Title: Quicksilver
Series: Fae & Alchemy #1
Author: Callie Hart
Genre: Fantasy Romance
Published: June 4, 2024 by Forever
Kindle Page Count: 615 pages
Audio Length: 20 hours and 41 minutes (Podium Audio)
Goodreads: 4.34 (out of 5)
My Rating: 4.50 (out of 5)
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In the land of the unforgiving desert, there isn't much a girl wouldn't do for a glass of water.
Twenty-four-year-old Saeris Fane is good at keeping secrets. No one knows about the strange powers she possesses, or the fact that she has been picking pockets and stealing from the Undying Queen's reservoirs for as long as she can remember.
But a secret is like a knot. Sooner or later, it is bound to come undone.
When Saeris comes face-to-face with Death himself, she inadvertently re-opens a gateway between realms and is transported to a land of ice and snow. The Fae have always been the stuff of myth, of legend, of nightmares... but it turns out they're real, and Saeris has landed herself in the middle of a centuries-long conflict that might just get her killed.
The first of her kind to tread the frozen mountains of Yvelia in over a thousand years, Saeris mistakenly binds herself to Kingfisher, a handsome Fae warrior, who has secrets and nefarious agendas of his own. He will use her Alchemist's magic to protect his people, no matter what it costs him . . . or her.
Death has a name. It is Kingfisher of the Ajun Gate. His past is murky. His attitude stinks. And he's the only way Saeris is going to make it home.
Be careful of the deals you make, dear child. The devil is in the details . . .
TROPE GUIDE: Enemies to Lovers | Different Worlds | Forced Proximity | Slow Burn | Touch Her and Die
QUICK LINKS: Quicksilver Recap by Chapter 12–19 | 20–26 | 27–35 | 36–41 | 42–45
Disclaimer: This is a Quicksilver summary. The original work is the property of Callie Hart and Forever.
Quicksilver Book Summary
This Callie Hart Quicksilver chapter summary contains spoilers.
Quicksilver Chapter 1: The Climb
Saeris Fane sneaks into the forbidden Hub of Zilvaren City and runs into a royal guardian, the same kind of man who killed her mother and neighbor. She lies about her name but admits she’s from the plague-ridden Third Ward. He panics, and when she fakes the symptoms, he retreats in disgust, hurling his golden gauntlet at her.
She catches the gauntlet and scales the wall dividing the wards. That much gold could free her and her brother Hayden from Zilvaren for good. At the top, she feels something odd pulse from inside the gauntlet, pushes the sensation aside, and plans to melt the gold and get the two of them out.
Quicksilver Chapter 2: Glassmaker
Saeris brings the gauntlet to Elroy, but he wants no part of it. He warns that stealing from the queen’s guard is a death sentence. When Elroy brings up her mother’s execution and her ability to manipulate metal, she shuts him down and walks out.
Outside The House of Kala, Saeris finds Hayden beaten and broke. She hands him the satchel and goes inside to deal with Carrion Swift, the smuggler responsible. Carrion claims Hayden threw the punch first, then reveals he already knows about the gauntlet and warns that the entire Third Ward will suffer if the guardians trace it back to Saeris. He offers to hide the gauntlet in his warehouse. She agrees.
Saeris steps back outside. Hayden is gone, and so is the satchel.
Quicksilver Chapter 3: The Kindest Purpose
Saeris races to The Mirage and stops cold. Thirty guardians surround Hayden.
When Hayden claims the theft to protect Saeris, she pushes forward and confesses. The situation goes sideways fast. She kills two guardians and maims a third before the skirmish ends. Her sentence is death.
With no other options, Saeris turns on Hayden to keep him safe. She calls him a burden, using a tone cruel enough to make him believe the lie, and drives him away.
Quicksilver Chapter 4: The Price
Six hours in a cell pulls Saeris back to childhood dreams of the palace, dreams that died with her mother’s execution and hardened into a desire to kill Queen Madra.
Harron returns, questions Saeris’s fighting skills, and hauls her out with a warning to behave. Barely on her feet from thirst, she drinks the water Harron offers, then tells him that Madra is poisoning the Third Ward and turning its people into weapons. He tells Saeris to keep moving.
He leads her into a locked hall with a raised platform at the center, once a hall of mirrors. Then Madra appears, striking in a way that unsettles more than impresses. She calls Saeris a liar and accuses her of being a Fae assassin.
Saeris is shocked. The Fae are myths.
Madra tells Saeris the hall keeps the Fae banished, then orders Harron to kill Saeris. Madra promises to destroy everyone Saeris loves and wipe out the Third Ward as a warning to anyone who thinks about rebelling. Saeris loves and slaughter the Third Ward as a warning against rebellion.
Quicksilver Chapter 5: Heretic
As Madra leaves, she tells Harron to make Saeris sing.
Harron stabs Saeris, and something breaks open inside her. Power surges out, freezes his dagger mid-air, and she melts it, the molten metal moving toward Harron on its own. Gravely wounded, Saeris pulls a sword from the platform, cuts through her bonds, and strikes him.
The platform collapses into a pool of silver, and something rises from it.
Death, clad in black armor. The figure kills Harron, then places a silver chain around Saeris’s neck and lifts her into his arms. The pool closes over them both, and the world goes dark.
Quicksilver Chapter 6: Everlayne
Saeris wakes in Yvelia, wounds healed, tended to by a Fae woman named Everlayne. When Renfis, a Fae general, comes in demanding the silver chain, Saeris barely registers him. Learning she’s been unconscious for ten days sends her into a panic over Hayden, but Everlayne tells her going back is impossible. Drawing the ancient sword changed everything in the eyes of the Fae, and King Belikon De Barra has summoned Saeris.
For Saeris, the bath feels like guilt. All that water, freely given, while Hayden and Elroy are likely parched back home.
Despite Saeris’s objections, Everlayne dresses Saeris for the king; to appear in human clothes would be an insult. When Saeris sees herself in the mirror, she goes still. The person looking back doesn’t look anything like her.
Quicksilver Chapter 7: The Dog
Saeris walks through the Winter Palace with Everlayne, learning about the Fae gods and their connection to Zilvaren’s twin suns.
Before King Belikon, Saeris receives devastating news. Queen Madra has massacred the Third Ward, including Hayden. Belikon declares a life debt, orders Saeris to reopen the portals, and calls for “the dog” who saved her life.
The court stirs at the name Kingfisher, and as Belikon moves to execute him, the oracle Malwae intervenes. Malwae declares that the gods forbid such a death and demands the pendant’s return.
General Renfis arrives, claiming Kingfisher for the front lines. Belikon agrees but orders Kingfisher to help Saeris first.
With the pendant restored, Kingfisher’s clarity returns. Outside, Saeris gets her first real look at him and feels unsettled. The reunion between Kingfisher, Renfis, and Everlayne is cold.
As the women walk away, Everlayne warns Saeris that the Fae hide treachery behind friendly faces.
Quicksilver Chapter 8: Alchemist
The next morning, Everlayne brings Saeris to the palace’s grand library, a stark contrast to the crumbling archive in Zilvaren. They’re joined by the librarian Rusarius, then Kingfisher and Renfis.
When Everlayne moves to begin, Saeris pushes back. She wants to go home and find her brother, not sit through a history lesson. Kingfisher offers a thread of hope. Madra may have conscripted the people of the Third Ward rather than killed them. The conversation darkens from there. The Fae are already losing their war against Sanasroth.
Kingfisher then asks about Saeris’s abilities. She tells him she can draw on the energy within metal and has experience in a forge.
Quicksilver Chapter 9: Righteous Purpose
Kingfisher ignores Everlayne and Renfis and takes Saeris to a Fae forge. On the way, Kingfisher reveals that the Fae once suffered a blood curse that turned them into vampires, and that he is Everlayne’s brother. Whatever he says next drives Everlayne to tears, and she runs. Renfis rounds on him, but Saeris follows Kingfisher. He’s her fastest way home.
At the forge, Kingfisher breaks in without hesitation, explaining that Belikon’s archivist never mastered the Alchemists’ methods and left the place to gather dust. Saeris sets to work cleaning while Kingfisher refuses to help, citing magic as sacred.
Kingfisher explains that the pendant keeps the madness of quicksilver at bay, the same quicksilver the Alchemists shaped into weapons. Quicksilver pools are passages between realms, and because Saeris activated one, she’s the key to reopening them. That’s why he saved her.
When Renfis arrives hours later, Kingfisher cleans the forge instantly with magic. Saeris is furious, but Kingfisher shows no remorse, claiming he only wanted to see how she handled hard work.
Quicksilver Chapter 10: Crumbs
The next day, Saeris apologizes to Everlayne and joins her at the library, where Rusarius is furious at Renfis and Kingfisher for eating at the clerk’s table. Everlayne and Kingfisher argue, and he storms out, telling Saeris to meet him at the forge later. Once he’s gone, Renfis and Everlayne grieve over how broken Kingfisher has become. Everlayne isn’t sure if the brother she knew is still in him.
Saeris’s lessons in Alchemy begin. It’s a lost Fae magic rooted in metal transmutation, once deadly to its practitioners. When Saeris realizes she can read Fae script, Everlayne ties the ability to Madra’s influence, and the conversation turns to Madra’s unnaturally long reign and her use of an Alchimeran sword to still the quicksilver. Saeris also learns Everlayne is 1,486 years old and Kingfisher is even older. He has been listening nearby the whole time and slips in to correct his sister before taking Saeris away.
At the forge, Saeris asks Kingfisher directly why he destroyed a city. He admits it without flinching but says only that hell was his punishment. He then forces her to hold the quicksilver through the freezing, burning pain. Saeris endures his taunting until something shifts. She speaks the words “Annorath mor,” the pain stops, and the metal liquefies. She learns to command the quicksilver at will.
Kingfisher concedes he expected it to be harder for her. Saeris punches him in the mouth.
Quicksilver Chapter 11: Swallow
While helping Saeris dress, Everlayne snaps at her for hitting Kingfisher, then lets it go and tells her about him instead. He is Everlayne’s older half-brother, born of their mother’s first husband, a disgraced lord. The king married their mother for wealth and has resented Kingfisher ever since.
Alone, Saeris turns the strange phrase from the quicksilver over in her mind. When Kingfisher shows up with food, his teasing gets under her skin until Everlayne walks in, furious, and accuses him of whoring. To shield Saeris, he takes the blame and leaves, warning her to be ready for more quicksilver practice.
At the library, Saeris steers the lesson toward quicksilver pathways. Rusarius explains that an Alchemist traveling through quicksilver must hold the destination clearly in mind, then confirms that a massive pool sits beneath the Winter Palace.
Saeris listens, but she’s already plotting. She needs to finish one last thing before she can use that pool to go home..