Page 188 of Quicksilver

Fisher looked down at me, frowning. “Saeris?”

“Will you grant us our favor?”

An audience? They wanted totalkto me? That was indeeda small favor. One I could hardly refuse them.“Yes. I’ll grant it. As—”As soon as I’m well enough to have a conversation with you. That’s what I had been about to say, but the cord that had helped me find the quicksilver pool at the center of the labyrinth snapped taut out of nowhere. My body tugged, and Fisher nearly dropped me.

“What the fuck? Saeris?”

Fisher clutched hold of me tight. His shadow gate was open, less than three feet away. All he had to do was turn and walk us through it. I grabbed the strap of his chest protector, alarm bells ringing in my head. “I’m sorry,” I gasped. “I—”

I was ripped from his arms.

“SAERIS!”

An invisible rope yanked me through the air, pulling me across the labyrinth. My arms and legs streamed behind me as I was yanked backward. Air rushed past my ears. Lorreth and Carrion cried out, too. In a split second, my friends were gone, my mate was gone, and I was hurtling through the labyrinth at breakneck speed.

“Please!” I cried. “Don’t!”Whatever the quicksilver was doing, it had to stop.

My stomach hollowed out, a weightless sense of falling tugging at my belly. And then all I could see were coins. Thousands of them. A whole carpet of them, whipping by beneath my feet.

True panic claimed me when I understood where I was being drawn.

I barely saw the quicksilver pool underneath me before a wave of the liquid metal rose up and lashed me around my waist. I barely had time to scream as it cinched tight around my ribs and dragged me below its surface.

“It’s dead.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Of course it isn’t dead.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Becausefather willed it here, stupid. He doesn’t want it to be dead. Therefore it isn’t.”

These voices were female. Young and playful. The first who had spoken made a dismissive sound and said, “Well, itlooksdead.”

I opened my eyes and saw bright blue sky.

A bird chased across my field of vision, darting and swooping, singing at the top of its lungs; without thinking, I lifted my hand to shield my eyes from the sun, wanting to get a better look at it.

Too late, I braced for the pain…but none came.

“Do you think it understands us?”

I squinted, turning my head, and blades of grass tickled the side of my face. I was lying in a vast field at the foot of a rolling hill. Atop the hill stood a lone oak tree so magnificent that it took my breath away. Its thick boughs rocked on the gentle breeze, its leaves shimmering, flaring with light when the sun hit them.

I dragged myself into a sitting position and immediately spied the two young women to my right. They looked eighteen, perhaps. Nineteen. And they were identical in every way. Dressed in loose, dark grey dresses, they wore nothing on their feet. Their black hair flowed in waves down to their waists. Two pairs of quick, royal blue eyes shot through with silver threads watched me with a keen interest as I got to my feet.

The girl on the right grabbed her sister’s hand, and the two of them came forward. “Tell us what it’s like,” she said in a clear, pleasant voice.

“I’m—” I cleared my throat. “Sorry. Tell you what what’s like?”

“Sex,” the other girl said, tilting her chin. “With that male. Our father’s champion.”

“With…Fisher?”

In unison, the girls nodded eagerly.

“Uhhh…”

“We wanted to try him out for ourselves, but Father forbade it,” the twin on the right said. “He deems no living creature from any realm worthy of our touch. We’ve been waiting an eon for him to gift us with our own playmate, but thus far, no other of our kind has braved the journey to visit our Corcoran.”