Page 72 of Quicksilver

Leave me alone. Get the fuck away from me. Don't touch me.I thought about screaming these things at Renfis, but there was real sympathy in his voice. And this wasn't his fault. He hadn't taken my free will from me. He hadn't brought me here to this wretched place or tricked me into agreeing to a binding blood contract that effectively turned me into his goddamned puppet. I accepted the hand he offered to me, whimpering as my legs wobbled.

“Thankfully, you won’t experience this again. For some reason, the gates only affect us the first time we use them. For most of us, it's just a little dizziness. Maybe a headache. For a human, it's a little more than that, it seems. No one's seen ahuman in a very long time. There's a lot we've forgotten. I’m sorry.”

“You don't need to apologize to me. Not forhim,” I wheezed.

Ren let out a tense sigh. “He's not...what you think he is.”

“A bastard? He's definitely a bastard.”

The general flinched a little as I tried to straighten up. “Can you walk? Oh. No. Shit. You can't even stand. Uhh...okay. That’s fine. I've got you.” There's nothing more undignified than collapsing into the arms of a male you barely know. Not much I could do about it, though. My head wouldn’t stop spinning, and I was definitely going to throw up again. I couldn't have shrugged out of his arms if I'd tried. I didn't make a peep as he lifted me.

My head felt like it was going to crack open. “Wait. Onyx. Where's...Onyx?”

“Don't fret. I've got him. He'll be with you when you wake up.”

“Thank you.” I closed my eyes, trying to breathe through the discomfort when Ren started walking with me.

“He used to be kinder,” Ren whispered. “But the quicksilver inside of him... It makes it difficult for him to think straight. It wears on him. It's exhausting for him, shutting out the voices. It's made him hard.”There was so much sadness in his voice as he spoke. It made me want to open my eyes, to see what kind of expression he was wearing, but I couldn't manage it.

“You shouldn't make...excuses...for him.”

“They aren't excuses, Saeris. I've known him my whole life. We were born to different parents, but we're brothers in every other way that counts. Iknowhim better than I know myself. The first time Belikon forced him to travel without a relic, the silver infected him so badly that I thought we'd lost him altogether. His mind was so fractured. Let's just say, it took a long time for him to recover. The healers did their best, but the piece that remains in his eye torments him night and day. Hismother's relic doesn't seem to be as effective anymore. And now he's been exposed to the quicksilvertwicewithout it again. I...I just don't know what to expect from him anymore.”

“Where...” I took a deep breath, “...was he?”

“Mm?” The questioning sound Ren made vibrated against my ear.

“You said...you haven't seen him for...a hundred and…ten years. Wherewashe?”

A thick silence fell. For a long time, the sound of Ren's footsteps echoing off the walls was the only thing to disturb it. But then he sighed deeply, as if making his mind up about something, and said, “I can't tell you that. It wouldn't be fair. He'll tell you himself at some point, perhaps. But until then...”

I didn't care to push the matter further. I felt too sick to talk. And who cared where Kingfisher had been? He could have spent the past century trapped inside one of those trees in The Wicker Wood for all the difference it made. There was no excuse for the way he was treating me. None that I would accept.

I didn't know where Renfis of the Orrithian carried me. I was already unconscious by the time he got me there.

“It'd be a real shame to have to pinch you, but I'm getting bored, and this rabid animal keeps showing me its teeth.”

I groaned.

Rolled over.

I was floating on a cloud. It was heaven. The most comfortable cloud I'd ever—

I hinged upright, grasping hold of my side.“Fuck!”The skin just above my hip throbbed painfully. “What the ffff...” I trailed off when I saw the auburn-haired brigand standing at the foot of my bed. No, not my bed.Abed. Warm. Comfortable. Massive. But not mine. Onyx sat at the end of it, baring his teeth at a very disheveled-looking Carrion Swift, who held hands aloft in surrender.

“Look! Look! Shh, it's all right. She's awake. I didn't murder her. Stop overreacting.”

“If you touch that fox, I'll skin you,” I growled at him.

Carrion's pale blue eyes met mine, full of a false hurt I was more than familiar with. “And hello to you, too! What kind of greeting is that? And after we've been so cruelly separated for so many weeks as well.”

I flung back the covers and launched myself out of the bed. I had Carrion backed up against a wall and an angry finger in his face in no time. “You’re lucky I don't knock your fucking teeth out,” I snapped. “What the hell were you playing at, telling Fisher that you were Hayden?”

The thief's hands were still in the air. He glanced down at the index finger I was jabbing in his face, smirking at it like he was wondering what I was planning on doing with it. He didn't miss a beat when he said, “You should be thanking me. That psychotic monster looked like he was planning on murdering your brother. I did him a favor. If it weren't for me—”

“Just shut up and tell me, is healive,Carrion? I need...I have to know.” My heart was a fist in my throat. My entire existence hinged on whatever came out of Carrion's mouth next. I waited for his expression to darken or at least sober a little, but Carrion's infuriating little smile remained firmly in place.

“Of course he's alive. Why wouldn't he be alive?”