Page 43 of Quicksilver

Annorath mor!

Annorath mor!

The sound was deafening. I screamed around it, shaking my head, trying to get it out, but it blazed through every part of my mind, consuming me, eradicating every memory, every thought, every feeling...

“Annorath…MOR!” I screamed.

The pain blinked out.

The light rushed back in.

The voices fell silent, and the quiet they left behind was deafening.

Kingfisher stood frozen, still far too close for comfort, his hand loose around mine now. For once, that cold arrogance healways wore was nowhere to be found. With wide eyes, he looked down at our joined hands, his breath catching slightly in his throat.

I tensed when I saw the tiny ball of silver liquid rolling around in the well of my palm. Quicksilver. Not much. Little more than the size of a pinkie fingernail. But quicksilver all the same. And it was in aliquidstate.

I panicked, trying to fling it away, but Fisher gripped hold of my wrist, shaking his head. “So long as I'm touching you, you're safe. I'm wearing the pendant. It won't harm us.”

“What are you talking about? It'll definitely harm us! It just nearly froze me from the inside out!”

“That was nothing. A test. It's over now. You passed.”

Incredulous, I gaped up at him.“What would have happened if I hadn't?”

“That's academic. You did.”

“Get itoffme, Fisher!”

“Make it still,” he said.

“How the fuck—I don't knowhow!”

“Close your eyes. Feel it in your mind. Reach for it...”

I did as he said, closing my eyes, trying to remember how to breathe around the knowledge that this tiny bit of quicksilver pooling in my hand was enough to rip apart my mind. I'd seen what it had done to Harron. I was about to curse Kingfisher again, to tell him that I couldn't feel the cursed silver, but then...Icouldfeel it.

It was a solid weight, resting there, right in the center of my mind. It was nothing. Not hot. Not cold. Not sharp. Not soft. It just was. And it was waiting.

“I feel it,” I whispered.

“Okay. Now tell it what you want. Tell it to sleep.”

I told it exactly that. In my mind, I willed it to still, to go to sleep. The solid little weight seemed to roll over restlessly.

“No, not sleep. Not now. Slept for too long,”it hissed, an innumerable number of voices all layering over one another.

‘Sleep,'I ordered more firmly.

This time, it obeyed.

The weight lifted from my mind, disappearing until I felt almost back to normal.Almost,because Fisher was still holding my hands. When I opened my eyes, he was looking at the solid bead of matte, inert metal in my hands, a look of rye amusement on his irritatingly handsome face.

“I have to say, I was expecting that to go differently,” he mused.

And then I punched him square in the mouth.

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