Page 20 of Quicksilver

A wave of heat swept over me, making my mouth sweat. I hadn't paid much attention, dying as I'd been at the time, but when the dark-haired stranger had picked me up, the tips of his ears had been strangely shaped, too. And his canines...

“Show me your teeth.” The demand slipped out before I could reel it back.

The woman in the green gown clapped a hand over her mouth, her eyes widening. “What? No!” she exclaimed behind her palm. “Absolutely not! That's—that's sorude!”

“I'm sorry. But...you'reFae?”

The statement sounded like the punchline to a bad joke, but Everlayne wasn't laughing. “I am,” she answered, still hiding her mouth.

“But...you're not real.”

“I beg to differ,” she fired back.

“Myths. Stories. The Fae are folklore. There's no suchthingas the Fae.”

“Don’t I seem real to you?”

“I suppose so. But…the Fae had wings.”

Everlayne snorted. “We haven’t hadthosefor thousands of years.” She dropped her hand, huffing a little as she pointed to the cup of water I was still holding. “Look. You have a concussion. Finish that and see if you feel any better. Things might feel a little backward for a while.”

My disbelief had nothing to do with the lump on the back of my head. You didn't just forget an entire race of people because you hit your head too hard. The Fae werenotreal. I squirmed, trying to prop myself up a little better, still scrutinizing Everlayne's ears. “My mother told me stories about the Fae when I was little,” I said. “The Fae visited the shores of our land, bringing with them war, disease, and death—”

A look of indigence stole across Everlayne's pretty features. “Excuse me, but the Fae are not diseased. We haven't been afflicted by blight of any kind in a millennium. Humans, on the other hand, are riddled with all sorts of germs. You fall sick and die at the drop of a hat.”

I'd offended her. Again. That was twice in the space of a minute. As far as first meetings went, I wasn't doing a stellar job of making a good impression here. Taking a steadying breath, I tried to formulate a question that wouldn't come across as rude, but Everlayne huffed, speaking before I could.

“You're telling me that the Fae have become a bedtime story meant to scare children in Zilvaren?”

“Yes!”

“What else do they say about us?”

“I—I don’t know. I can’t remember right now.” I remembered plenty, but none of it was very flattering. I had no desire to offend her again by telling her that Zilvaren mothers warned their children that a Fae hag would come and eat them in the night if they didn’t behave themselves.

Everlayne frowned, peering at the side of my head. “Hmm. How’s your short-term memory? What’s the last thing youcanremember?”

“Oh. I was in the palace. Madra's captain was trying to kill me. I...stopped his dagger somehow, and grabbed hold of a sword. Then the floor turned to molten silver. A big pool of it. And...something came out of it.”

“Something? Or someone?”

“A man,” I whispered.

But Everlayne shook her head. “Amale.He came because the sword called to him...” She trailed off, throwing her hands in the air. “Gods, I still don't know your name. Unless you don'thavea name.”

“Of course I have a name,” I said. “It's Saeris.” I could count on one hand the amount of people I’d given my real name to when prompted. But for some reason, lying to her seemed wrong. I had no idea how long I'd been unconscious for, but Everlayne had visited me. Talked to me. Watched over me, and sung to me, and kept me company. Those weren't the actions of a being who wanted to cause me harm.

Everlayne’s eyebrow arched knowingly. “Ahh.Saeris. A pretty name. AFaename. How are you feeling? You're sore, I bet, but you must be feeling a lot better than when you first arrived.”

“I feel...” HowdidI feel? The last time I'd checked, I had a monstrous hole in my stomach and a dagger sticking out of my shoulder, not to mention that I'd lost near every last drop of blood in my body. With stiff arms, I slowly lifted the blanketcovering me and surveyed the damage beneath. There wasn't much to see. I was wearing some type of tunic—pale green and made of soft, buttery material. I patted my stomach, feeling for the gaping wound through the fabric, but there was nothing. My stomach felt smooth. There wasn't even any pain.

“Our healers are extremely talented. Though, it's been some time since they worked on a human with such catastrophic injuries,” she admitted. “They decided to keep you sedated while your internal organs repaired. I argued to wake you up as soon as you were officially whole again, but Eskin said you needed another couple of days for your mind to calm after the trauma you'd experienced.”

“Wait. So I'mnotgoing to die?”

Everlayne chuckled, shaking her head. “No. Eskin's success rate is a point of pride for him these days. He hasn't lost a patient in nearly two centuries.”

Twocenturies?The songs our mother sang to Hayden and me when we were tiny always spoke of the Fae's unnatural life spans. I still couldn't wrap my head around the fact that Everlayne was Fae, though. Did I believe it? Was my mind even capable of accepting that as the truth? It just wasn'tpossible.