Page 76 of Quicksilver

“Archer, please. All's well. Go on now, quickly. I'll come and find you before dinner. I want to hear everything that's been happening around here while I've been gone.”

Archer's eyes were wet. It seemed impossible that anyone would cry tears of happiness over Kingfisher; if I wasn't witnessing for myself, I'd never have believed it, but it was happening all right. Every time a tear fell and hit Archer’s cheeks, it hissed and turned into a puff of steam. “Yes, My lord. Of course. It would be my pleasure.”

I watched Archer go, perplexed. Kingfisher set off walking again, saying nothing. I jogged after him to catch up. “What kind of faerie washe?”

“Not a faerie. A fire sprite.”

“Okay. And why did he seem to likeyouso much?”

Fisher didn't even dignify that with a response. “There are a lot of fire sprites here. Water sprites. Air sprites. Not so many earth sprites. You might want to spend some time learning the names of all of the lesser Fae creatures. Eventually, you'll offend the wrong person if you go around calling everyone faeries.” As he spoke, we passed a nook in the wall, where seven marble busts were mounted on stands, one of which was facing the wall. Kingfisher flipped off the gods as he passed them, not even breaking his stride.

I let out a frustrated huff. “Look, I won't be here long enough to learn the names of every type of creature in Yvelia. You'll find I'm highly motivated to make these relics and get the hell out of here.”

“Mm, of course. You'resoeager to get back to that awful city.” Kingfisher turned a corner and then halted abruptly, opening a door to his left. “Back to all that oppression and starvation. I can really see the appeal.”

“Out of everyone, you should understand why I want to go back the most. You're desperate to do everything you can to help your friends here. I have friends and family who need help, too. They're too tired to fight Madra on their own. They've given up. If I don't go home, who'll helpthem?”

I was hit with a wave of his scent, all cold dawn morning and the promise of snow, and my breath caught in my throat. I ignored the reaction, forcing myself to think about everyone suffering in the Third instead. It was hard to focus on that when he was standing so close. The tips of his ears jutted out from the waves of his hair, the tiniest flash of his pointed canines showing between his parted lips. His crooked, taunting smile made me want to forget all about my ward. It made me want to remember crawling into his lap, and when his strong hands had found my waist, and—

No.

I wasn't going to lose myself to that. Not after what he'd done to me last night, forcing me to obey his will.

“I haven't found myself in this position voluntarily. I wouldn'tchooseto be here if I didn't have to be. The task is my birthright. It became mine the moment I drew my first breath. You're just one of hundreds of thousands of people who live in your city. Why shoulder the responsibility of saving them when they refuse to save themselves?”

He already knew the answer to his question. He wasn't stupid. I said it out loud for him, anyway, because he clearly needed to hear it.“Because it's the right thing to do, Fisher.”

He said nothing. Just looked me up and down in a way that made me feel small and silly. “After you, Little Osha.”

This forge was nothing like the one back at the Winter Palace. It was huge and packed with so much equipment that I didn't even know where to look first. The hearth was large enough that I could have stood up in it if I'd wanted to—a bad idea, given the powerful fire that was already raging in it. Along one side of the wall were rows and rows of crucibles of all shapes and sizes. Beakers, stirring rods, and flasks sat on shelves. Mortars and pestles, and large glass vials containing powders, dried herbs, flowers, and all manner of different liquids.

Along one side, the forge was completely open to the outside, giving way to a small snow-filled, walled garden with a bench and a tall tree naked of leaves at its center. Beyond the high brick wall, I made out the tops of more trees—evergreen pine this time—and the rocky, sloping foothills of a majestic mountain range not that far in the distance.

“They’re beautiful,” I said, before I could stop myself. “The mountains. I’ve seen pictures of them in books before, but I never knew they could be so…majestic.”

Fisher stared at the mountains in the distance, a complicated look on his face. “Omnamerrin. That’s the name of the tallest peak. The one with the sheer face. It means ‘sleeping giant’ in Old Fae.”

“Do people try and climb it?”

“Only if they want to die,” Fisher answered.

Wait. I glanced over my shoulder, trying to make sense of what I was seeing.

“Why are you frowning like that?” Fisher asked.

“Because...” I looked back to the door behind me and the warm, cozy hallway on the other side of it. “The dimensions are all wrong. We were on the third floor just now. And the other rooms we passed were much smaller. This forge is on the ground floor, and the roof's too high, and...”

“Magic.” Kingfisher shrugged. He paced over to a bench and began the now familiar process of unfastening the sword from his waist. “The doorway is enchanted. Bound to the entrance of the forge, which is located outside of the house. Much safer than having highly explosive compounds and chemicals inside the house itself. When we walk through the doorway in the house, it transports us here. Simple.”

Simple? Itwassimple. Which made me want to scream. I was going to throttle him. “If you can do this, then why thehelldidn't you just bind some doorways back at the tavern instead of making me go through that shadow gate?”

“Because I can't do this,” Fisher replied, setting Nimerelle down on the bench. “This is Ren's work. I don't possess the same gift.”

“ThenRencould have—”

“It only works over short distances, human, so take a breath.Icouldn't have.Rencouldn't have. We needed to travel eight hundred leagues, and a shadow gate was the only way to do it.”

“Fine,” I grumbled. “But, if you knew that was how we were going to get here, why not just call the gate inside the Winter Palace? Why make me ride a horse through that terrifying wood all night?”