Page 57 of Quicksilver

A million emotions clashed inside of me, warring for supremacy. They exploded out of me all at once. “I needed it so I could go home! I'm not sorry. You wouldn't be, either, if you were me!”

“I wouldn't have been dumb enough to do it in the first place.”

“I had to. I had to go through the silver—”

“You would havediedif you'd stepped foot in that pool.”

I glared at him defiantly. “Not with the ring.”

“That ring isn't a relic. It's a trinket and nothing more. It wouldn't have protected you.”

“It shielded you when you broughtmethrough the pool!”

“No. Itdidn't,” he said icily. “Of course it fucking didn’t.”

“You told Layne—”

“I told Layne I waswearingit. Nothing more. Whatever she inferred from that is her own undoing.”

Shock vibrated up through the soles of my feet, rattling my bones. “So, you traveled through without your pendant? To save me?”

“Hah!” He pulled back, his chest heaving, Nimerelle lowered to his side. He sneered down at me, his handsome face transformed into a mask of pity. “To save my friends.To end my exile. To fucking live or die, finally, one way or another. It had nothing to do withyou.”

“Then...I would have been fine without it. If you can move through the pathways without a shield—”

“I'm stronger than you,idiot.I've spent hundreds of years forging barriers and wards around my mind that you couldn't begin to comprehend. My mind is an impenetrable vault, and I still paid a heavy price for my transgression. Your mind is as shallow as a fucking teacup. It would have splintered into a thousand pieces if you'd stepped into that pool.”

“I—” I didn't know what to say. There was nothing Icouldsay. I closed my eyes and all of the hope that I'd been clinging to rushed out of me in a long exhale. Now, my tears were from exhaustion. And defeat. “I'm not going to stop trying. It's not in me to stop,” I whispered.

“You have to.”

“I can't. They're my family.” He understood. He'd taken a great risk, too, because he thought it would help the people he cared about. So then why couldn't he understand this? Why wouldn't he just let me go?

As if he were reading my mind, Kingfisher crouched down in front of me, balancing on the balls of his feet, his whole body still radiating with anger. He stabbed a finger at me. “You are going to stay here, and you are going to figure out how to create relics for us. You're going to figure out how to manipulate the quicksilver if it's the last thing you do.”

I was so tired. Every part of me hurt. Just flat-out ached with sorrow. I dragged myself up into a sitting position, hissing when I leaned my weight on my newly scorched hand. Resting my elbows on the tops of my knees, I hung my head and sighed. “I promise you I won't. I'll let you torture me first. I will not help the Fae. Not until I know what's happened back in Zilvaren. I can't.”

Kingfisher reached out and gently lifted my chin with his curled finger so that our eyes met. “It won't be me hurting you,” he said softly. “It’ll be Belikon. And evenIcan't withstand him.”

“Then I guess I'll die.”

“Foolish girl.” He slowly shook his head. “You havenoidea what you're talking about.”

“Look into my eyes. No, wait. Why don't you listen to my heartbeat, Kingfisher, and tell me if I'm lying.”

We stared at each other, and I let him see my truth. I refused to look away. His hair fell into his eyes, the dark waves framing his face, the muscle in his jaw working, working, working as he waited to read something in me that suggested I might break. The silence ate us.

Kingfisher shot to his feet and tore away, cursing loudly. He hadn't reached the quicksilver pool before he spun around and stalked back, holding a finger in the air. “All right. Fine. You getone.”

“What do you mean, I get one?”

“I'll go.” He huffed, blasting an angry breath down his nose. “I will go, and I willtryto get one of these humans who are so fucking precious to you. I willtryto bring that human back here, and you will end this madness. In return, you'll agree to do whatever I ask of you to help me forge new relics and any other instruments I deem fit.”

“You'd do that? You'd go?”

Fisher looked like he wanted to scream. “Unwillingly, yes. Under duress, yes.”

He would go back to Zilvaren for me in order to strike a bargain. He needed me to help him that badly. And if that were true, then it also meant...