Quicksilver (The Fae & Alchemy Series Book 1)

• Bismuth. Cadmia. Cinnabar.

• Plumbago. Lime. Calcite.

• Tin salt. Resin of copper. Marcasite.

Result: No Reaction.

When Carrion burst into the forge later that afternoon, I was out the back by the water baths, hurling glass beakers against the mountainside. I pulled a very uncharitable face, trying to convey my displeasure at his presence with a grimace instead of words. If I knew Carrion, he understood my meaning perfectly well and didn’t give a fuck that I wasn’t thrilled to see him. He produced a tin from the pocket of a very warm-looking coat and lit a cigarillo for himself. He offered me one, but I shook my head and launched another beaker at the rock.

An herbal, rich smell soaked the frigid air. “What are we doing?” he asked.

“What does it look like?” The beaker I lobbed this time didn’t go as high up the rock face, but it still exploded into an impressive shower of broken glass.

“Can I join in?”

I rolled my eyes.

“Great.” Gripping his cigarillo between his teeth, Carrion chose a fat, round-bottomed flask from the crate I’d dragged out here. He hurled the thing with all his might, and it arced pretty well before sailing down and exploding against the rocks. The resulting crash was one of the best ones yet. “Well, that felt pretty good,” he said, blowing out a thick cloud of smoke. “Wanna tell me why we’re doing this?”

“Destruction,” I replied.

Carrion nodded, bobbing his head from side to side. “As good a reason as any. I like it.”

I grabbed the two smaller glass bulbs from an old alembic still and shoved one into Carrion’s chest. “Shut up and throw.”

He laughed but obliged me, sending the glass hurtling through the air. I threw mine at the same time, and the two bulbs detonated against the rock with a thunderous smash.

“I take it you haven’t had any luck with your trials today?” Carrion said.

Gods, couldn’t he take a hint? I wasn’t in the mood to discuss my failures. I’d also burned my arm earlier, which wasn’t helping matters. “Evidently not. And that fucking quicksilver…”

“Having trouble making it do its liquidy, rolling around thing?”

“No. I can alter its state just fine now. I barely even have to think about that. I just tell it to be a liquid, and it becomes a liquid. The problem is that it’s fucking mocking me.”

Carrion snorted. “Mocking you?”

“Yes! It laughs every time I attempt to combine something new with it. It’ll take the pure silver, but the moment I tip anything else in there, it burns up before it even touches the metals. And it fucking laughs!”

“It can’t be sentient,” he said dubiously.

“Oh, ho, ho, it is. You wouldn’t be saying that if you could hear what I can hear.”

Carrion nodded, pulling on the cigarillo, the bright cherry flaring at its end. “Have you considered the possibility that you might be mad?”

“Yes, I have, actually,” I answered tartly. “But Fisher’s books back at Cahlish said it was common for Alchemists to report that they could hear the quicksilver.”

“Then maybe all Alchemists are mad. Maybe having a screw loose is just a prerequisite for working with this stuff.”

I snatched another flask from the box and threw it, growling under my breath. “Look, if you’re not going to be helpful, then I’m kind of busy here.”

“Oh, sure, absolutely. I can see that.”

I spun quickly, a fresh flask held over my head, ready to throw it at him, but he held up his hands in surrender. “All right, all right. Sorry. I admit, I didn’t come here with the purpose of trying to be helpful, but…you say you don’t have any problems getting to shift the quicksilver from one state to the other anymore? Because you ask it to change. Right?”

“Right.”

“Then, have you thought about just asking it to meld with the pure silver?”

“Psshhh! Don’t…don’t be ridiculous. Of course I haven’t!”

“Why not?”

“That’d be too simple, Carrion. I can’t just ask it to become a relic.”

“Seems to me that if you can ask to be a liquid or a solid, you could ask it to be all kinds of things,” he said, popping the collar of his coat.

I glared at him, my annoyance levels rising fast. Not Carrion Swift. He would not be the reason why I figured out how to accomplish this task. He’d never let me live it down. It was infuriating that I hadn’t considered this for myself, though.

“Are you gonna try it?” he asked, standing up a little straighter. “Can I watch?”

Gods, this was going to be awful. “I can’t try again to make a relic. I haven’t refined the silver yet. I was taking a moment to do this.” To sulk. “But…there’s a way to half-test the theory,” I said. “And yes, you can come and watch. But only if you promise to keep your mouth shut and not get in the way.”

It was physically impossible for Carrion to keep his mouth shut and not get in the way. I already knew this when I agreed to let him follow me to the map tent, so I wasn’t too surprised when he talked the entire way down the mountainside and all the way across the camp, too. He was blathering on about some two-bit smuggler back in Zilvaren called Davey, who owed him seventeen chits when we reached the map room.

Thankfully the place was deserted. It’d struck me that I might run into Danya here, since this was the only place I’d encountered her in camp thus far, but apparently the fates were smiling down on me today because even Ren was nowhere to be seen. I didn’t want an audience for this. Carrion didn’t really count, and he already knew what I was going to do anyway, having been responsible for the suggestion in the first place. I would look pretty stupid if I attempted this and failed, and I preferred none of the Fae to witness that firsthand.

“Dark as fuck in here,” Carrion grumbled. There was a fire burning in the ventless grate, but none of the torches on the walls were lit. He grabbed the first one he came to and stuck the end of it in the fire, then went around the empty room, lighting the others. I paid no attention to his chatter as he carried out the task. I was fixed on the bristling shards of metal sticking out of the stone wall.

This isn’t going to work. Why would it? Surely somebody’s already tried…

Doubt after doubt hit me, but I brushed them all aside. I had nothing to lose. And it didn’t cost me anything to ask. If nothing happened, or the quicksilver just laughed at me, then no big deal. I’d go back to the forge and refine the silver, and tomorrow morning I’d start up my trials again. But if it worked…

She comes.

She comes.

She approaches.

The quicksilver hadn’t spoken the last time I was in here. Not like this. I’d stood next to the embedded shards for a long time, focusing very hard on them before I’d detected even the faint whisper coming from the metal. Now, the voices were a rushing conversation, quiet, yes, but loud enough for me to pick up as I neared the wall.

She comes.

She sees.

She hears.

Reaching up, I extended my hand, pressing the tip of my index finger against one of the sword splinters. Yes, I’ve come. I see you. I hear, I thought.

Voices exploded in my head. Scores of them, talking, screaming, pleading, begging, laughing, shouting. I gasped, ripping my hand away.

“That looked painful,” Carrion said conversationally. He stood right next to me, holding onto the torch, his auburn hair turned copper-gold by the flames.

“Can you back up a little?” I asked. “This might be a little easier without you breathing directly down my neck.”

“I seem to recall you liked me breathing down your ne—”

“If you dare finish that sentence, you can go and wait outside,” I snapped.

“That’s fair.” Carrion moved back a step, bowing graciously. “Though, if it seems like your mind’s being sucked out of your body, or you’re in excruciating pain and can’t let go of the quicksilver sword murder spikes, do I have your permission to tackle you to the ground?”

That actually seemed like a prudent plan. “You do.”

“Excellent.”

I braced for the roar of voices, gingerly touching one of the shards again, but this time there was only silence. Had I imagined the screaming and the begging? Didn’t seem plausible. I went back to the original shard I’d touched, prepared for the onslaught of noise again, just in case, but there was only the echoing silence.

Hello? I thought. Are you here?

The answer was instantaneous.

Where is here…

Here…

Here…

Here…

Here…

The voices came from the left and right, from behind and in front of me.

We can be everywhere, they purred in unison.

They’d answered my question. It had? I couldn’t fathom whether the voices inside the quicksilver belonged to one thing or many, but I hadn’t come to puzzle that out. Can you come out of the stone? I asked.

Out?

Out?

Out?

Whyyyyyyy?

The voices buzzed like the droning flies.

Because the warrior who owned you is angry with me. And I want to put you back together.

This was bizarre. I’d never had a two-way conversation with the quicksilver before. I hadn’t even thought to try, which was foolish, perhaps, since it frequently didn’t shut up.

Owned?

Owned?

We are not owned.

Plain as day, I heard the anger in the layered voices. I should have realized that possessive language might not have gone down well, but I’d said it now. The only way forward was damage control.

“You’re making a weird face,” Carrion whispered loudly. “Are you talking to it?”

“Yes, I’m talking to it. What do you think I’m doing?”

“I don’t know. You look constipated.”

“Shh!” I closed my eyes so I could block him out. The female warrior who carried you, not owned you, I thought. She wishes to carry you again. Unless you can be put back together, she can’t do that.

Fae and human desires do not concern us…

Us…

Us…

Damn. To be honest, the idea of being carried around by Danya wouldn’t appeal that much to me either, but I hadn’t thought I’d have to resort to bargaining tactics. If the quicksilver was sentient, it was bound to want something, though. Anything capable of feeling and thinking always wanted something.

What does concern you? I asked.

The quicksilver didn’t reply right away. It seemed to be thinking about the question. After a long pause, it said, Music. Give us music, and we will obey.

Music? Gods and fucking sinners, what the hell did it want music for?

How about this? Allow me to reforge you, and I’ll have someone sing a song just for you.

There was no way this was going to work. No way.

A song? From start to finish? For us to keep?

Keep?

Keep?

If there was a way to keep a song, I didn’t know what it was, but I was willing to agree to almost anything at this point. Yes, I promise. A whole song for you to keep.

And you will forge us into a mighty blade unlike any other?

Yes. If you’ll allow it.

We will accept…

Accept…

Accept…

I didn’t want to push my luck here, but there was one more thing I wanted to know. And will you bestow the blade I forge with magics that the bearer might wield?

A gift revoked! the quicksilver cried. You ask for what cannot be given…

“Saeris…”

“Quiet, Carrion,” I hissed. “I’ll tell you what’s going on when I’m done.” I should have left him back at the forge. Shutting him out, I tried a different angle with the quicksilver.

Is it not within your power to give it?

All is within. It sounded affronted by the implication that it wasn’t capable of something. But it is undeserved. We decided long ago.

How do you know? How can you tell if a warrior doesn’t deserve the gift? Have you assessed the worthiness of every warrior who wishes to wield a sword?

I was walking a very fine line. If I wasn’t careful, the quicksilver was going to shut down completely and refuse to even dislodge itself from the stone. Even now, I could feel that it was irritated by my pestering. But I could also sense that it was intrigued.

All warriors are the same, it concluded after a long beat. They only wish to kill.

That isn’t true. Most warriors fight because they have to. To protect and defend.

Improbable.

How can we show you otherwise?

The longest silence yet followed. Thirty seconds ticked by, and then a minute. Another three had passed by when the quicksilver finally spoke again. We will bear witness to the blood.

What…does that mean?

We will be forged anew. When you have upheld your end of our bargain, we will taste the blood of the one who would carry us. If they are honorable, we will consider allowing the old magics to flow through us again.

Thank you! Thank you!

Do not thank us too soon. The dye is not cast, Saeris Fane. First, you must restore us and bring us a song worthy of glory.

Oh, I’ll do both. Don’t you worry about that. I startled when the shard of metal I was touching trembled beneath my fingertip. My eyes flew open, and I watched, amazed, as the thin, sharp sliver of metal slowly emerged from the stone. It hovered in the air, trembling, and then dropped into the center of my palm.

“Holy shit,” I breathed.

One at a time, the other pieces of Danya’s sword started to vibrate, working free of the wall. I finally looked at Carrion, who was leaning against the map table, tossing a small black rock up into the air and catching it. “Are you seeing this, Swift?” I demanded.

“Hmm? Oh, you figured it out. Cool. Did you give it a stern talking to?” He pushed away from the table and came to watch as over five hundred pieces of deconstructed sword started to drop to the floor.

“No, I promised it something that it wanted.”

“Ahh, bribery. I should have thought of that.”

He ducked down and helped pick up the pieces of metal. We’d gathered a small amount of them when another voice spoke behind us, and I nearly fell on my ass from the shock. “If you let me, I think I can speed up that process.”

“Gods alive!” I spun around, my pulse beating everywhere, and found the warrior sitting in an armchair by the fire. “Could have warned me we weren’t alone anymore,” I hissed at Carrion.

“Don’t get shitty with me. I tried to tell you, and you told me to shush. You were very rude.”

“I didn’t mean to scare you,” Lorreth said, getting to his feet. “Sorry. Watch out.”

Carrion and I both leaned back as hundreds of glinting pieces of metal rose into the air again, this time courtesy of Lorreth, who used his magic to gather all of the pieces into one floating bundle before he gestured for them to drop into a ceramic pot on the mantelpiece above the fire. He collected the pot and brought it over, handing it to me with a self-satisfied grin. “There we go. Easy.”

A lot of things were easier when you had magic. I clutched the pot to my chest, the beginnings of excitement churning in my veins. If I could convince the quicksilver to enter into this kind of a bargain, then the rings should be easy. And I got to make a sword. Not some tiny dagger, barely capable of inflicting a paper cut. A proper fucking sword.

Wolfishly, I grinned up at the dark-haired warrior. “Lorreth. What a coincidence. I was just about to go looking for you.”