I’D SPENT HALF my life running in Zilvaren. Running from Guardians. The traders I’d cheated. The people I’d pickpocketed. Not only was I fast as lightning, but I had stamina, which was a damned good thing because I had no idea how far I had to run now. All I knew was that I had to get there quickly. It wouldn’t be long before Kingfisher noticed what I’d done and came looking for me.

The bag I’d packed earlier bounced against my back, approximately ten pounds heavier than it had been when I’d carried it into the forge. Originally, I’d only packed a few items of clothing and a little food. Most of the bag’s weight had come from the large water reservoir I’d stuffed into it, the soft leather bladder filled to brimming. Now, there was a fox in the bag, too, and by the sounds of it, the furry little shit wasn’t happy about all of the bouncing.

He yipped as I sprinted through the hallways, heading down, down, always down. Fae males and females shouted, annoyed as I barreled past them, not giving them time to recognize me for who I was. Any of them could stop me, and I wasn’t getting this far, only to be snagged by someone who wanted to know why Belikon’s prize human wasn’t in the library, learning about portals so they could win their stupid fucking war.

The fox yowled as I spun around a corner and hurled down a flight of stairs, my feet barely touching the glossy marble floor. “Shut up,” I hissed. “Did you want me to leave you back in the forge? You heard him. He wanted to turn you into a hat.”

The yowling cut off, replaced by a disgruntled (though much quieter) grumbling. The next floor down, I sprinted through reading rooms, and indoor hot houses packed with exotic plants and flowers. I bolted across some sort of games court, where eight or more long-limbed Fae females were gracefully volleying a ball back and forth to one another across a net. Training rooms, and art studios, and all manner of different workshops, and grand halls all whipped by in a blur.

If I came across a staircase, I went down it. After some serious wriggling and gnawing, the fox managed to poke his head out of the bag and started anxiously licking the back of my neck.

“It’s all right. I’m not gonna let him hurt you. Shhh, it’s okay.”

I should have had Rusarius and Layne take me down to the quicksilver and show me where it was. They would have wanted to wait until tomorrow, though, and I couldn’t afford another day. Not when I’d already waited this long.

Six floors.

Seven floors.

Eight.

Twelve.

Fifteen.

I stopped counting after that. My thighs were screaming when I finally hit a level where there were no more windows. The rooms became smaller, the roofs lower. As far as I could ascertain, these were all signs that I’d made it to the subterranean floors. Eventually, the only Fae I encountered were Belikon’s soldiers.

Fuck. Of course there would be soldiers down here. The quicksilver might have been dormant for a thousand years, but it was one of Yvelia’s most valuable assets. And I’d managed to wake the silver. Now Belikon knew that it could be done, he wasn’t likely to leave the pool unguarded if there was a chance it might open again and danger could come rushing through.

Damn it. I was losing precious minutes. I could feel the quicksilver tugging at me. After sleeping for so long, it wanted to be awake. It wanted me to find it. I knew which direction I had to go in now. Straight ahead, a yawning, rough-hewn mouth opened in the stonework wall, giving way to what looked like one of Rusarius’s tunnels. If I took that tunnel, I knew I’d find the pool. The only problem was three guards standing at the entrance to

the tunnel, eyes trained ahead, gloved hands resting on the hilts of their swords. I only had the small dagger Kingfisher had given me and an ornery fox to defend myself with. That wasn’t really a problem. I could kill them, but engaging in a fight right now would only waste time I didn’t have.

“What are we going to do?” I mumbled to myself. “What are we going to do. How am I gonna get myself out of this one?”

The other way. Another way. Come. Come!

Hearing the quicksilver whispering inside my mind was disconcerting to say the least. It wanted me to know there was another path to it, it seemed, and it was willing to show me the way. But I had a choice before me—there was still time. I could turn around and go back up to my room and pretend as if my frantic flight through the palace had never happened. I could spend my days in the library with Layne and Rusarius, reading dusty books about Fae customs and the Alchemists who lived thousands of years ago. Kingfisher was only given leave to remain here within the palace walls for a week. He would be gone in a couple of days. Someone else would take his place in the forge, experimenting with me. Maybe things wouldn’t be so bad if I didn’t have to deal with him every day…

It came as a shock that the idea of Fisher leaving didn’t actually make me happy. He annoyed the hell out of me, but he was a known entity. The thought of sharing the forge with someone else made my ribcage feel tight. Who would they replace him with, anyway? Gods, what did it even matter?

I wasn’t staying.

I made to move, but a large group of guards turned around a corner, and I was forced to duck into an alcove and hug the wall, doing my best to disappear into the shadows as they marched by. The fox stared at me, his ears tipped in black swiveling as he listened to the sounds around us. His body, much thinner than all of his fluff would suggest, shook like a leaf inside the bag.

As soon as Belikon’s warriors had moved off down the hall, I darted out of my hiding place and skirted along the edge of the hall, praying that the soldiers still standing by the tunnel entrance didn’t see me. Mercifully, one of them had turned to talk to the others, and their attention was drawn elsewhere. I ducked around the corner as quickly as I could, my slippered feet not making a sound.

Ahead, ahead…

I didn’t need the voices to tell me where to go now. I knew instinctively.

That didn’t stop the quicksilver from whispering to me, though.

Ahead. Yes, come. Come!

The fox keened, scrabbling around inside the bag, but with the top cinched around his neck, he couldn’t get out. “Stop! It’s for your own good! I swear, I’ll find a way to get you out of here and take you somewhere safe, but please stop wriggling.”

He didn’t. He was a fox and had no idea what the fuck I was asking him to do, but at least he didn’t bite me again.

This way. This way.

I was already turning left at the fork in the hallway.

Ahead. Yes. In. Go in…

The door at the end of the hallway looked innocuous enough. I wasted no time debating what might be on the other side of it. I turned the handle, flung it open, and went through it. Cold, bare stone greeted me. A tunnel, much smaller than the one the soldiers were guarding, with a roof so low I had to scoot down as I pressed forward into the darkness.

I had no torch, but I was used to traveling through underground tunnels in the dark. I’d had plenty of experience with that back in Zilvaren, when I’d routinely snuck into Madra’s underground stores to siphon water. Rusarius had said all of the tunnels lead straight to the quicksilver, so I knew I’d find it eventually.

Yes, come. Come. This way…

A few minutes. That’s all it took.

One last turn and I found myself standing in a vast, high-ceilinged cavern. Torches burned in sconces here, mounted to the dripping walls, throwing light out in all directions, which was a blessing. Statues of ancient Fae and other strange creatures twenty feet tall stood around an enormous pool at the very center of the cavern. The air felt heavy here, too thick to draw down into my lungs as I slowed to catch my breath. There was a sound, too—a constant ringing, the pitch so high that I couldn’t actually hear it. It was as though I could feel it rattling at my eardrums. The little fox in my arms whined, trying to duck his head back into the bag—apparently, he could hear the ringing tone, and he didn’t like it one bit.

“Shhh. It’s okay. It’s gonna be okay, don’t worry.”

Come, the pool beckoned. Be with us. We won’t hurt you.

A cold sweat broke out across my brow when I fully took in the pool. It wasn’t just big; it was enormous, forty feet wide and fifteen feet across. The expanse of brightly shining silver made Madra’s pool look like a puddle by comparison. Its reflective surface was smooth as the surface of a mirror. But a mirror’s sole purpose was to tell you the truth. It didn’t differentiate between good and bad. A mirror had no desire to soothe your troubles or deceive you. It was glass and nothing more. This pool of shining silver was awake and full of lies.

My feet moved toward it, carrying me forward. I’d made it halfway across the smooth stone cavern floor before I’d realized what was even happening. “Gods…” I could see my breath down here. The huge columns supporting the black rock ceiling sixty feet up were slick with ice. The chill that nipped at my skin wasn’t from the cold, though. It was more than that— a sharp, probing presence that prickled at me, trying to worm its way inside.

Here. Yes, come here. Come with us…

I stole myself, regaining control of my feet. If I was going to approach the huge expanse of silver, I would do so on my own terms, damn it. In the bag, the fox whined, eyes rolling, panting anxiously. The cursed thing wouldn’t stop wriggling. By the time I’d reached the pool, he was thrashing, desperate to be free.

“All right! All right! Gods!” At the wide, raised stone lip that formed the pool’s edge, I set the bag down and untied the chord that was keeping him trapped inside. As soon as I pulled the bag open, the fox leaped out and bolted, a streak of white fleeing into the shadows. “Bye, then,” I called after him.

At least he would have a decent chance of finding his way outside of the palace down here, without running afoul of Kingfisher’s blade. He had better night vision than I did, and he could smell fresh air from a mile away. He’d be out in the snow, back where he belonged, in no time. He wasn’t built for Zilvaren. The heat. The sand. I hadn’t really considered how I was going to feed him or find enough water for him. Yvelia was his home. Better that he stayed. Sadness still welled up in my chest as I stared after him, though.

Come. Come. Come….

The voices were insistent. The pull the quicksilver exerted on me intensified, like there were physical hands shoving me, pushing me, pulling

me, urging me to step into the pool. And I wanted to. I’d give it what it wanted. But there was one thing I needed to do first…

Yesterday, when Kingfisher had forced me to activate that quicksilver, he’d said it was a test. One I’d passed. I had no idea if he had set me that test or if the quicksilver itself had, but there had been no pain when I’d activated the silver earlier. Only…a key turning in my mind. A lock popping undone. A stream of energy, invited to flow.

Would it be the same here with this quicksilver? Or was I going to have to pass another test with this pool? The pain that I’d borne dealing with that tiny amount of silver in the forge had been crippling. The pain that would be meted out by this amount of quicksilver would break me.

There was only one way to find out.

The silver in the forge had felt like a small weight in the center of my mind. Just a slight pressure. When I closed my eyes and reached out here, the silver was a sea, bottomless and vast, and I was the small weight floating on top of it. I wasn’t drowning in it, though. I felt safe, bobbing on the surface of it. I could sink down into it if I wanted to. Let it rise up over me and cocoon me from the world.

I breathed deep and reached out with my hand, reaching my fingertips to the cold, hard surface of the silver, and I spoke to it.

Wake up.

It happened fast. One second the pool was solid. The next, it was a shining banner of liquid silver, glinting as it undulated in the torch light. A loud hum filled my ears, unnatural and discordant. An unpleasant sound, but I found myself mesmerized by it, my mind drifting away from itself…

Come. Join us, Saeris. Come…

Yes. I would go. I would enter the pool, and everything would be all right. I would go back to…back…Where did I want to go?

My foot hovered above the surface of the pool. Just an inch. That’s all it would take, and I would go…

A terrible wind howled through the cavern. The tip of my slipper kissed the silver, but before I could step forward, a wall of shifting, glittering black sand slammed into me, knocking me back.

I went down hard, landing on my side, my hip exploding with pain. Breath rushed into my lungs, ice-cold, so freezing that I let out an audible gasp of shock. I was—I—

Oh, gods.

Kingfisher.

He emerged from the cloud of black smoke like a night terror stepping through the shadowy gates of hell. He wore the same shirt he’d been wearing in the forge. The same pants, too. But now, he also wore his chest protector and his gorget, and in his hand, he held Nimerelle aloft, the black sword crackling with an unseen power that drew that darkness to it like a shroud.

Kingfisher’s boots planted firmly on the lip of the pool. There he stayed, blocking the path between me and my brother. His eyes blazed. “I’m hurt. Leaving without saying goodbye?”

I propped myself up on one elbow, then managed to sit up, wincing at the sharp bolt of pain that fired through my side. “I don’t owe you a goodbye. I don’t owe you anything!”

“YOU OWE ME YOUR LIFE!” His fury echoed through the cavern, setting the quicksilver churning. Stepping down from the pool, he prowled forward, a predator about to fall on his prey, and for the first time in my life, I knew true fear.

Fisher was death incarnate, and he was coming right for me.

Whatever pain I’d worried about waking so much quicksilver, paled in comparison to the horrors Kingfisher’s cold expression promised. He grabbed me by the ankle and yanked me roughly toward him, dragging me across the floor. In less than a second, I was pinned beneath his massive body, and Nimerelle was at my throat.

“Rule number three. Do not make me do any physical activity,” he snarled. “What part about ‘I am hungover’ did you not fucking understand!”

My eyes burned brightly, promising tears. “I’m going home, Fisher. You can’t stop me.”

He jabbed me with his sword, pricking me with its wicked point. “Apparently, I can.”

“You’re such a bastard,” I hissed.

He bared his teeth. “And you are a lying little thief.” “I am not!”

His eyes were greener than ever. The quicksilver within them jittered, vibrating wildly. Fisher glowered down at my hand. At my thumb specifically, and the plain silver signet ring I was wearing on it. “Really? Because I believe you’re wearing my ring, and I don’t remember fucking giving it to you.”

“Fine, yes, I took your stupid ring, but I didn’t lie to you!” I tried to swat Nimerelle away, but the second my hand touched the blackened blade, ungodly agony tore through me. I screamed, pulling my hand back, but the flesh where my palm had met the metal was charred to a crisp.

“Only the person sealed to it can touch an active Alchimeran sword. I would have warned you not to do that, but you never listen to me, do you, human? I decided not to waste my breath,” he spat.

The tears came hot and fast now, brought on by anger more than the pain. I hiccupped softly. “Bastard.”

“You like calling me that, don’t you. Knock yourself out. You did lie. You lied with your body. With your mouth. You crawled up into my lap, and kissed me, and rubbed yourself all over me, and used the opportunity to take something from me.”

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 have died if 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 brought me through the pool!” “No. It didn’t,” he said icily. “Of course it fucking didn’t.” “You told Layne—”

“I told Layne I was wearing it. 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 with you.”

“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 I could say. 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 even I can’t withstand him.”

“Then I guess I’ll die.”

“Foolish girl.” He slowly shook his head. “You have no idea 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 get one.”

“What do you mean, I get one?”

“I’ll go.” He huffed, blasting an angry breath down his nose. “I will go, and I will try to get one of these humans who are so fucking precious to you. I will try to 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…

“I want two.”

He tossed his head back and let out a bark of laughter. “What?”

“My brother Hayden and Elroy.”

Looking a little hysterical, he threw his arms wide, Nimerelle casting off wisps of black smoke. “Who the fuck is Elroy?”

“He’s my friend. He’s important to me. And,” I added quickly, the thought occurring to me out of the blue, “he’s a master smith. He can probably help me to make the relics for you. He’ll be useful.”

Fisher narrowed his eyes. “Can he channel metal energy the way you can?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so,” I admitted. “Then he’s useless to me. You get one. Choose.”

“I can’t choose! How am I supposed to—to pick which one of them lives and which one of them dies?”

“You share blood with one of them. The answer’s simple.”

It really was that easy for him. He’d make this decision easily and walk away without a scrap of guilt. That’s who Kingfisher was. “I can’t—”

“Let me put this another way for you. I have one relic. I can bring one person at a time back with me. I will not—can not—travel through the quick twice in one fucking day with nothing standing between me and that nightmare. It’ll kill me once and for all. So you will tell me to go and fetch Hayden for you, and we will be done with this farce.”

A part of me wanted to fight him on this, but I knew he was telling the truth. He really would lose himself if he traveled twice without his pendant. I felt sick to my stomach, but I gave him a quick nod. “All right. Fine.” I took a deep breath. “Hayden.”

Kingfisher took Nimerelle, gritting his teeth as he closed his hand around the black metal and dragged his palm along the blade. Blood welled and dripped between his fingers, splattering onto the stone. He pointed Nimerelle at me.

“Blood, Little Osha. It’s the only way to seal this between us.”

I balked, backing away from the sword. “I’m not touching that thing again. Can’t you just take my word for it?”

He snorted humorlessly. “Cute. And no. Use the dagger I gave you if you like, but you’re giving me your blood. It doesn’t have to be much.”

I eyed him warily as I drew the dagger from the thigh holster he gave me earlier, hissing as I drew its edge across my palm. A tiny cut. The smallest I could manage, but it bled. Kingfisher held out his hand and pulled me to my feet, making a derisive sound when he saw the cut I’d inflicted upon myself. “Baby.”

I pulled a face at him. “Just do whatever it is you need to do already.”

“I go and I try to get your brother. You help me and assist me in any way I ask you to, and you do as you’re told. You agree to this pact?”

I nodded. “Yes.”

“You understand that this is a blood oath? And you will be bound by this oath until death?”

“Yes! Gods, I understand! I agree. Just get on with—” Kingfisher slapped his palm against mine and held on tight.

Ice shot through my veins. Black smoke clouded my view, stealing my vision, curling its way up my nose, snaking its way down my throat. It cleared almost immediately, and…nothing had changed. My palm was still bleeding. It still hurt like hell. Whatever he’d done, Kingfisher seemed satisfied, though.

“Give me something of his,” he demanded. “What?”

“Give me something of Hayden’s. What, you think I can just show up in your godsforsaken city and immediately find someone I’ve never met before? I need something of your brother’s so I can locate him.”

“Oh. Right.” That made sense. But…shit. “I don’t have anything of Hayden’s with me.”

Kingfisher rolled his eyes. “Of course you don’t. Is he your full brother?

Do you have the same parents?” “Yes.”

“Then your blood should suffice.” He held up his hand. “I already have that. Wait here. Do not move from this spot.”

“You’re going right now?”

He raised his eyebrows. “You want to wait? After all of this?” “No! Not, definitely not. You should go.”

“Close this gate the moment I’m through. Wait an hour, and then activate it again.”

I shook my head. “I should leave it open. What if—”

“What if a horde of feeders burst through five minutes after I leave?

You forget, if this pool is open, then all the pools are open. Everywhere.” “What’s a feeder?”

Kingfisher sighed. He lifted Nimerelle over his shoulder, and the sword’s scabbard materialized out of thin air, its strap and brace appearing across Fisher’s chest just in time for him to slide the blade home behind his back. His greaves and bracers followed, pauldrons forming out of smoke at his shoulders. In less than a second, Kingfisher was armored up and ready for war. “Trust me. You don’t want to know. One hour, Osha. You make sure this door is ready to open when I come knocking. Trap me on the other side of it, and I’ll lay waste to whatever remains of your shining Silver City.”

He turned and stepped into the pool without a second thought. I shivered as I watched him descend into the quicksilver, my chest tight, my hands clenching into fists even tighter. My heart tripped when his crown of dark waves disappeared beneath the fluctuating surface of the pool.

The quicksilver didn’t want to obey when I commanded it to still. There was so much of it. Way more than I’d commanded before, and it had a mind of its own. It didn’t want to sleep, and it took four attempts to force it into submission.

Once the giant pool was a solid, flat panel again, I sat down with my back leaning up against the closest pillar, shivering against the penetrating cold…and the doubt began to set in.

There was nothing stopping Kingfisher from finding Hayden and killing him. Elroy, too. Things would be a whole lot simpler for Kingfisher if he just murdered the people I cared about back in Zilvaren. He wouldn’t have to come back through the gate without his pendant. Wouldn’t have to deal with another human running around his court. What was to say he’d even gone to Zilvaren? He could have slipped off to another realm entirely. One that was uninhabited. He could be sitting on a rock right now, staring at a

foreign sky, waiting for the allotted amount of time to pass, at which point he’d return and tell me my family and friends were already dead, there was nothing he could do about it, and it was time for me to hold up my end of our bargain. How would I know he was telling the truth?

I had no means of telling the time down here, either. I had no timepiece, and there were no windows to watch the progress of Yvelia’s single sun across the sky. I had to rely on my own best judgment, which was a problem because—

Click.

I snapped my head up, twisting to the left, toward the source of the sound.

Click, click, click.

Click.

I didn’t move. What was that? I leaned forward, squinting into the dark, blood pumping, heart racing, terrified of what might coalesce out of the pitch-black shadows. What lived in the dark, lightless places of this court? It would be foolhardy to assume that these tunnels were patrolled by Belikon’s men and nothing else. A chattering sound echoed around the cavern, and every hair on my body stood on end.

The dagger Kingfisher gave me was sharp, but it would be useless against more than one foe, especially if they attacked from a distance. I began to get to my feet, but—

A streak of white darted out of the darkness, beelining right for me.

White fur, and a bushy tail, and black-tipped ears pinned all the way back.

The fox.

My fox.

He’d come back for me.

The little creature’s claws click, click, clicked against the ground as he ran. He tried to slow when he reached me, but the stone was too smooth, and his paws found no purchase, and he slid the last four feet. He yelped, diving into my lap, butting his muzzle underneath my elbow so that he could bury his face in my side and hide.

The small barrel of his ribcage rose and fell like crazy as he curled himself around my body, panting like he’d just run five miles.

“You changed your mind, then?” I whispered, painfully aware of how loud the sound of my voice was now that I was alone down here and the

quicksilver wasn’t muttering to me. The little fox chittered in answer, grumbling away into my armpit.

“All right. All right. Don’t worry. We’re all allowed to change our minds,” I told him. “Don’t suppose you’re good at keeping track of time, are you?”

The little fox sneezed. “No, me either.”

I’d never been more grateful for company in my whole life. I stroked the fox, relieved that another living, breathing creature was willing to sit with me and perform this vigil. He was scared. Very scared, but he didn’t leave me again.

“What am I gonna call you? If you’re gonna be hanging around, you need to have a name.”

He peered up at me, his little onyx eyes narrowed to slits, eyelids slowly blinking so that I could make out every single one of his tiny white eyelashes. “What do you think about Onyx?” I asked him.

He closed his eyes and didn’t open them again for a long time, which I took to be a sign of approval. He was soon asleep. I took to counting out the seconds, tallying the minutes off on my hands, until I figured that an hour had to have passed.

Onyx wasn’t happy when I set him down on top of my bag. He observed with baleful eyes as I stood at the edge of the pool and carefully reached out, commanding the ocean of silver to wake.

The surface had only half-transformed, still solid around the edges, when an explosion of black smoke burst out of the center of the pool. Kingfisher was there, then, wading through the silver, his face contorted like a mask. In his right hand, Nimerelle dripped red. In his left, the body he dragged behind him by the scruff of its neck dripped silver. He hauled the lifeless form over the side of the pool and dumped it onto the ground, then collapsed down next to it, panting.

“Quickly. Before—” He cut off, his head ripping back, unleashing a shout that was all terror and pain. “Quick. The—the pend—pendant,” he ground out. “Now!”

The quicksilver churned, a million splintered voices shouting all at once. The sound was nauseating, but I blotted it out, racing to the body Kingfisher had dumped onto the stone. My hands were fast and true as I plucked up the pendant, retrieved it, and rushed to Kingfisher’s side. He

thrashed and moaned, clenching his teeth, the tendons in his neck straining horribly as I looped the chain over his head and fought to slip the rectangular pendant down the front of his chest protector.

“Fisher? Fisher!”

He didn’t respond. He growled, his back arching, the heels of his leather boots leaving black streaks against the stone as he writhed.

“Fisher! Gods. What the hell? What—what do you need me to do?” I was really starting to panic when the male locked up tight, his eyes snapped open, and he dragged in a rattling, wet breath.

“Fuck. Me,” he rasped. “That was…bad.”

“Are you all right?” I went to touch his chest protector, not sure where to check him, but then thought better of it.

“Close…the…gate!” he wheezed.

Shit, shit, shit. The gate. This time, I didn’t give the quicksilver the opportunity to resist. I slammed my palms together in my mind, closing the door tight, and with a crack, the pool answered my demand, solidifying so fast that it shattered the stone lintel that ran around the pool.

“Hope you’re happy, Human. Because I am never…ever…”—Kingfisher rolled onto his side, clutching his stomach— “..doing that again.”

He was through. He’d done it. He…

Oh my gods! Hayden! Fisher had actually done it. He’d brought Hayden back with him! I left Kingfisher as he struggled to sit up. My knees sang with pain as I dropped down next to the unconscious body, but it didn’t matter. I didn’t care. Hayden was alive. He was here. He—

Oh. Oh, no.

I rocked back onto my heels, frowning at the figure lying on the ground. The hope that had soared through me came crashing down around my ears. Was this supposed to be some kind of joke? No. Fisher didn’t have a sense of humor, and this…this wasn’t funny.

“It’ll take a while for him to…wake up. Humans are so…” Kingfisher groaned. “You’re all so fucking fragile.”

I rounded on the warrior, the dull roar in my ears growing progressively louder, louder, louder…

“This is not my brother, Fisher. This is Carrion fucking Swift!”