Page 153 of Quicksilver

He looked affronted. “What, am I your slave now?”

“If you insist on staying in here and annoying me, then you're going to make yourself useful at the same time. Those are the rules.”

He made a face but still came, took hold of the bellows’ handles, and began to pump them. “Come on. We're gonna be stuck in here for hours. You might as well tell me. I won't taunt you, I promise.”

I snorted. Carrion's promises weren't worth the paper they were written on. He was notorious for swearing things left, right, and center and then not honoring his word. It would be very stupid of me to expect him to keep this promise...but I found myself starting to speak. “I've forgiven him, I suppose. Yes. He didn't make me do anything that hurt me or anyone else. He compelled me because he thought it would keep me safe. And he knows what'll happen if he ever does it again.”

This would earn a snide remark from Carrion, surely. But no. All five hells must have frozen over. He just nodded. “Y'know, I thought it was weird when he bribed me to take a bath with thoseboots. I asked one of the sprites who came to bathe me. Y'know, one of the water sprites with the giant...” He mimed cupping a pair of sizable breasts on his own chest. “I asked her why they were trying to flay three layers of my skin off with that weird moss, and they said it was special. They said Fae who liked to bedhop were fond of it ’cause it eradicated the scents of their other partners. I couldn't think of why Fisher would care if I smelled like those triplets who just started working at Kala's—”

“Gods,you're incorrigible.”

He waggled his eyebrows. “But then, I realized that it was you. He didn't want me smelling likeyou.”

I refrained from commenting. I had suspected that was why Fisher had made Carrion take that bath, but I'd never said it out loud. Not even to give him shit. I didn't know how it made me feel back then. And I was too much of a coward to admit how it made me feel now.

I went and collected the crucible with a pair of tongs. On my way over to the hearth, Carrion flicked the ring he was fiddling with into the air again, and I snatched it mid-spin before he could, dropping it into the iron pot with the quicksilver.

“What? You have nothing to say about that?” he asked.

“Not really. Who knows why he did it. Maybe he just thought you stank.”

“Hey!”

“Look, Fisher has his secrets. I don't stick my nose where—”

A secret...

I stopped talking, canting my head to one side. I had heard that, right? The quicksilverhadjust spoken? “What?” I asked out loud.

“I said,” Carrion began, but I held my finger to my lips, glaring at him, then pointed to the crucible. He got it immediately and shut his mouth.

A secret,the quicksilver whispered.Welikesecrets. We’ll change for you if you tell us one.

Huh. So that's what this quicksilver wanted. One secret? That, I could manage. I'd learned my lesson after giving that song to the quicksilver in Avisiéth, and it had ceased to exist, though. I was going to be smarter this time. “If I tell you a secret, will I still remember it afterward?” I asked aloud.

“Of course,”the voice replied.

“And will it still be a secret?”

“You will know, and so will I. But I won’t tell, I swear it.”

All right. So it wouldn't erase any information from my mind, nor would it spread the information around so that everybody knew it. Then there was nothing to worry about, I supposed. I didn't say it out loud this time. I spoke only for the quicksilver.

“I don't want to go back to Zilvaren anymore. Not forever, anyway. I want to go home, get Hayden and Elroy, and then bring them back here to Yyvelia.”

This wasn't the most scintillating, realm-shattering gossip imaginable. But to admit to it was massive for me. I had spent every waking moment in this place fighting to get home so I could save my brother and my friend. But then I'd found out that they didn't need saving. Not the way I'd thought they would. And I'd made friends here. Friends I cared about, who I had the ability to help win a war that had taken over their lives for hundreds of years.

And there was Fisher.

Things were uncertain on that front. Maybe I was fooling myself, and he would discard me after he'd had his fun. But either way...I didn't want to leave him.

The quicksilver rippled in the crucible, geometric patterns forming and reforming over its surface. It was beautiful to look at, but strange—I hadn't seen it behave like this before.

“Yes, a good secret. Very good. You want to stay. You want to save him. You must. You must.”

I frowned, watching the quicksilver closely as it vibrated next to the ring in the bowl of the crucible. “Save him?” I thought. “Hayden? Yes, I want to bring him here.”

“Not the brother. The Kingggfisshhherrrr,”the quicksilver buzzed.“Save him. Save the gates. Save Yyvelia.”