Page 128 of Quicksilver

I could definitely dothat.I was ravenous. I joined him at the table, sitting beside him on his right, so I could look out of the window and watch Ballard wake up as I ate. Fisher wore a small smirk as I leaned across the table and fell upon the little pastries, custard-filled miniature pies, and diced fruit.

“What?”

“Nothing. Nothing at all,” Fisher said, his voice full of laughter.

“Should I go and si—oh, Gods!Fisher!What the…?” I felt the blood drain from my face. What thehellwas all over my hands? I dropped the little pastry I was holding, and Onyx dove, catching it out of the air before it could even touch the ground. I held out my hands, aghast. The tattoos I hadn't cared so much about last night were still all over my fingers and the backs of my hands. Except there were more of them now. Many more. Stacks of small runes ran up each one of my fingers. Delicate script wound around my wrists and up my forearms. I had no idea what the fuck any of it said. And the backs of my hands? I started to feel very lightheaded. The design on the back of my left hand was simple. Ish. The lines were fine and twisted together beautifully, forming a shape that almost resembled a flower if you squinted at it long enough. The one on my right, however...

It was bigger and covered the whole span of my hand. The lines were bolder. They twisted around one another, forming a variety of knots that I had trouble even picking apart with my eyes. It wasn't just one rune. It was many, interlocking, wovenone on top of the other, on top of the other. One of the runes wasn't even black, but a dark, iridescent blue-green color that flashed metallically when it caught the light.

Even Fisher swallowed hard as he took in all of this new ink I had gained in the night. I thrust my hands out toward him accusingly. “My mother wouldnothave approved of this!”

To his credit, he didn't laugh at me. He picked up his coffee, maintaining a straight face, and took a sip. Once he'd set his cup down, he reached out and took my left hand in his. His expression was blank as he studied the runes along my fingers. His brows twitched as he turned my arm this way and that, read the script that chained my wrist. When he ran a finger over the flower-like, larger rune on the back of my hand, his features became utterly unreadable, though.

He spent far longer assessing the ink on my right hand. I sat impatiently, thoughts bouncing around all over the place, unable to calm myself.

Say something. Don't just sit there, frowning like that. Speak!

Fisher huffed softly. “I'm thinking,” he said. “Give me a moment.”

“Oh, fuck. So that was real, then? You canread my thoughts?” A note of hysteria edged into my voice.

“No, I can’t read your thoughts,” he said, eyes darting up to mine for a split second. “I can hear you when you speak to me directly, though. That’s all.”

“That’s all? That’sall!”

“Breathe,Little Osha,” Fisher chided. “Your heart's racing.”

“I'm fine,” I lied.

Fisher adopted a very intense expression. He seemed confused by something. Turning my hand toward him, he even angled his head to get a different perspective of the layered, locked rune.

“What...what does it all mean?” I asked nervously.

Fisher drew in a sharp breath, looking up from my hand. “Not much, really.” He picked up one of the custard-filled pies, turned my hand over, placed it in my palm, and let me go. “Here. Eat. Your blood sugar is low.”

“My blood sugar's low? Wha—Fisher,what do the tattoos mean?”

He sighed, rocking back into his chair. Now that he was reclined again, the warm wash of light coming in through the window bathed him in gold again. He was breathtaking. “The one on the left means blessed one,” he said, his tone light. The fingers....” He shrugged, looking up at the ceiling far too casually. “They mean all kinds of things.”

“Could you be any vaguer?”

“I mean, probably...”

“Fisher!”

“Okay. All right. A lot of them are connected. Light. Dark. Silver. Steel. Earth. Air. Fire. Water. That kind of thing. Alchemist stuff.”

Alchemiststuff? The way he said that made it sound like that should be explanation enough and I ought to be satisfied, but I had more questions. A lot more questions, one more pressing than the rest. I held up my right hand and pointed at the mother of all runes shimmering there on my skin. “What the hell doesthisone mean?”

Fisher met my gaze. “That one’s difficult. I can't give you a definitive answer. Not yet.”

“There's magic in it, isn't there?”

“There's magic in all of them,” he said nonchalantly, taking a manful bite out of his own breakfast. “If you don't want to keep them...”

“How am I supposed to know if I want to keep them if I don't know what theymean?”

“I'm sorry. You're right. Here.” He gestured for me to give me his hands, which I did. A moment later, a creeping cold ran over my skin. One by one, the runes faded from my skin until even the complex, multi-layered rune was gone.