Page 30 of Quicksilver
Elroy always said I was as stubborn as an ass. I wanted to dig my heels in and refuse to budge an inch, but I got the feeling that I'd regret it. And the promise of answers was enticing. I had too many questions to count, so many that my head was fit to split open, and no one else seemed likely to cough up any information about the hot water I'd found myself in.
I scowled as I set off walking.
Everlayne shot me a grateful smile. “There is one thing I can tell you right now,” she said, striding out in front of me to guide the way. “Even in times of peace, the Fae are always at war. There are those among our ranks that might pretend to be your friend, but often they’re hiding knives behind their smiles, ready to sink them into your back. You’d do well to remember that.”
As I followed after her, rushing to keep up, I couldn't help but wonder if she counted herself among that number.
8
ALCHEMIST
The morning broughtwith it a series of revelations. It was dark when Everlayne came to fetch me, which wasn't out of the ordinary. Even the poorest home in Zilvaren drew black-out curtains across the windows when it was time to sleep. But I realized there were no curtains at the windows in my room as Everlayne cajoled me into yet another ostentatious dress. Theworldwas black outsideof the window.
“The suns are always in the sky, then? And there are two of them?” Everlayne asked, pulling my corset stays so tight that I'd wheezed.
“Yes.”
“Well, things are a little different here.”
It took a monumental force of effort to grasp justhowdifferent they were. Yvelia had only one sun. And it went down at night, disappearing beyond the rim of the horizon. The prospect made me feel like I was hallucinating again—a concern that intensified when the scene beyond the palace's windows began to lighten on our way to the library, and I saw what was out there.
“What do you mean, what is it? It's snow!” Everlayne said, laughing.
I stood before the massive window in the hallway, my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth, struck dumb. The view beyond the pane of glass wasn't real. It couldn't be. There were mountains in the distance, huge jagged-peaked monstrosities that made my legs wobble just to look at them. And there were trees. So many trees. I'd only seen the skinny-limbed ones with the jaundiced leaves that lined the walkways of the Hub. These trees were tall and green, pressed tightly together to form a canopy that stretched for as far as the eye could see. Directly below the window, a sprawling city with buildings constructed out of dark stone swept down toward a shimmering blue-grey ribbon that I realized was a river only when I saw that its surface was rippling.
Everything was capped with a thick layer of white. Everything apart from the river. So much water, rushing and flowing and churning. I stared at it, unable to understand how such a large body of water could even exist.
“This is theWinterPalace,” Everlayne reminded me, trying to coerce me away from the window. “It snows year-round here. At least once a day. Come on, we're going to be late.”
I moved through the palace as if walking through a dream. The colors were garishly bright, the sights and sounds of the place too surreal for words.
Yvelia.
It still hadn't sunk in. Wherever I looked, beautiful Fae females regarded me with cold disdain. Males watched me pass, sneers on their mouths, eyes flashing with hate. I wasnotwelcome here, that much was obvious, and yet they needed me for something. I was supposed to repeat whatever I’d done in the Hall of Mirrors to that silver pool. While I figured out how todo that, I enjoyed the king's protection. But protection did not mean kindness, and it certainly didn't mean respect.
The library was at the far end of the palace, up flight after flight of stairs that felt like they would never end. I was panting and had broken into a sweat by the time we arrived, even though the temperature seemed to plummet the higher we went. Through an enormous set of black, engraved doors, a huge space opened up with cathedral ceilings and twenty-foot-high stained-glass windows that would have made Elroy weep.
Before she'd died, my mother had worked in the library back in the Third for a while. The underground warren of tunnels and hollowed-out caves had resembled a tomb and had stunk worse than death. The tiny number of books it had boasted had been half-eaten by mold, but at least it had been cool down there. Fifteen to twenty degrees cooler on a good day. The residents of the Third had to petition to visit the stacks; they needed a tokenanda recommendation from their employer before they were granted entry. My mother's position as a clerk there meant that she could come and go as she pleased, and that boon had been extended to me. I hadn't appreciated the unfettered access to the library at first. But when Elroy had accepted me as his apprentice, I'd combed through the library's information not on glass working as he thought I should have, but on metalwork. Reeking of forge smoke and covered in grease, I'd pored over the written work of Zilvaren's old masters late into the night, daydreaming of what it would have been like to have access to so much metal.
Yvelia's library was staggering in comparison. So many books all in one place. Stacks upon stacks upon stacks. So accustomed to hunkering down, peering at crumbling, mildew-covered scrolls by candlelight, I was unprepared for how the sight of so many bound, hardback books would affect me. This was a treasure beyond Madra's hoard of gold. More preciousthan rubies and diamonds. The information inside a place like this was too vast to comprehend. And thelight!
Thirty feet above our heads, a glass-domed ceiling showcased a crystalline, bright blue sky. Wisps of clouds, tinged pink, stretched from one side of the dome to the other as if placed there by an artist's paintbrush. The early morning light bore a sharp quality that washed the walls of the library in hues of blue, green, and white rather than the warm yellows, oranges, and golds I was used to.
It was beautiful.
So beautiful.
“You'll make yourself dizzy, gawping up at the sky like that,” a cheery voice said. Bustling out from behind one of the far stacks, a portly male in a blue robe with wiry grey hair and warm, dark brown skin appeared. Hazel eyes dancing with mirth met mine as the male trundled across the library's main floor toward us, clutching a tattered tome to his chest, limping ever so slightly. He was old, though how old was tough to guess. His hair was thinning on top and looked like it hadn't seen a brush in a month.
“Rusarius.” Everlayne's smile shone from her eyes. I realized how disingenuous she'd just been when interacting with other members of the court. She beamed at the old male, then squealed as he swept her up in a one-armed hug and spun her around, lifting her off of her slippered feet.
“Put me down, you fool. You'll throw your back out again!” she cried.
“Nonsense.” Rusarius did set her down again, though. He held her at arm's length, looking her up and down with an unmistakable fondness. “Too long. Far too long. I can't tell you how surprised I was when I woke up in the night to those rough-handed bastards dragging me out of my bed. I assumed they'dcome to do me in. I'd stabbed one of them in the buttock by the time they told me I was being called back to court.”
Everlayne laughed. “The buttock? Hardly a fatal wound. Good thing you were brought back to your books. By the sounds of things, you need to brush up on your anatomy.”
Rusarius wagged a finger at her. “If I'd wanted the bastard dead, he'd already be in the ground. I only wanted to punish him for his bad manners. He'll knock before battering down someone's bedroom door in the future. Now...” He trailed off, his attention slipping back to me. “Thisis a most fascinating turn of events. Yes,mostfascinating. A human, walking the hallowed halls of the Winter Palace for the first time in an age. I never thought I'd live to see the day. I am Rusarius, librarian, newly reappointed master of this domain. Who are you, and what name do you go by? I wasn't told much before I was ordered back to work.”
