Page 122 of Quicksilver

Without thinking twice, I ripped the door open and charged inside. The curtains weren't drawn in here, and moonlight flooded through the windows, painting everything luminous silver. Wearing just his pants, Fisher lay in the center of a bed that was way too small for his body, on top of the sheets, shivering, his skin running with sweat. At first, I thought he was having a nightmare, but then I saw that his eyes were open andfixed on the ceiling. He blinked, and a tear rolled from the corner of his eye, racing over his temple and running into his hair.

“Fisher?”

He shook in reaction to my voice. At his sides, his hands clenched, gripping at the sheets. “Go,” Fisher said in a cracked voice. He watched me out of the corner of his eye, though his head didn’t move on the pillow.

“What's wrong? Are you—”

“Go!”

“I can't just go. Something's wrong with you.”

“I'll be fine. I—” A ripple of pain passed over his face, his eyes rolling back into his head. His back arched off the bed as he gritted his teeth, screaming out a vicious curse in Old Fae. “Fuck! Stop! Stop, stop, stop,” he chanted. “Please. Stop...” The episode, the seizure, hell, whatever it was that was causing him so much distress ebbed, and I watched, heart pulsing in the base of my throat as his body eased back onto the mattress. As soon as his back was flush with the bed, the shaking started up again.

Mind made up, I said, “I'm going to find someone. This isn't right.”

“No! No.” Fisher tried to swallow, but that seemed too painful to accomplish, so he cleared his throat instead. “It'll end soon,” he rushed out.

“Howsoon?”

“An...an hour. Maybe two. I'll...be fine.”

“Fisher, no! You need help. There must be a healer here.”

“Just...please. Get me some water. That'll help. Then...go back to bed. Get some...sleep.”

Yeah. Right. Sleep. With him in pain in the next room, screaming at the top of his lungs. That wasn't happening. He was so fucking stubborn. “I'll be back in a second,” I told him. All of the candles had guttered out long ago, and I wasn't blessed with magic that could simply conjure flames when I needed them,so I went scavenging. In the living room, I pulled open one of the curtains, thanking the gods when the moonlight lit up the furniture and all the other tripping hazards that stood between me and the kitchen.

I found a dusty glass in one of the cupboards, filled it from a pitcher on the sideboard, and returned to Fisher as quickly as I could. In my absence, Onyx had jumped up onto the bed and tucked himself into the male's side, resting his head on Fisher's stomach. He whined when I entered the room, his eyes moving from me to Fisher, as if he were trying to tell me something.

“Can you lift your head?” I asked.

“No. I can't move...anything.” Fisher closed his eyes, screwing them shut.

“All right. I'm going to help you, then.”

“Just...set it on the nightstand. I'll...drink it later.” Each word was labored. His body was so tense that it looked as though the tendons in his neck and arms were on the verge of snapping.

“I'm not leaving you here like this, you idiot.” I climbed up onto the bed and lifted his head up. It took considerable effort to get my hands beneath his shoulders and to lift his torso enough for me to slide in behind him, but I managed. Resting my back against the headboard, I let him lean back into me so that his head was propped against my stomach, a leg on either side of his body. He didn't protest when I held the glass to his lips and carefully poured some water into his mouth. It took a long time for him to drink, but sure enough, he drained the whole glass.

“You can go now. I think it's...passing.”

He was so full of shit. If his trembling was anything to go by, this episode was just getting started. “I'm not going anywhere.”

His hair was plastered to the side of his face in wet, dark waves. His eyes met mine, and my heart stopped for two beats when I saw the quicksilver in his right eye; it pulsed, nearly covering his whole iris, leaving only the smallest crescent ofgreen to shine through. “I'll make you go if...I have to,” he ground out.

Makeme? Oh, he'dmakeme, would he? This fucking asshole. I was trying to help him, and he was dead set on pushing me away. How could he be so infuriating, even when he was incapacitated and incoherent from pain? I spoke clearly so there would be no misunderstanding me. “If you use the oath you tricked me into to force me from this room right now, I will never forgive you. I will find a way to make your life absolutely fucking miserable. In fact, while we’re here and having such a lovely conversation about this, you’re never going to compel me against my will again. Do you hear me? Do you understand?”

“I don't need—”

“I am not fucking around, Fisher. If you have any respect for me, if you care about me even the tiniest, most minuscule amount, you will never,evercompel me again. Do you understand?”

He licked his lips, eyes burning into me. Even though I was upside down in his field of vision, he must have been able to make out the fury on my face because his eyelids shuttered, and he gave a small nod. “I…understand.”

“Great. Now stop telling me to leave. I'm staying.”

Again, another nod. “Okay.”

The next four hours—Not one. Not two.Four—were rough. Onyx hid his face in the sheets whenever another wave of delirium washed over Fisher. I held onto him as best I could when he bowed up from the bed, but that didn't seem to help, so I let his body contort and shake. The chain around Fisher's neck stuck to his skin, the pendant with the crossed daggers wrapped in vines rested in the hollow of his throat, wet with his sweat, and I glowered at the cursed thing, wondering why the fuck it wasn't doing its job. This was because of the quicksilver. There was no doubt in my mind about that. Even if I hadn't seenhow badly it had spread across his eye, I'd have known from the chanting I could hear in the back of my mind all of the time now.