Page 103 of Quicksilver

“Swift. Earlier. Back in the war room. You were trading that cake back and forth with him for ages.”

“It wasn’t cake.”

“I don’t care what it was. Just stop sharing food with him.” There was a dangerous edge to his voice. One that dared me to challenge this order.

If he hadn’t learned by now that I wasn’t one to be told what to do, then perhaps he needed reminding. “Why not?”

“Because I fucking said so.”

“Is it some weird Fae custom that I don’t know about?”

“No,” he answered stubbornly. “It doesn’t mean anything. Share all the bowls of stew you like with Lorreth or Ren. Just don’t share food with that prick. It's bad enough that you insist on sharing air with him. I'd rather you didn't eat off the same fucking plate, too.”

“What have you got against Carrion?”

“I don’t want to talk about Carrion,” he growled.

I almost laughed.Almost.“All right. Fine.” The back of my neck prickled. Something inside of me was slipping away. I felt it happening in stages, and it was frightening. The wall between us—the barrier that existed to keep me safe— was lowering, coming apart a brick at a time. I could halt thewall's deconstruction. Bring it back up again if I wanted. But...I couldn't fucking breathe around him, and I knew what his hands felt like on my body now. For real. I craved more of him, even though he could be selfish and cruel, and even knowing that wanting him would more than likely be my downfall.

“ThenI’llchoose what we should talk about. Let’s have a conversation about what just happened...”

“In the tent?” He didn’t cast his voice. There was no need for magic. He was standing so close that his mouth would brush the tip of my ear if I only leaned backoneinch.

“On the riverbank.”

“I brought you here so we could forget about the riverbank.”

Forget? How did he imagine that I'd ever forget that? “If those feeders had made it to our side of the river—”

“I would have cut them down and made a pile of their bones.” He was so fucking confident. Not a shadow of doubt in his abilities.

“People would have gotten hurt.”

Fisher's dry laughter stirred my hair. “We're at war. That's what happens in a war. People get hurt. People die. Sometimes they rise again and feed off of the living. It's a cycle.”

My heartbeat was everywhere. It pulsed in my hands, and at my temples, and in the hollow of my throat. I turned around to face him, needing to look into his eyes. His strong jaw was just inches away, marked with the beginnings of stubble. The gorget flashed at his neck, the wolf at his throat at my eye level. His shirt was filthy, open just a fraction—enough to reveal a swathe of writhing black ink. He was expressionless as he looked down at me, waiting for me to speak. “This isn't a joke! I—I was—” I knew what I wanted to say. I couldn't bring myself to do it. There was a point of no return here, and I wasn't ready to step beyond it.

“You were worried about me,” Fisher said roughly.

“No! I...”

“I saw the look on your face. In the map room when Danya wanted to lob my head off. You were afraid. For me.”

“I was afraid that you'd die, and I wouldn't be able to get back home. You made an oath to send me back when I was done with the rings. The others might not give me that same deal, and...”

Fisher's wry, unhappy smile left me under no delusions that he believed what I was saying one bit. He didn't argue, though.

“They're going to tear you to shreds when you go back in the morning,” I whispered.

“I'll be fine,” he countered.

“Aren't you even a little concerned that—that your so-calledfriendsare going to think you’ve been helping that—that Malcolm guy— and—”

Fisher drew his bottom lip into his mouth, eyes the softest I'd ever seen them. Gently, he gathered the flyaway hair that had escaped my braid and carefully swept it behind my ear. “Breathe,Little Osha.”

“You can't just tell me to breathe when they nearly made it across the fucking river, okay?”

“They didn't nearly make it across the river. They made it halfway. That’s as far as they ever make it. Malcolm sends his army out from time to time, just to remind us that he’s there. We break the ice. He loses a wave of foot soldiers. Everything goes back to normal for a while.”