Quicksilver (Fae & Alchemy, #1)

by Callie Hart

Like most cities, Zilvaren, the Great and Shining Banner of the North, was fashioned after the shape of a wheel.

We didn’t have any belongings aside from the clothes on our backs.

That's so sad

Fresh food was impossible to find. In the streets, children clawed each other’s eyes out over a heel of stale bread. The only way to survive the Third now was by barter and trade… or by whispering secrets about your neighbors into a guardian’s ear. As a resident of the Third, if you weren’t dead or dying, then you were hungry, and there wasn’t much a starving person wouldn’t say to quell the ache of an empty belly.

thats so sad

He’d been a force of nature. A pillar of rock hewn out of a mountain. Immovable. Indestructible. It was only recently that I’d begun to understand that he was in love with my mother. After she was killed, little by little, piece by piece, I’d watched him wither away, becoming less of himself. Becoming a shadow. The man that stood before me now was barely recognizable.

this is about elroy. it is statistically proven that men are far more worse if a spouce dies than if the woman lives and the husband dies

There were ways in which Hayden and I were similar. His height, for instance. We were both tall, lanky creatures. We shared the same sense of humor and were both champions at holding a grudge. We both adored the briny, sour tang of the pickled minnows the skiff merchants occasionally returned from the coast with. But apart from our shared personality quirks and the fact that the two of us loomed over most people in a crowded room, there wasn’t much about us that was alike. Where I was dark-haired, he was light. His hair was curly to the point of chaos, and there was so much of it. His eyes were a rich, liquid brown and bore a gentleness to them that my blue eyes did not. The cleft in his chin came courtesy of our dead father, his proud, straight nose from our dead mother. She used to call him her summer child. She’d never seen snow, but that’s what I had been to her: her ice storm. Distant. Cold. Sharp.

Carrion Swift: the most notorious gambler, cheat, and smuggler in the entire city. He was also uncommonly good in bed—the only man in Zilvaren who’d ever made me scream his name out of pleasure rather than frustration.

how does he play out later in the book?

Wut. That’s kinda hot ngl

His fingers were lighter than the dawn breeze. He’d talked me out of my underwear—perhaps the greatest heist ever performed in Zilvaren—and people hadn’t stopped talking about that for months.

thats hilarious

Carrion. He was one of the most selfish, most arrogant men alive.

Rojana only traded in food and water. Her illegal trade would still get her hands chopped off,

thats so sad actually. so far this bookk is reminding me a lot about red queen series

What a badass. I like this mc

That’s so sad…. Mc kinda dickish

I had never for one moment imagined his voice might also be the stroke of velvet in the ever-encroaching darkness.

i love the poetry!!

“You can’t keep me trapped here. This is kidnapping. It’s inhumane behavior!” Everlayne at least had the decency to look contrite. “It’s inhuman behavior. But we aren’t human, Saeris. We’re Fae. We don’t behave like you. Don’t think like you. We don’t operate by the same moral guidelines that some of your kind do, either. The faster you remember that, the easier this will be,” she said a little more gently.

That’s so sad

That she’s chosen to let them vanish from her people’s history speaks volumes of her corruption.”

I really don't like this queen. I know shes hiding secrets. Maybe once they are exposed, the whole nation will rebel against her and overthrow the government.

“I need to get back to Zilvaren. My brother—” “Is already dead.” The finality in Belikon’s words made my head spin. “The Bitch Queen put an end to your home and all who resided in it.” “You don’t know that.” The king’s mouth twisted sourly. “She declared that she would. At least that is what I was told. We know your queen. A power-hungry despot with a black and shriveled heart. Violence is her creed. If she swore to kill them, then everyone you once knew is now long dead, along with thousands more.

Its interesting how different nations have different views and not oppressed like what the mc grew up with. Its so sad. Although I do really like the dynamic contrast of the two kingdoms here.

His jaw was defined, marked with dark stubble, his cheekbones high, his nose arrow straight and proud. There was a dark freckle just below his right eye. And… those eyes. Gods. Eyes were not that color. I’d never seen that shade of green before—a jade so bright and vibrant that it didn’t look real. I’d noticed the filaments of silver threaded through his right iris back in Madra’s Hall of Mirrors, but I’d assumed I’d imagined them, being so close to death and all. The silver shone there, though, definitely real, forming a reflective, metallic corona around the black well of his pupil. The sight of it made me feel strange and off-balance.

thats so hot

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.

hmmmmmm. Foreshadowing???

ONG I WANT TO LIVE THERE AT WINTER PALACE! IT SNOWS YEAR ROUND!!! MY DREAM

I enjoyed the king’s protection. But protection did not mean kindness, and it certainly didn’t mean respect.

hmmm

I am Rusarius, librarian, newly reappointed master of this domain.

The quicksilver pools are pathways that connect different realms.

interesting

Alchemists used to forge quicksilver into weaponry for Fae warriors. Harron had no business touching that weapon, let alone claiming it.” “It made him see things, I think. When it touched his skin, he started screaming.”

As far as we know, when one pool of quicksilver is activated, all quicksilver everywhere is activated.

“If you were a human, I’d say you were a little older than me. Twenty-seven? Twenty-eight, perhaps?” “Gods.” Her eyes went wide. “This will come as a bit of a shock, then.” She took a deep breath. “I was born at the very beginning of the tenth age. I’ve been alive for one thousand four hundred and eighty-six years.” “One thou…?” I nearly swallowed my tongue. Everlayne was nearly fifteen hundred years old.

Thats crazy

“One thousand seven hundred and thirty-three,” came a deep voice. Adrenaline exploded through my veins, shocking my system so badly that I nearly toppled sideways out of my seat. I twisted around, and there stood Kingfisher in a recessed reading alcove, bathed in shadows. Half of his body was concealed by a pool of darkness that was very out of place in the well-lit library.

We all love a shadow daddy XD

“Elroy swears that a man will lie about the size of his cock every time a woman asks him.” Kingfisher stilled. “Are you asking me how big my cock is, Osha?” “I don’t care how big it is. I care about the way you answer.” A slow, terrifying smirk spread across his face. “It’s big enough to make you scream and then some.” “See.” I jabbed a finger at him. “You’re not going to be honest.”

WUUUUTTTT

Kingfisher’s hands moved to the back of his neck. It took him all of four seconds to unfasten his gorget and slide the silver plate free. “Maybe the issue is that you asked me a question about my cock like a hungry little bitch in heat and didn’t ask me something that mattered.”

I WOULD DIE OF EMBARASSMENT

I tried not to pull back as he drew closer, but he was huge. He towered over me, taking up so much room, invading my space, blotting out the damn light. He was all I could see. All I could smell. He was cold morning air, and smoke, and fresh-turned earth, and a thousand other complex scents I didn’t even have names for.

Thats so hot

“You make it stop,” he commanded. “I can’t! I can’t!” Resolve flickered in his eyes. “You can.” “Let go!” “You want to prove me right, is that it? You’re weak? You’re a human, so you’re weak and useless and pathetic? Is that it?” “FISHER!”

“There you go again. Hungry, needy little bitch in heat, begging to be fucked…” he taunted. “Let. Go!” “LIIIIISTENNN!!” Kingfisher’s roar snatched my breath away. It snatched the light, too. The whole forge went black as pitch in an instant, and the pain in my hand, traveling up my arm, turned into a rope of fire. “There is you, and there is the pain. Nothing else,” he whispered. “Move past it. Move through it. Let it roll over you.”

I LOVE THE SARCASAM

“Then your brother isn’t a warrior, Everlayne. He’s a mindless savage with a shitty temper. But I think I could have already told you that.” “Please just call me Layne. And do not say that out loud!” “It’s hardly a secret. I think everyone knows Fisher’s a savage—” “Not that. The brother part,” she said in a loud whisper. “That’s not common knowledge?” “Well, yes. And no. It’s just not spoken about. And it’s very, very complicated.” “Let me guess. Your mother had an affair because the king’s a vile monster, and she ended up pregnant by someone else?” Everlayne—Layne—sighed. “No. My mother was married to a Southern lord before she married my father. She had Fisher with her first husband. When Fisher was ten, the king sent his father on a mission to Zilvaren. He never returned. That’s when the gateways were stilled. The king said that Finran, Fisher’s father, was responsible for the quicksilver stilling and declared him a traitor to the Fae—”

interesting. Also thats a really sad story for kingfisher.... I wish he was treated less poorly. His heart always hurts...

“I’m not allowed to eat in the library, apparently. And, unlike Layne, I don’t have my own assigned wing of the court. After seeing how nice your rooms were yesterday, I figured I’d come and eat breakfast here.

aww how sweet

Kingfisher’s gaze snapped up, singling in on mine. “Careful, human. We Fae have an excellent sense of smell. You’d be amazed what we can scent floating on the air.”

WELP

I’m attracted girl! Stay in there!

“I like being surprised,” Fisher said, spinning his fork over in his hand. “I’m also a fan of aggressive foreplay. It’ll be a fun reminder.” I breathed in sharply, inhaling cheese. Choking and spluttering, I tried desperately to get rid of it, but it wasn’t going anywhere. Kingfisher leaned forward, his tongue running over his teeth again. He smiled suggestively as he said, “Swallow.”

If that happened in real life to me, I don't know what I would do. Maybe play into it? sounds kinda fun

“And… and why does it smell like a brothel in here? If you’re going to spend the night out whoring and drinking, the least you could do is wash the smell of sex off you before showing up for breakfast.”

WHAT WHAT WHAT