailored shirt hugged his chest and shoulders in the most distracting way. His hair was damp, the ends curling, as if he wasn’t long out of the baths. His mouth formed a taut line, suggesting that he wanted to close his hands around Carrion’s throat and snap his neck. All cleaned up now, Ren sat to Fisher’s left, nursing a glass of whiskey, looking pained.

“You’re late,” Fisher said in an icy tone. “And please enlighten me. Why have you invited half of the household along to a meeting that was supposed to be for just the two of us?”

“Meeting? I thought this was dinner. And how would it be fair for me to enjoy the pleasure of your company while these two miss out?”

Carrion held up a hand. “I’d prefer not to be here, actually.”

“Sit the fuck down,” I hissed.

“All right. Gods.”

A place had been set for me down the far end of the table again, though it appeared as though a concession had been made this time, because the table was nowhere near as long as before. Only ten feet? Still, I wasn’t some second-class citizen to be relegated to the far end of a fucking table. I strode straight past the setting, swiping only the wine glass as I went, and then dragged out the chair on Fisher’s right again, sitting down heavily in it.

Renfis had been in the process of sipping from his glass, but the second he realized that I’d sat opposite him, next to Fisher, the alcohol sprayed out of his mouth in an arc that nearly crossed the width of the table. Luckily no food had been placed on it yet.

“Saints.” He pounded on his chest, wheezing. “What the fuck?”

“Oh, yes. She has no sense of timekeeping, and she has unconventional seating preferences, don’t you, Human?”

“I can sit there instead?” Carrion offered.

“Absolutely not,” Kingfisher barked. “Try it and die.”

“Whoa. Okay. I was just trying to keep the peace. If you guys need a buffer—”

“We don’t,” Fisher fired back at him. “And even if we did, I’d ask someone far more likable than you. No!” He held up a finger, stabbing it at Carrion. “Do not tell me how likable you are back in Zilvaren. I don’t want to hear it.”

Carrion gave him a sickly smile as he sat down in the next chair along.

“Here. Come and sit on this side,” Ren said to me, collecting his glass and shoving his chair back. “I don’t mind moving.”

“What’s the difference between this side and that side?” I asked. “Either way, I still have to look at his smug face.”

“She’s right,” Fisher said. “She’s made her decision. Let her sit wherever she wants to sit.”

Ren gave him an odd look. “Really?”

“Really.”

I didn’t know the general all that well, but I knew him enough to tell that he was confounded by Fisher’s declaration. He sat back in his chair, his eyes roving over his friend’s features as I grabbed the bottle of wine in front of Fisher and poured myself a large glass. I would have put the bottle straight down again, but Carrion grabbed it from me before I had a chance. Fisher watched Carrion lean across me, his nostrils flaring.

“You’ve been training with the guards,” he said.

Carrion nodded. “The way the Fae fight is amazing. So fluid and preemptive. It’s like watching ballet.”

“People don’t get hacked to pieces at the ballet in Yvelia,” Fisher said dryly.

“Really? Wouldn’t surprise me if they did. You lot are almost as bloodthirsty as the brawlers who fight in the pits for water rations back in the Third.”

“We’ve evolved. We wouldn’t fight for something as petty as a water ration.”

Carrion huffed out a breath of laughter. “You would if you were dying of thirst. Trust me. I’ve seen it.”

I heard the unspoken words. I’ve been there. He didn’t say them. He didn’t have to. There had been times when he had struggled to survive back in the Silver City. I knew that because everybody struggled. It was unavoidable. A time came for every resident of our ward, where they were faced with an impossible situation and they had to decide. You either fought for water, or you stole it. Carrion had likely done both more times than he could count.

Fisher looked from Carrion to me, as if he were wondering if I had ever found myself at the bottom of a pit with a dagger in my hand, fighting for a cup of water.

I wondered how he would react if he knew that I had.

Ren cleared his throat diplomatically, redirecting the conversation. “You’re welcome to come and train with the garrison now that they’re back. Tomorrow morning, we’ll be running drills.”

He’d spoken to Carrion, but I answered him first. “What time? I’d love to train.”

“I’m surprised,” Fisher said, taking a sip of the whiskey he had in front of him. “I thought you were in a rush to get home.”

“I am. You know I am.”

He didn’t look at me. “But you’d rather waste time out in the snow with a sword in your hand instead of working on the task that will set you free?”

Archer and his team of fire sprites had entered the dining room. They shuffled up and down the table, setting down trays of hot, steaming food, averting their eyes from us. All of them except Archer, who stared at me, eyes huge in his head, as he placed a soup spoon beside the bowl he put in front of me. I smiled at him, and he squeaked, his eyes darting to the floor. His rough-surfaced face was incapable of blushing, but I got the feeling that he was embarrassed to have been caught looking at me.

“I’m getting nowhere with the relics,” I said to Fisher. “The way you’re having me work right now is pointless. I could run these trials until the end of time. I still won’t figure out the transmutation process. And I have to say, you don’t seem to give a shit. It’s almost as if you don’t really care if I have to stay here forever.”

Archer let out a nervous giggle, hiccupped, and then scurried off toward the door.

Kingfisher didn’t seem to think anything of the little sprite’s strange behavior. “Of course I want you to stay. You’re the only Alchemist we have,” he said. “I’d keep you here and have you working in that forge until you died of old age if it were up to me. But a deal’s a deal.” It was a testament to the white-knuckled grip I had on my temper that I didn’t snap at him as I watched him sip from his glass. “It’s really shocking how little faith you have in yourself. You’ll figure it out. Please eat something,” he said, gesturing to the feast the sprites had brought for us.

Carrion hadn’t waited for an invitation and was already heaping his plate with small pies, roasted vegetables, and five different kinds of bread rolls. Ren had taken a piece of bread, too, though he wasn’t giving it much attention. He picked at it, tearing off a piece and putting it into his mouth, chewing slowly as his gaze moved back and forth subtly between me and Kingfisher.

“I’m not hungry,” I said.

“You are,” Fisher said. “We can all hear your stomach rumbling. Put something in it so we don’t have to listen to it complaining for the next hour.”

The soup in the tureen closest to me smelled incredible. It was thick and creamy. Chicken, maybe? Mushrooms and sweetcorn, too. If I weren’t feeling so spiky about being coerced into coming here, I would have filled my bowl to the brim with it. Since I was pissed, I ignored the food and my snarling stomach and treated Fisher to my best death stare. The same one Carrion had said was capable of gutting a man. “You said you were going to the camp for a week. You were gone for two.”

“Did you miss me?”

“I didn’t appreciate being stuck in your bed for five days, y’know.”

“Really?” He picked up a piece of cheese. “Most females like spending time in my bed.”

“How long are you staying before you head back to the camp?” Carrion asked Ren, around a mouthful of food.

Ren arched an eyebrow, struggling to tear his gaze away from me to look at Carrion. “Uh…a week, maybe?”

“I don’t even want to think about the depraved shit you’ve done in that room,” I hissed.

Fisher’s laughter flooded the dining room. “You’re right. You don’t.”

“Urgh!”

“I’ll be down in the courtyard every morning before dawn, then,” Carrion said.

“Sure. We’re practicing disarmament tomorrow…” Ren tore off another piece of bread and put it in his mouth, throwing me a sidelong look. “You could probably use some training on that front, Saeris.”

“Great! I’ll be there. Thanks.” I tried to make my voice a little lighter but failed. Ren laughed silently, looking down at his plate. Apparently, he thought the battle I was waging with Fisher was adorable and didn’t take offense at the bite in my tone, but I wasn’t mad at him. He didn’t deserve my ire. “Sorry,” I said, taking a deep breath. “I didn’t mean to snap. Not at you, anyway.”

The general shook his head, suppressing a smile. He reached for a pie and set it onto his plate. “Not at all. He makes me crazy, too.”

Kingfisher hadn’t looked away from me once during this exchange. “Make sure she uses a training sword,” he said flatly. “One with a very dull edge.”

“I do not need to use a training sword!”

“Oh? You have experience wielding a blade, then? A proper, full-length sword and not some badly forged back-alley shank?”

I was going to shank him in the neck with my very dull butter knife. Then he’d see how proficient I was with a blade. I could do it, too. He wasn’t wearing his gorget this evening. His throat was bare, just begging to be opened right up, and I was in the mood to lay steel to flesh. I only realized I’d been staring at his throat when Fisher lifted his chin a little, angling his head so that the tendons in his neck stood proud. That fucking smile again. I wanted to wipe it off his smug face so badly.

“Yes,” I declared. He had no idea about the training I used to do back when my mother was alive. No idea at all what I was capable of. “I have plenty of experience with full-length swords. They’re like daggers, only bigger. You use the sharp—”

“You’re on the verge of embarrassing yourself,” Fisher murmured. “Better stop talking before you put Renfis here in an early grave.”

“Oh, fuck you, Fisher.”

He bit down on his bottom lip, eyes alive, flickering vivid green and silver. I knew what his amusement looked like now, and I didn’t like it one bit. “Go on. Tell her, Ren,” he said.

“I’m not getting caught in the crossfire of whatever this is,” Ren said, gesturing to the two of us. “I’ll be happy to demonstrate the differences between close-quarter fighting with a dagger and swordplay in the morning, Saeris. In the meantime, I plan on enjoying my dinner. Carrion, what kind of fighting system do the guardians employ in the Silver City?”

It was as if Carrion had been waiting for him to ask; he dove into an in-depth, animated discussion with the general, telling Ren all about the fighting techniques and formations he’d witnessed Madra’s guards using back home. I was sure he was making half of it up. I contributed nothing to the conversation; I was locked in silent warfare with Fisher across our corner of the table, and I didn’t plan on losing.

Fisher nodded toward my plate. “Eat, Little Osha.” His lips moved, but he spoke softly, casting his voice.

“Gods, will you stop doing that?” I hissed under my breath.

“Why? I’ve seen the way your skin breaks out in goosebumps when I speak to you like this.”

“It makes me uncomfortable.” I kept my voice low, even though I shouldn’t have. It was impolite to conduct a murmured conversation like this at the dinner table, but Ren and Carrion were busy talking away, and it turned out I had plenty I wanted to say to Fisher. “You compelled me with the oath again,” I said through gritted teeth.

“I did,” he agreed.

“You shouldn’t have.”

“Why not?”

“I can’t believe I actually have to say this out loud,” I hissed. “You shouldn’t do it because it’s wrong. You can’t go around forcing people to do things they don’t want to do.”

At last, Fisher ate the cheese he’d been holding. “You can if they enter into a blood oath that puts them at your mercy.”

Ren’s expression darkened at this, but he carried on talking to Carrion.

“Do you have no conscience whatsoever? Are you just evil? Is that it?”

The corner of Fisher’s mouth kicked up. Leaning forward, he took my plate and started filling it up with various items from the platters and dishes the sprites had brought in. He hovered over a tray of charred meat, trying to decide if he ought to plate me some of that, but then seemed to decide against it. When he was satisfied with what he’d prepared for me, he put the food in front of me and leaned back in his chair. The tattoos at his throat shifted as he swallowed. The intricate designs on the backs of his hands, cuffing his wrists and disappearing up his sleeves, writhed like smoke.

“Eat something from that plate, and I’ll answer your question,” his voice rumbled into my ear.

A sour smile twisted across my face. “Bribery?”

He splayed his hands wide. “Whatever works.”

I scowled.

“Do you want me to feed you?” He looked like he’d do it.

“All right. Fine.” I picked up the fork and scooped some mashed potatoes onto it, shoving it into my mouth. The explosion of butter, rich cream, and chives made my mouth ache as I swallowed the food down, trying not to openly melt at how delicious it was. “There. Happy now?”

Fisher sat forward, resting his elbows on the table, his eyes glittering. “I’m not evil, no.”

“Could have fooled me.”

“If I was evil, I’d have used your oath to my advantage by now.”

“You have,” I spat.

“Have I?” He looked genuinely curious.

“Yes!”

“I’ve compelled you three times. All three times, I think you’ll find it was for your own good.”

“That’s a horrible excuse! You—”

“If I were evil and using your oath for my own purposes, I’d order you onto your knees for me,” he said, cutting me off. “I’d order you to part your legs for me. I’d order you to suck and fuck me until you passed out from exhaustion. Is that what you want, Little Osha?”

Heat detonated in my chest. An inferno, raging inside me, eating up all of the oxygen in my lungs. My hand shook, my cheeks turning crimson as I used the edge of my fork to cut into the small meat pie he’d put on my plate. “Of course not. Why would I want that?” I rasped.

He nodded to the piece of pie on my fork. “Eat.”

My anger was eating me, but I raised the fork to my mouth and did it.

“If I compelled you to do it, you’d be innocent. Your actions wouldn’t be your fault. You wouldn’t have to face the fact that you wanted me.”

“Just stop, Fisher.”

“And I’d prove what a vile monster I was, wouldn’t I? How vindicating for you. To get exactly what your body is calling out for while also being proven right.”

“You’re out of your fucking mind,” I whispered.

“That’s what they tell me. But I don’t know. Aside from the relentless chatter in my head, personally, I think I’m doing just fine.”

“I don’t want you, Fisher.”

“You’re thinking about my hands sliding up the insides of your thighs right now,” he said. “About my fingers slipping inside the wet folds of you. Working against your swollen clit, rubbing you until you’re panting and whimpering, begging for me to sink my cock into your—”

For the second time since we sat down to dinner, Renfis nearly choked on his drink. He spun in his seat, giving Fisher a scandalized look that said, really? I’m sitting right fucking here, but Fisher paid him no heed.

On the other hand, I nearly keeled over and died. Because if Ren’s superior Fae senses could hear what Fisher was whispering to me, then he could also scent how his friend’s words were affecting me as well, and—and gods, I would never live down the shame.

I wouldn’t admit it to myself, would never allow the thought to take shape, but my body wasn’t as accomplished at lying as my mind was. I did want Fisher. I hated myself for it. Hated that he knew it. And now Ren knew, too. It was mortifying.

“Shut up. Please. Just…shut the hell up.”

A hungry look resided in his silver-rimmed eyes as he sat back in his chair. “Eat your dinner, Osha. You’re going to need your strength. We won’t be staying here for a week, after all. We’re returning to the war camp in the morning…and this time you’re coming with us.”