Page 44 of Quicksilver

SWALLOW

“Too tight!Too tight! I can't breathe!”

To say Everlayne was angry would be an understatement. She yanked on the corset ribbons at the back of my dress with a strength I didn't know she possessed.

“If you keep on pulling like that, you're going to crack my ribs,” I groused.

“Good! Maybe then, you'll...stop...complaining!”

“Broken ribs won't stop me from complaining,” I muttered sullenly, tugging on the corset stays. They were digging into my skin, pinching me in places my clothes back home had never pinched me before. It sucked.

“Stop that!” Everlayne slapped my hand away, tsking. She faffed with my skirts, bustling around me, swatting at imaginary pieces of fluff that only she could see. As with the other dresses Everlayne had given me, this garment was absolutely stunning. A shimmering red affair made of raw silk. It was the kind of dress that would bring most men to their knees. I fucking hated it.

“What were you eventhinking?” Everlayne growled, slapping down the folds of the skirt some more so that it hung properly.“He's a Fae warrior, Saeris. You cannotgo around punching Fae warriors.”

“Can Ipleasewear some pants?” I observed myself glumly in the full-length mirror. “And don't tell me that pants are only for males. I've seen plenty of females wandering around the palace wearing pants.”

“We've been over this. You're tooprettyto wear pants. Are you listening to me? About Kingfisher?”

I gave her a hard look.“No.”

“You could at least tell me what he did to make you punch him like that.”

“Just trust me. He deserved it.”

“Well, I don't doubtthat.”

She'd asked me to explain what had happened seven times in the past hour, but her pleading hadn't broken me. It would do no good to tell her about the stunt Kingfisher had pulled with the quicksilver. I didn't want to make things any more tense between them. If Everlayne knew he'd thrown me into a situation that I was fairly sure could have killed me, then things wouldn't just get worse. They'd become catastrophic, and wewerefriends. I didn't want her to suffer any more than she already was. Having Kingfisher as a brother was burden enough, I was sure.

“You're lucky he didn't react any worse than he did,” she said.

“Oh?” I scoffed. “Ithought his reaction was a little over the top.”

Everlayne had been waiting for me when I returned to my room yesterday. She hadn't banked on Kingfisher kicking in my bedroom door, me thrown over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and wailing like a banshee. Nor had she expected his ultra-foul temper, his split bottom lip, or the thin line of blood trickling down his chin. She'd squawked when he'd thrown meunceremoniously down onto my bed and snarled, “Badhuman,” at me.

“He could have been far worse,” she assured me. “Warriors like Fisher don't react kindly to violence.”

“Are you saying that he's so feral that one small right hook is enough to send him on an explosive killing rampage?”

She thought about this while folding a blanket. It took her a while to make up her mind. “Yes,” she decided.

“Then your brother isn't a warrior, Everlayne. He's a mindless savage with a shitty temper. But I think I could have already told you that.”

“Please just call me Layne. And donotsay that out loud!”

“It's hardly a secret. I think everyone knows Fisher's a savage—”

“Not that. Thebrotherpart,” she said in a loud whisper.

“That’s not common knowledge?”

“Well, yes. And no.It's just not spoken about. And it's very,verycomplicated.”

“Let me guess. Your mother had an affair because the king's a vile monster, and she ended up pregnant by someone else?”

Everlayne—Layne—sighed. “No. My mother was married to a Southern lord before she married my father. She had Fisher with her first husband. When Fisher was ten, the king sent his father on a mission to Zilvaren. He never returned. That’s when the gateways were stilled. The king said that Finran, Fisher’s father, was responsible for the quicksilver stilling and declared him a traitor to the Fae—”

“Wait. Kingfisher said that Madra was responsible for stilling the quicksilver.”