QUICKSILVER BY CALLIE HART
SPOILERS AHEAD...
Our story opens in the harsh world of Zilvaren, where water is a precious commodity and metal is a symbol of privilege. Zilvaren is surrounded by walls, has two suns, and divided into wards - all impoverished.
Saeris Fane, our main girl: 24 years old, a professional thief, a part-time liar, and a full-time sass queen. She gets caught stealing in Zilvaren's elite hub and is confronted by a golden-armored guardian. She cons him into thinking she’s plague-ridden. He panics, drops his gauntlet, and she grabs it. Cue a parkour escape up a giant city wall, lugging four pounds of bling, while the Guardian rages below. Her secret metal-bending powers have a weird reaction to the gauntlet, but Saeris brushes it off, focusing on what she’ll melt that gauntlet into.
She drags the shiny loot to Elroy’s workshop—aka her grumpy father-figure, glassblower. Elroy is NOT impressed. He all “Sweetie, maybe don’t piss off the immortal queen’s army?” and starts ranting about her bringing doom, famine, and general apocalypse vibes into his shop. Saeris claps back: “I’m doing this for Hayden, my brother, duh.” Cut to said brother, who’s bleeding outside a tavern. Classic. He’s been fighting and gambling with Carrion Swift, a copper-haired rogue who's: Hot, infuriating, and unfortunately her ex. Saeris storms into the bar, leaving the bag containing the gauntlet with Hayden. What could go wrong? She verbally spars with Carrion and gets a reminder he’s equal parts charming and a shameless menace. When she goes back outside, Hayden and the gauntlet are gone. Now she’s running through the streets in full panic mode, cursing her dumb yet lovable brother.
Guardians immediately gather around Hayden like it’s Black Friday at Best Buy. She barrels toward them only to realize there are thirty-ish guardians all with swords. Saeris intervenes, lying to protect Hayden and confessing that she was the one who took the gauntlet, not him. Saeris fights back when the guardians attempt to restrain her, killing two of them. She lands herself in a boiling palace cell. Captain Harron shows up like a bored interrogator from Law & Order: Immortal Unit. He offers her water (rude flex, since the Third Ward lives on half a thimble a day), and takes her to see the Queen.
Enter Queen Madra, beautiful, immortal tyrant, drama queen. She slaps Saeris, accuses her of being a Fae assassin (spicy, but false), and freaks out about “the Fae (who were previously banished by her) are coming to kill her.” Before leaving, Madra orders Saeris’s torture and death. Harron skewers Saeris in the stomach (yikes), but she spontaneously discovers her metal-bending powers come with a side of liquefying weapons. She manipulates the dagger in Harron's hand, and the silver puddle goes full Disney villain, chasing Harron across the floor.
Fighting against impending death, Saeris staggers to the giant sword in the lever contraption across the room and pulls the sword out. Silver floods the floor, and a figure emerges from it - Death, Saeris guesses. He’s dripping menace and scary hot. He then drapes a silver chain around her neck and whispers, “Don’t die yet.” Which is quite frankly the most romantic thing anyone’s said so far. Then Saeris promptly passes out in his arms.
Saeris wakes up in Yvelian (aka Fairy land) 10 days later. She’s in an ice palace that makes Elsa’s castle look like a Motel 6. Enter Everlayne—sweet, sparkly Fae princess with “I’ll braid your hair and give you trauma counseling” energy. She’s offered an entire glass of water and nearly weeps. Everlayne is shocked that Saeris is human and doesn’t know that the Fae are real.
Then in comes Renfis, towering general, protective vibes, definitely the one holding the group chat together. They casually mention Death needs his pendant back, because without it, he’ll unravel like your favorite book series’ last two books. Everlayne hustles Saeris through the Winter Palace like a tour guide who overshares about family drama.
We’re now in the Throne room, which has an enormous dragon skull (foreshadowing of some kind, I’m sure). King Belikon, Everlayne’s dad, sits pretty with Saeris’s stolen sword, Solace. Turns out that sword is super powerful and Madra used it to close off all the quicksilver portals between each of the realms. So the Fae who were out scouting other realms got stuck there, and now they can no longer obtain supplies from the other realms to assist in the current war. Belikon is all, “Congrats on not combusting when you touched the sword because only Fae can touch that sword. Now you owe us.” His plan? Force Saeris to awaken the quicksilver, open other realms, yada yada interdimensional travel etc.
Then they drag in the chained and snarling Death. Turns out his real name is Kingfisher and he's Everlayne's half brother and Belikon's step-son. Awkward family dinner energy. We learn that Solace actually belonged to Kingfisher’s dad and was taken by Madra when she killed his father. Belikon then ordered Kingsfisher’s mother to marry him. Not suspicious at all. Belikon HATES Fisher like SUPER HATES him. Belikon accuses Kingfisher of breaking his exile for the crime of destroying the city of Gillethrye a century prior. The Fae are losing it, Everlayne is begging her dad for mercy, when Malwae, an Oracle, hijacks the party with a prophecy about House De Barra falling if they screw this up. Verdict: Fisher gets to live (for now) and will babysit Saeris for a week and help her learn to wake the quicksilver before being thrown back to the warfront. Saeris is handed over to Fisher. He’s basically chained to her for a week. Fisher’s all “I don’t trust you.” Saeris is like, “Great, I don’t trust me either.” Everlayne keeps trying to play peacemaker like she’s hosting an awkward double date. Renfis? Just looming in the background, radiating dad-energy.
The gang drags Saeris to Yvelia’s library, it’s giving Beauty and the Beast vibes, but with pointy ears. Enter Rusarius, the friendly librarian. When Rusarius hears how Saeris came to Yvelia, he calls her an Alchemist. Alchemists are rare individuals with the innate ability to manipulate Quicksilver. They can craft talismans and weapons, imbuing them with extraordinary magical properties. Kingfisher muses that Saeris must have some Fae ancestry—otherwise the sword, Solace, would have “burned off her hands.”
Next, they head for the forge. Saeris reluctantly tags along since she wants to learn how to open the portals so she can return home. On the way there, Fisher drops some Fea History 101: he explains that Fae have fangs due to a millennia-old curse that led them to drink the blood of humans to maintain their immortality. The curse has since been lifted, but all humans in Yvelia, except Saeris, are long dead. Kingfisher and Saeris enter the forge, which is abandoned and overgrown. He keeps calling her “Osha”—a little butterfly that quickly dies, which she hates, but the sexual tension is palpable between them.
Fisher decides to “test her work ethic” by letting her clean the abandoned forge for hours. When she’s covered in soot and resentment, he snaps his fingers and cleans it with magic. She nearly murders him with a broom. Honestly, we would fully support this.
We find out Fisher has shadow-wielding abilities (Yay! Another Shadow Daddy). He explains the three Alchemist flavors: Healers, immortality chasers, and Transmuters (Saeris’s type—hello plot device). And we learn that Fisher’s pendant – a gift from his mother - is designed to protect him from the quicksilver’s effects when going through portals. He was forced to go through quicksilver once without the pendant and ended up absorbing some of the quicksilver. If he does not continually wear the pendant, the quicksilver will cause psychological damage. Saeris notes silver filaments in his eyes. Then, because his love language is hazard training, he makes her wrestle with quicksilver by pressing it into her palm until it burns, then smirks when she re-solidifies it. When they try a second time, Saeris hears mysterious chanting in her head “Annorath mor. Annorath mor.” Totally Creepy.
The next day in the library, Saeris focuses on learning more about Quicksilver pathways, determined to use them to return home. Rusarius explains the alchemist's method of traveling through the pools, emphasizing that the process involves focusing on a destination. Saeris learns of the existence of a large quicksilver pool in the winter palace, crucial for her plans.
Saeris enters the forge, where Kingfisher is working in the heat. Their interactions are charged with tension as Kingfisher teases Saeris about her reactions to him, calling her Osha again and pushing her buttons. Saeris reluctantly agrees to help with the silver despite her previous traumatic experience with it. As the two work together, a fox suddenly appears and bites Saeris. Naturally, she adopts it. Because what’s a rebellious girl without a cute sidekick? Welcome to the gang, Onyx!
Saeris, determined to return home and back to Hayden, distracts Fisher with a kiss, snatching his shiny ring (which she thinks is a relic), and bolts for the quicksilver pool after he dematerializes. Guided by whispers from the Quicksilver, she’s taken beneath the palace only to run into Kingfisher again. Turns out that ring isn’t a relic, it’s just jewelry. If she’d jumped in, her brain would’ve fried like an egg. Fisher lays out a deal: He’ll cross into the pool and try to bring back one person of her choice. The price? A blood oath — she has to obey him, make “as many relics as he needs,” and then gets a ticket home. She agrees without reading the fine print.
He vanishes into the pool, tells her to wait an hour, and comes back bleeding, carrying… not Hayden. Nope. It’s Carrion Swift — her ex. Why? Because Carrion told Fisher he was Hayden, and Fisher bought it because Carrion smelled like her from, there previous activities.
Saeris is livid. Fisher? Defends it like, “Hey, conditions were rough, be grateful I brought anyone back at all.” And thanks to that shiny new blood oath, she’s stuck following his orders.
Now that Carrion has re-entered the chat like the ex who shows up at the worst possible time, the group sets out on their little road trip toward Innír. Fisher is bleeding from that pool stunt, Carrion is unconscious, and Saeris is growing increasingly frustrated with Kingfisher's dismissive attitude.
After hours of travel, they reach a tavern where Fisher doesn’t go unnoticed. The tavern patrons recognize him as a hero, having saved countless lives in past battles. Renfis shows up, and despite the admiration he receives, Fischer seems uncomfortable with the attention, ultimately storming out of the tavern. Fisher summons a shadow gate portal that will transport them closer to their destination. Saeris is reluctant, but Fisher forces her to go through using the blood oath she made with him.
The next day, Carrion is finally awake, and Saeris is relieved to find out that Hayden is alive and working in the seventh ward, which has better living conditions than the third. Now in Cahlish, Saeris learns about its history from Fisher. He reveals that this was once his home before being forced to move. They run into a fire sprite named Archer, who practically bursts into tears when he sees Fisher. The man’s glowing like a Christmas sparkler over his boss being back. Saeris? Still not impressed. “Everyone here worships him like he’s Fae Jesus. I must be missing the memo.” Then Fisher takes her to the forge — and reveals a literal mountain of jewelry. Turns out every shiny trinket needs to be melted, infused with quicksilver, and turned into relics so his soldiers can safely travel between realms. Just a casual assignment.
A few hours later, Saeris is struggling with the task, feeling frustrated by her failures and the lack of quicksilver to aid in her experiments. Ren visits, exhausted from battle, and encourages her to connect with Fischer, who has been pushing her hard. Serais reluctantly agrees to dinner with Fischer. The dinner turns awkward with an exaggeratedly long table between them. She grabs her plate from the end of the table and sits next to him on his right side. He gives her a weird look but doesn’t tell her to move. The conversation quickly shifts to the supply of silver, which Bellikon tightly controls. As Saeris tries to get answers from Fischer, the dining room is attacked by feeders, forcing Fischer into action. He swiftly kills the attackers, saving Seris, who is injured in the process.
When she wakes up, she’s in Fisher’s bed. He’s sitting in the shadows like a brooding cover model, and she’s immediately suspicious. Using the blood oath, Fisher orders her to stay put and heal. Cue five days of bed rest and boredom. During this time, Onyx the fox visits, Te Léna the healer checks her wounds, and Carrion drops by to brag about training with the Fae and his new boots — a reward from Fisher for taking a super awkward bath via water sprites. Apparently, he still smells like Saeris, which is driving Fisher absolutely feral.
Once she’s healed and technically free from the room, Saeris sprints back to the forge to tinker with the quicksilver again. Fisher sends Ren with another dinner invite, and Saeris — being her chaotic self — drags both Ren and Carrion along. At dinner, she sits on Fisher’s right side again. Ren side-eyes her so hard it could cut steel, even offers to swap seats. Fisher shuts it down with a calm, “She’s fine where she is,” like that’s not the most loaded line ever. Ren just gives him an interesting look. The meal turns into a passive-aggressive flirt fest — tension simmering, Carrion poking the bear, Ren trying to mediate, and Fisher dropping the occasional taunt like, “Careful, little Osha. You’re playing with fire.”
The next day, Fisher drags Saeris to the Irrín war camp, which is basically the Fae version of a depressing ski resort — frozen wasteland, angry warriors, and zero hot cocoa. Across the river? Ammontrieth, home of the vampire hordes. Fun neighborhood. The vibes are frosty — literally. As Fisher parades Saeris through camp, the Fae soldiers glare at them.
Saeris trains with Carrion and Ren. She surprises Ren and Fisher with her hidden skills and resilience. After training, Fisher takes her back to his tent for dinner before he goes to a meeting with the Fae warriors. After a heated exchange about the blood oath, Saeris and Fisher share an unexpected, passionate kiss. The intensity of their connection leaves them both shocked and confused. Fisher storms out before things can escalate further.
At the meeting, Saeris is chilling with Carrion, sharing a quiche as they watch events unfold. Fisher's return stirs anger among the Fae, especially from a female warrior named Danya. She accuses him of abandoning them. Fisher tries to explain, but there’s a magical NDA situation happening; he literally can’t say why he disappeared a century ago. Danya loses it and swings her sword at him. Saeris, running on pure instinct, yells “STOP!” — and boom, the sword flies out of Danya’s hand and splinters into shards that stab the wall behind them. The entire room is Speechless. Saeris is just like, “...Okay, that was new.”
Before anyone can recover, someone yells, “Ice breakers!”Translation: vampires inbound. Cue chaos. The Fae soldiers rush outside to smash the ice over the river so the undead army can’t cross. And just when the night couldn’t get worse, the Big Bad himself, Malcolm, appears across the riverbank — smug, terrifying, and oozing villain energy. He locks eyes with Fisher and calls out his name. Fisher? Absolutely livid.
After the battle, Fisher zips Saeris back through a shadow portal to his house in Cahlish. Saeris is asking non-stop questions, so Fisher tells her about Malcom. Turns out the Big Bad isn’t just any vampire. He’s an immortal high Fae vampire hybrid, the first of his kind. When the Fae blood curse ended, everyone else went back to normal — but Malcolm was like, “Nah, I like my pointy teeth and trauma.” Now, he’s the strongest bloodsucker in existence, and only he can turn someone without destroying who they are. When his minions (called Princes) bite people, they don’t get sparkly immortality — they come back as Feeders, mindless, hungry murder-zombies.
Saeris, being the bold disaster she is, asks Fisher where he’s been all these years — you know, the whole “exile and mysterious history with the vampire king” thing. He freezes up. Literally cannot speak. Turns out he’s magically gagged from talking about it. Their banter turns increasingly charged, leading to a moment where Saeris boldly asks Fisher to show her what he wants. In an impulsive moment, they share a passionate kiss that quickly escalates into intense physical intimacy. Afterwards, he tells her to stay in his room and pops back through the shadow portal.
Saeris wakes up the next day like, “Why do I have matching tattoos with this man?” She discovers that during their night together, Fisher’s magical runes literally transferred onto her skin. When she confronts him, he admits they’re permanent but he can glamour them away (for now). She’s furious. He’s flustered. Then he tries to pull the classic “maybe you should see the healer, just in case you’re… pregnant.”Saeris shuts that down fast. She drops the bomb: “Nope. Can’t happen. Queen Madra had seventy percent of Third Ward girls sterilized at fourteen.” That wipes the smirk right off his gorgeous Fae face. Fisher retreats, clearly shaken, and Saeris heads to the forge to keep working.
Fisher has hidden the quicksilver this time — on a mountain, like some twisted training montage. At the top, she finds Carrion guarding it, being smug as usual. She’s like, “How are you so chill about living in a land full of murder fairies?” He shrugs and says his grandma raised him on bedtime stories about the Fae. Saeris then ropes him into helping with her experiments because two chaotic mortals are better than one. A few hours later, Fisher bursts in all businesslike, dragging her back to the war room. Turns out that sword Saeris exploded during her “oops, I have powers” moment? Yeah, it was Danya’s ancestral heirloom, made of quicksilver-infused steel. Super important to the Fae. Saeris tries to recall the broken shards with her magic, but they’re stuck in the wall like glittery daggers of regret. Ren, looking like he hasn’t slept since the dawn of time, announces they’re basically screwed. They have maybe a year before the vampire army grows too big to stop. The pressure hits Saeris hard — she’s behind on making relics, the Fae are losing hope, and the only thing flowing freely is her anxiety. So what does our girl do? She gets drunk, of course.
While nursing her bottle of “coping juice,” she chats with Lorreth, one of Fisher’s most loyal warriors. Lorreth explains that he was once a traveling singer who was attacked by vampires. Fisher found him and saved him by literally giving him part of his soul. It’s a magical blood pact that links their lives. If Lorreth dies first, Fisher gets his soul fragment back. But if Fisher dies first? He’s doomed to wander the world as a ghost, unable to interact with anything or anyone, until Lorreth dies. And since Fae live, oh, forever, that could mean Fisher’s ghost just… hangs around for a few centuries. Lorreth, being a ride-or-die bestie, shrugs and says, “No worries, I’ll handle that when it happens.”Saeris just sits there, slightly drunk, realizing every single man in this realm needs therapy.
Fisher shows up and teleports her back to Cahlish. Then he promptly vanishes again. After a few days of boredom, Fisher finally reappears. He checks in with the healer, Te Léna (Saeris secretly wonders if they have a thing going on), and then whisks Saeris off to a nearby town called Ballard. Turns out it’s the night of the Longest Night Festival, which is basically Fae Mardi Gras meets winter solstice. There’s food, dancing, and an entire community who doesn’t seems to have a care in the world. At the feast, Saeris meets Wendy, an older Fae woman who is super happy to see Fisher again. Like, “Oh, it’s been so long, my sweet boy!” energy. Wendy turns out to be kind of psychic — she sensed Saeris the moment she crossed from Zilvaren into Yvelia. Everything’s going fine until—bam!—Saeris is hit with a sudden magical surge. Her body locks up, her eyes go glassy, and she starts chanting “Annorath mor, Annorath mor!” over and over, freaking everyone out.
Fisher swoops in and takes her to his childhood home, and surprise — it’s equal parts gorgeous and tragic. There’s even a statue of his mother, Edina. That night, she wakes up to him screaming — not emotionally, but literally. His quicksilver poisoning is flaring up again, the metal in his eye pulsing like it’s alive. Saeris refuses to leave, even when he tells her to. Desperate to distract him, she starts talking — spilling her past like a confession. She tells him about her mother, killed by Madra’s guards while smuggling weapons. It’s raw, it’s ugly, and it hits Fisher like a blade to the chest. They see each other’s pain for what it is — mirrored, jagged, and carved by survival.
The next morning, Searis wakes up with Fisher still in the bed. This time, neither of them moves away. The air between them is so thick with tension that you could cut it with a knife. They give in to their desires. In the middle of it, she realizes he can hear her thoughts. Like, actual telepathy. Then Saeris, in peak chaos fashion, whispers for him to bite her. And he does. It’s taboo. It’s dangerous. It’s also ridiculously hot.
When the dust settles, Saeris notices new tattoos appearing across her skin. Fisher, of course, goes full cryptic mode. He explains some of them, but conveniently leaves out the part where this probably means she’s now mystically tied to his soul for eternity. He uses his magic to hide the tattoos except the bird on her chest, saying, “If you want to keep them, they’ll come back in a month. If not… they’ll fade.” Saeris suspects there’s more he’s not telling her.
Saeris is back at the forge, losing her mind one failed experiment at a time. Then Carrion, strolls in with a big-brain idea: “Babe, why don’t you just, like… ask the quicksilver?” Despite her irritation with him, the idea’s actually not terrible. So off they go to the war room to have a little heart-to-heart with the sentient metal still stuck in the wall. It reveals it craves music as a condition for cooperating – A full song. Start to finish. Something it can keep. Saeris agrees — on one condition. She wants the quicksilver to bless the new sword she forges with its magic. The quicksilver’s like, “Nah, no one is worthy of that magic.” So Saeris bargains: fine, let the sword test its own wielder. If they’re worthy, it’ll choose them. The quicksilver, dramatic as ever, finally agrees and peels itself — and all those glittering shards — out of the wall. Lorreth joins the squad, helping gather the shards while Carrion offers unsolicited commentary like it’s a blacksmithing reality show. Saeris works the forge, hammering steel, sparks flying. She tasks Lorreth with designing a wolf pommel for the sword — a nod to loyalty and sacrifice. He nails it (literally), and when Fisher shows up mid-forge, he’s floored. Like, open-mouth, “wow, you just made Excalibur” floored.
Then, in true sitcom fashion, Lorreth accidentally cuts his hand on the blade. Oops.
Instantly, the quicksilver hums to life, whispering through the air: “The song, mortal. Give us the song.” Then the sky lights up - The Aurora, unseen for over a thousand years, ripples across the heavens like a cosmic encore. Overwhelmed, Lorreth starts to sing — a haunting song called “The Ballad of the Ajun Gate.” It’s about Fisher. The quicksilver eats it up. Literally keeps it, memory-wiped style. When he finishes, the quicksilver declares, “The bargain is struck. We claim you, Lorreth.” Cue collective freak-out. Lorreth’s like, “Hold up, this was supposed to be Danya’s sword. Fisher and Saeris exchange a look like, "It chose you, Danya can just cope." Then things get eerie: no one except Saeris can remember the song Lorreth just sang. The quicksilver’s keeping it like a mixtape locked in a celestial vault. The metal voice tells Lorreth to take the sword with both hands and name it. He does. “Avisiéth — the Unsung Song. Redemption’s Dawn.” The moment the words leave his mouth, the sword ignites — a blue flame races down its blade, runes flaring to life in glowing silver light. That’s Angel’s Breath — a divine blessing.
Fisher takes Saeris back to his tent to bathe and sleep. When she wakes, he’s in bed with her, asleep. Saeris is hit with an overwhelming urge to save Fisher from the quicksilver. She remembers how she negotiated with the quicksilver before — convinced it to bargain, to listen. So naturally, she decides to try the same thing…with the quicksilver living inside Fisher’s eye. She reaches out magically, trying to reason with it. However, she realizes the quicksilver views their bond as inseparable and will not leave. Fisher wakes and detects her distress, understanding what she was trying to do. Before they can delve further into this emotional landscape, Ren bursts in like the world’s most inconvenient alarm clock: “Hey, sorry to interrupt the bonding session, but the enemy’s here.” As they prepare to face the imminent threat, Saeris refuses to leave Fisher’s side. He allows her to go with them as long as she promises not to leave his side and follow his orders. She agrees, so he places Solace into Saeris’s care, symbolizing his trust and partnership.
Ren, Fisher, and Searis head to the riverbank at the Darn. They brace themselves to fight off the vampires should they cross, but there’s unease with Malcom missing.
As the vampires make their bold crossing, chaos erupts. Ren and Fisher unleash their magic. They manage to break the ice under the vampires, causing them to fall into the river. But then… SURPRISE. These vamps don’t stay dead. Nope, they crawl out of the freezing river like the world’s worst synchronized swimming team. Saeris finally joins the fight, wielding Solace like she was born to do it, and guess what? She’s good. Like… terrifyingly good. Even Ren’s like, “Not bad for a human”.
The fighting intensifies - Fisher welding his sword, Nimerelle, and Lorreth with his sword, Avisiéth. It’s epic. It’s cinematic. It’s giving “final boss fight.” Then — the scream. Across the river, Everlayne appears. Surrounded. Ren’s face drains of color. Fisher goes statue-still. Everlayne’s in full damsel-in-distress mode, leashed by a gold cord thanks to a vampire named Taladaius. And if that wasn’t bad enough, Malcolm has bitten her. Yep. B-I-T-T-E-N. Which means she’s enthralled to Malcom and on a fast-track to either becoming a vampire or feeder. Neither option is good. Taladaius reveals that Everlayne’s capture is part of a strategy to manipulate and recapture Fisher. Taladaius says that Malcom will be waiting for him at the same place they brokered their last deal – Gillethrye. Malcom wants not only Fisher, but Saeris too. Then he leaves, taking Everlayne with him.
Back at camp, Ren reveals that Malcom is different because he was the first to be influenced by the blood curse. Malcom’s venom is so powerful, he only has to bite someone once for them to be under his control (aka enthralled). If he allows them to drink from him and they actually do, they will change into one of his princes. If he doesn’t or they refuse to drink, they turn into a feeder instead. It’s an alarming fate awaiting Everlayne.
Then Danya storms in, enraged over losing her sword, and confronts Lorreth – like girl, read the room. Despite warnings, she tries to take Avisiéth, but it burns her - taking her hand. She goes flying backward, shrieking. Fisher, unbothered king that he is, simply says they’ll take her back to Cahlish so Te Léna can regrow her hand but she has to chill.
Then he turns to the rest of the group and declares they’re all heading home to regroup and figure out how to deal with Malcolm.
Fisher opens the shadow portal, and they all go through. They land in Cahlish’s dining room, where Saeris sits in her usual seat – on the right side of Fisher’s chair. Danya, fresh from her magical hand-amputation, immediately starts heckling like: “Excuse me, peasant, that’s the wifey chair.”
Ren comes through, looks at them, but doesn’t say anything. Danya’s mouth falls open like wtf?? Then Fisher comes through and says, “No rules have been broken, Danya. Besides, it’s none of your business”.
Carrion and Lorreth emerge from the portal. Danya, pale and furious, promptly faints from blood loss, and Lorreth sighs as he carries her off to Te Léna for magical limb regeneration.
Separating from the group, Saeris is back in forge mode when the quicksilver starts demanding payment in secrets. And boy, does she deliver: she admits she doesn’t really want to go back to Zilvaren. She wants Hayden and Elroy safe in Yvelia… oh, and maybe she’s in no hurry to leave Fisher either. Quicksilver: “Accepted. Also, babe, your actual job? Save Fisher.” No pressure.
When done, Saeris slips the new ring relic on her finger. She hears chanting “Annorath mor, Annorath mor!” again.
Telena shows up, interrupting the chanting and trance. Carrion, of course, tries to flirt with her and Telena raises her hands to show him her ruins and tattoos stating she’s a married woman. Saeris freezes - Te Léna’s tattoos look exactly like hers.
Saeris immediately starts grilling Te Léna:
“So, these marks—when do you get them? Do they just, like, appear one day?”
Te Léna smiles and says, “Usually, couples get them around their fifth wedding anniversary.”Then she casually drops, “But back in the old days, they used to just appear naturally—when a true mating bond formed.”
Saeris blinks. “Used to?”
Te Léna explains that god bindings—the script around the wrists—are super rare.They’re blessings straight from the divine, only given to the most powerful, destined couples.The catch? They always end in tragedy.
Saeris’s jaw hits the floor.Destined mates. God-level romance. Cursed ending. Great. Just great.
She immediately goes to confront Fisher.
Saeris finds Fisher, and she’s like, “We need to talk.” Fisher sighs, and finally confesses:
“I’ve known for centuries that my true mate was coming.” Excuse me what? Apparently, his mom was an oracle and saw her in a vision before she died. She even wrote a whole prophecy book and drew a sketch of Saeris for Fisher to recognize her by.Minor issue? The drawing had fae ears.
He said he refuses to have her bound to him when it will inevitably end in tragedy. He’s been looking for a way to save her, so he evoked a ‘waiting period’ on the bond – not denying the bond exactly but delaying it. Saeris is pissed - he made all these important decisions without consulting her first. She storms out and insists she’ll find a way to save both him and Everlayne.
The whole gang is in the library researching. It’s determined that witches are the only ones powerful enough to break an enthrallment and keep a vampire’s venom at bay so a healer can draw it out of the victim. Problem? All the witches are gone, having left Yvelia years ago.
Fisher proposes that he and Ren travel to Faulton’s Gap to seek aid from half-witches.
They go and wen Ren returns from a challenging encounter with the witches, he shares that they found one willing to help, Iseabail, the granddaughter of a powerful witch. But it almost failed because of Danya’s big mouth.
That night, Fisher teleports Saeris and himself back to his house in Ballard. He’s set up a cozy, romantic atmosphere, saying he wanted something special for the two of them before the upcoming rescue.
They share another passionate night together. More ruins show up on Saeris’s body, and Fisher expresses his love for her, making it clear he cherishes every moment they have together. Why does this sound like a goodbye?
Oh, because it is. She wakes the next day, and he’s gone. Literally sneaks out in the middle of the night with a note like, “Sorry, went to rescue Everlayne. You’re free from our blood oath. Oh, and when Everlayne comes through the portal tonight, don’t let her go back in.”
Saeris immediately goes to find the gang. Ren got a note, too. There’s no quicksilver pool in Gillethrye so they can’t go get him. Then Carrion reads the letter and says, “Hold up, how long does the portal stay open after we go through?”
Saeris: “10-12 secs maybe, why? “
Carrion: “And there’s always a delay?”
Lorreth: “Yes, Fisher has complained about it in the past.”
Carrion: “Great! Here in the letter, it says you need to keep Everlayne from going back into the portal to Malcolm whenever he sends her through.”
Ta-da! It’s a two-way portal, they can use that small opening to travel to Gillethrye.
Carrion says he wants to help them get Fisher back, but first, he wants a sword imbued with quicksilver, too. This quicksilver wants a joke as payment – perfect because Carrion is full of them! His sword is imbued, and he names it ‘Simon’.
Iseabail and Telena are busy setting up a space for when Everlayne comes through the portal. Ren and Lorreth are not hopeful they can cure Everlayne. Saeris gets a mini history lesson about the witches. Lorreth says he doesn’t trust them, that they are dragon lovers, and that if it weren’t for them, there wouldn’t even be any vampires in the first place. Iseabail chimes in and says that’s a rumour and isn’t true.
All of a sudden, a dark portal opens in the ceiling and down falls Everlyn. They have to haul ass to try and get into the portal before it closes. The squad jumps in. Saeris drops like a rock into a freezing lake, nearly drowns, but Lorreth pulls her out. Carrion? Unconscious from hitting the water so hard, but CPR saves him (because apparently he’s too pretty to die).
Ren? Didn’t make it through the portal before it closed, so he has to sit this round out.
They scale an obsidian cliff while Saeris hears that cursed “Annorath mor!” chant louder than ever. At the top? A nightmare amphitheater packed with dead people screaming the phrase — which Lorreth translates as “Release us.” Very reassuring.
And guess who pops up again? Harron, Madra’s captain. Only now he’s full quicksilver-zombie mode, teleporting them straight into the villains’ lair.
Center stage: Malcolm (smug as ever), Queen Madra (the worst), and—plot twist—King Belikon. It’s a family reunion, apparently – they are siblings and have been working together this whole time. Fisher is there, chained and covered in blood.
Winter Palace guards (normal Fae) are there too – following Belikon’s orders. Though they look ashamed to be there.
Belikon releases Fisher from the oath and makes him reveal the deal he struck with them all those years ago. We finally get the tea:
A hundred years ago, vampires swarmed the city of Gillethrye. Fisher brought Ren and his elite wolf-pack warriors to help, but it was already a massacre. Fisher knew it was too late, so he left to try and find Malcolm and bargain a deal for the surviving people. Instead, he found Belikon, who had just killed Fisher’s mom. Malcom arrives and that’s when Fisher finds out that Belikon and Malcom are allies. They offer Fisher a deal involving a coin: if the coin lands on the ground leaf side up, Malcom would call off the horde and leave the city without hurting anyone else. But if it landed fish side up, Malcom would take the city and destroy it and fisher would have to leave the people who were still alive to their fate. He was not allowed to touch the coin or influence its fall. And before it hits the ground, he is not allowed to harm Malcom or Belikon. Until the outcome of the coin is decided, he is also not allowed to speak of the deal or the fact that Malcom and Belikon are brothers. Desperate to save the people in Gillethrye, Fisher agreed to the blood oath.
Fisher tossed the coin, but Malcom caught it. The coin never hit the ground. Malcom’s vampires killed all the people in Gillethrye. Fisher realized every fallen fae would rise as part of Malcolm’s undead horde, so he barricaded the city and burned it to ash to stop them from rising. Brutal, but tactical.
Malcom, pissed at Fisher for doing that, created the colosseum and labyrinth, then hid the coin in the center of it. The only way to release the souls of the people stuck in the colosseum is for Fisher to find the coin and make it drop. And that’s where he has been all those centuries when he was missing – in this labyrinth, looking for the coin. Then one day, the labyrinth shook and a quicksilver pool opened beneath it. Fisher was drawn back to the quicksilver by his father’s sword, Solace, when Saeris pulled it out of the lever in Madra’s palace. He knew he would need the sword to kill Belikon and Malcolm, so he went through the pool.
Fisher, all of a sudden, reaches for Solace and attacks Belikon, stabbing him. He tells them to go into the labyrinth. Harron goes for Saeris, but she stabs Harron and snaps his neck.
Now we’re in the labyrinth, but the universe is like, “This isn’t stressful enough, let’s add a GIANT HALF-FAE SPIDER DEMON to the mix.” Enter Morthil. Carrion, Fisher, and Lorreth are slashing and stabbing. Fisher tells Saeris there’s a quicksilver pool in the center of the labyrinth – find it ASAP!
They finally take down the spider (temporarily), and just when you think we’re safe…the walls start to shift like a Rubik’s cube on steroids, and the party’s forced to sprint-slide-jump their way through before being pancaked.
They go in the direction where Saeris senses the quicksilver. They stumble into the center of the labyrinth and…it’s filled with mountains of coins. Malcom, Madra and Belikon (completely healed) are already there waiting for them. All the coins are fakes. Real silver burns Malcolm, so they have to find the coin like it’s the deadliest game of “Where’s Waldo?”
Despite the risks, Carrion steps up and actually proves useful. He eggs on Malcom – telling him to go ahead and bite him. An he does. Then all of a sudden, Malcolm rears back – surprised and poisoned. Carrion reveals his true heritage as Carrion Swift Daianthus. Hand tight, that name is important.
Realizing the importance of finding the real coin to end Fisher’s curse, Saeris calls out to the quicksilver inside the real coin and asks for its location. The quicksilver demands a ‘small favor’ to comply, and Saeris agrees, also acknowledging Fisher as her mate during the process. The quicksilver reveals it’s in Morthil’s stomach – eww. She rushes back to the giant spider demon and reaches into its stomach to retrieve the coin. But before she can drop it, to end the curse, she’s intercepted by Malcom. He snatches the coin from her hand and puts it in his coin pouch. Saeris and Malcom battle – each delivering blows and slabs that are life-threatening to the other. He goes for her stomach and chest as she rips open his coin pouch. She manages to drop the real coin onto the amphitheater’s floor, freeing thousands of trapped souls in one go. With her last surge of strength, Saeris decapitates Malcolm with Solace. Fisher rages across the battlefield, feral and unstoppable.
Saeris is bleeding out. Fisher begs to soul-save her (like what he did with Lorreth). She refuses — because it would kill him. Then Taladaius steps up and offers to transform her. Apparently, he’s more powerful than he let on, choosing to hide his power from Malcom so Malcom didn’t kill him. Taladaius has the ability to transform someone without them losing their soul and becoming a Feeder. Saeris is too weak to say anything, but Fisher, panicking, says she consents. Fade to black.
Saeris wakes mid-transformation while the amphitheater explodes around them. Saeris hears a new voice in her head and takes a quick detour into the quicksilver: Who’s waiting? None other than Zareth, God of Chaos, and his twin daughters, Bal and Mithin, the sun goddesses.
Zareth is basically like:
There’s a rot taking over the realms
You and Fisher are fated mates across all realms, no matter how much I meddle.
Your love is destined to either end the universe or save it. No pressure.
You & Fisher are under my protection (hence the god bindings), and I can cut you out of the fate-thread, so no other gods can see or mess with you.
BUT in order to do this, you will be transformed into something brand new — my wildcard.
She agrees, and then is shoved into the quicksilver pool, emerging as a one-of-a-kind, shiny hybrid.
Saeris wakes up puking, shiny new powers unlocked. Taladaius confirms she’s now half-Fae, half-vampire. No longer human. Then her memories of the agonizing transformation is unlocked and hits her like a horror reel. Lorreth visits and he tells her that Everlayne is alive but in a deep sleep. Madra ran away almost immediately, but Belikon only fled when Lorreth welded angle fire with his sword. Carrion also visits and is a Fae now – not human. Tall, pointy ears & fangs. He reveals he’s the missing Fae Prince heir. Fisher’s dad, Finran, took him to Zilvaren when he was young to save him from Belikon. He glamoured Carrion’s ears & fangs so he wouldn’t stand out and brought a bag of books so Carrion could learn about his heritage and return when the time was right. Then Carrion basically got stuck in Zilvaren when Madra closed the quicksilver portal. Carrion explains he survived Malcom’s bite because his father’s blood was used to create the original blood curse that allowed Malcom to be a vampire. Apparently, Vampires can’t drink from any living family member of the person whose blood was used to make them, and they can’t enthrall them either. Drinking from Carrion should have killed Malcom, but because he’s been alive for so long, he was too powerful. That’s why Malcom had Belikon kill his parents - they were the only threat to him.
Then Fisher walks in – he’s shaken but relieved. Saeris notices Fisher has less quicksilver in his eye with the help of Telena and Iseabail. It seems the quicksilver poisoning could maybe be cured - with time. So his death wish plan is on hold. She looks out the window, and sees they are on the wrong side of the Darn River. Apparently, Malcom never named an heir, so his throne can be claimed by the one who killed him - Saeris. Surprise! In 2 days, she will be the new queen of Sanasrath.
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