Page 152 of Quicksilver

“Holy fuck. Why is it socoldin here?” Carrion was carrying a sword and a potted plant under his arm, still wearing his thick coat with the coarse fur over its wide collar.

“I found him up at the forge,” Lorreth said, stepping through the gate behind him. “He was still asleep.”

“Hey, don't say it like that!” Swift shot him a wounded look. “We had a very long night, y'know.”

“You slept through a battle,”Lorreth said.

“And I'm a very heavy sleeper!”

“What's with the plant?” Ren asked.

Carrion shrugged. “I don’t know, I liked the look of it. It was the only green thing for a mile amongst all that white. I figured it deserved an easy life if it had made it this far growing out of a snowbank. Plus, my tent was so bare. It needed a little cheering up.”

“For fuck's sake. This is ridiculous.” Danya rose from her chair. “I can't spend another minute in here with scatterbrained humans. Just because they're...pretty...” She wobbled, her eyes glazing over. Tucking her chin, she reached for the edge of the table, but her fingers found nothing but air.

“Lorreth?” Fisher said quietly.

“Fuck, do I have to?”

“Please?”

Lorreth grumbled as he crossed the dining room in four long strides and caught Danya right as she fainted. He did not look pleased to be holding the female in his arms, and I couldn't say I blamed him.

“She's lost a lot of blood,” Fisher sighed. “Come on. We'll take her to the healer.”

“And what about us?” I asked. “We can’t just sit here. I need to do something.”

Fisher reached for me. I lifted my hand, just enough so that he could hook the tip of his index finger around mine for a second. “Go to the forge. Get to work on the relics. Make as many as you can, Saeris. I have a feeling we're going to need them.”

Ren left with the others, saying he needed to check the grounds and let the guards know we were here. As soon as we were alone, Carrion threw off his coat and pointed emphatically at the door, after the Fae who had just exited through it. “Did you hear that?” he said.

“What?”

“That smoking hot blonde said I was pretty.”

“Gods alive, Carrion. Donottell me you have a thing for Danya. She’s fucking awful.”

“Eh.” He shot me a rakish grin. “I love a girl with a sharp tongue and a bad attitude. Kinda makes my dick hard.”

The rain had stopped, thank the gods.

Onyx snuffled into the forge, his nose glued to the ground, following a trail; he squealed when he saw me, his whole body wiggling with excitement. I spent half an hour giving him pets and treats from the plate of food a timid fire sprite delivered for us, and then he happily headed out into the courtyard to sit in the dark, his little fluffy head tipped up towards the stars. It was already well past midnight. Had this been a normal day, we should have been thinking about going to bed, but we'd slept from dawn until dusk, when Ren had come to tell us the horde were at the river. And after fighting and ending so many feeders, and then the awful news of Everlayne's capture, I was officially awake.

Good thing I had a mountain of work to keep me occupied.

The tiny orb of quicksilver rolled around in the bottom of the crucible in a languid anti-clockwise direction. Negotiating with this quicksilver had turned out to be tricker than when I'd forged Avisiéth. It insisted it didn't want anything—that it had no interest in being a relic. It was bored of me poking and prodding at it, and it didn't want to be bothered anymore.

“We're wasting time. And I'm confused. You have the ability to command the stuff to do what you want it to do. Why don't you justforceit to comply?” Carrion asked.

“I'm not forcing it to do anything. It's sentient, Carrion. It has a mind of its own. It thinks. It talks—” I really wished it didn't, “—and I'm not going tomakeit do something it doesn't want to do.”

Carrion knew about the bargain Fisher had tricked me into. He knew how I felt about being stripped of my free will. It was surprising that he'd even suggest this. He plucked one of the Fae rings out of the wooden trunk by the hearth and flicked it up into the air. A flare of silver flashed in an arc as it spun. Distractedly, he said, “I take it you've forgiven our benevolent kidnapper for his crimes, then? You and he seem very close.”

“I'm not talking about Fisher withyou.”I set down the crucible so I could stoke the coals in the hearth.

“Why not? As you so forcefully reminded me recently, we're not exes. We only slept together once. I assure you, you're not going to hurt my feelings.” He leaned against the bench, waiting.

“I don't want to talk to you about him because you'll use whatever I say to taunt me. Come here and pump these bellows.”