Page 165 of Quicksilver
By the bed, the shadow gate Fisher had left open for me snapped shut, somehow aware that it had served its purpose. I watched it vanish, my insides glowing white hot with rage.
“I'm sensing a little tension in the air,” Carrion quipped. “Have you two fallen out already?”
“If by fallen out you mean am I going to kill him, then the answer is yes.”
Lorreth, Ren, Te Léna, and Iseabail were in the library. Of the four, only Iseabail didn't have her head buried in a book. She stood by the window, watching the snow come down, looking bored. Surprise shuttered across Ren's face when he saw me enter.
“Saeris. Is everything...” He course-corrected himself mid-question. “What's wrong? What's happened?”
I was fit to fucking scream. Tossing the letter Fisher had written for me down onto the table in front of the general, I gripped the back of the chair the bastard had sat in yesterday,going along with all of our plan-making while he secretly made plans of his own, and I waited for Ren to scan the sloping handwriting on the paper.
His mouth hung open as he dropped the letter. Lorreth didn't even ask to read it; he leaned across the table and took it, his expression darkening as his eyes flitted over the text. “Stupid bastard,” he hissed. Looking up at me, he asked in an incredulous tone, “What thefuckdoes he think he's doing?”
Like I had an answer to that question. A thousand curses hovered on the tip of my tongue, but I trapped them behind my teeth. Only one question mattered right now, and everything hinged on its answer. “Is there a quicksilver pool at Gillethrye?”
Ren hadn't said a word. He was visibly still in shock from the contents of the letter. He blinked when he realized that everyone was looking at him. “No. Not that I know of,” he said in a cracked voice. “There was one a long time ago, but Belikon took it when he came into power. He merged it with the pool at the Winter Palace so it would be large enough to transport an army.”
There it was then.
I had my answer.
There was no pool at Gillethrye.
Every scrap of hope I'd been clinging on to dematerialized in a puff of smoke.
There had been a chance. The smallest chance, but still a chance. Fisher had said there was more quicksilver here at Cahlish. A pool, most likely. He'd said I could have access to it once I'd figured out how to create the relics, which meant it was probably close by somewhere. If I'd found it, I could have made more relics, and then we could have gone and kicked Fisher's ass for being so fucking stupid. But without a pool on the other end at Gillethrye...
It was hopeless.
We were fucked.
I let my head hang, numbness spreading through me like ice.
“Bastard.”
I half expected him to answer me, but my mind remained stubbornly silent.
How could he do this? To his friends? To me? He wasn't alone in this, but he'd decided to take on this burden all by himself. It wasn't heroic or brave. It was fucking stupid.
Lorreth ran a hand over his mouth, his rough stubble making a scraping sound against his palm. “I think I'm going to throw up,” he said matter-of-factly.
Ren pushed his chair away from the table but just sat there with his hands on his knees. I didn't think he had the strength to stand. “You and me both, brother. You and me both,” he murmured.
It was Carrion who broke the silence next. “Saeris?” I looked up and saw thathehad Fisher's letter now. He held up the piece of parchment, a questioning look on his face. “How long was that shadow gate open just now? The one in Fisher's bedroom?”
“I don't know. Hours, probably. I have no idea when he opened it. It was there when I woke up.”
“No, no.” Carrion shook his head impatiently “How long did it stay open forafteryou came through it? I wasn't paying attention, but we spoke before it closed, right?”
“Yes. I suppose...it took maybe ten seconds? Twelve?”
“Does it always take that long?”
“Uhh...” I hadn't paid much attention the other times I'd traveled through a gate with Fisher. There had always been something else on my mind.
Lorreth stepped in with an answer. “Yes. I don't know if it's always that long, but there's always a delay. Fisher's commented on it before.”
“Great. And here, he says in the letter that he wants you to be ready for Everlayne when he sends her through a gate back toCahlish. That she'll try and use it to get back to Malcolm. Which means that the gate isn't one-way. If Everlayne can use it to come here—”
