QUICK LINKS: Quicksilver Recap by Chapter 1–11 | 12–19 | 27–35 | 36–41 | 42–45
Quicksilver Chapters 20–26 Summary
This chapter-by-chapter summary of Quicksilver by Callie Hart contains spoilers.
Quicksilver Chapter 20: Ammontraíeth
Saeris, Carrion, and Renfis step through a shadow gate into the war camp. Tents stretch in every direction, and across the frozen river, the fortress Ammontraíeth looms like a threat made solid. Kingfisher appears, tells them the fortress was built from demon bones and obsidian, then vanishes after dumping the burden of addressing the warriors onto Renfis.
Renfis takes Saeris and Carrion to the river and runs them through drills. Carrion struggles but keeps up. Saeris gets disarmed fast but comes back harder. Kingfisher watches, tells Saeris she fights like someone who wants to die, then shuts down her protest and says she’s not ready.
Kingfisher agrees to the war captains’ meeting on one condition. Renfis takes Carrion elsewhere. Kingfisher wants Saeris alone.
His tent is bigger than it should be, lined with books. He feeds Saeris, calls her skilled, and makes clear she’ll follow his lead if she wants to survive. He’ll compel her if he has to. Something charged passes between them before he pulls back, leaving her off-balance.
Saeris walks into the war tent to find Carrion already eating. A warrior named Danya goes straight at Kingfisher, accusing him of abandoning his wolves at Gillethrye a century ago, then attacks. Without thinking, Saeris shouts, and something tears loose from her, snapping Danya’s sword apart. The warriors realize Saeris is an Alchemist, and Kingfisher claims her as his.
The ground shakes. Sanasroth forces have reached the riverbank. Everyone pours out, and Lorreth tells Saeris and Carrion to stay put.
Quicksilver Chapter 21: Ice Breaker
Warriors sprint for the frozen river Darn, racing to break the ice before the vampires can cross. Carrion pulls Saeris with him, and suddenly she’s out there swinging alongside the Fae while fifty thousand vampires close in from the other side.
The ice gives just as the first wave hits. Black smoke rolls off Kingfisher’s body and spreads across the river, pulling the vampires under.
Then Malcolm, the vampire king, calls across the water to Kingfisher, easy and unhurried, like picking up an old conversation. Malcolm hints at meetings Saeris knows nothing about and promises that he and Kingfisher will meet again soon.
Quicksilver Chapter 22: The Itch
Kingfisher brings Saeris back to Cahlish and tells her not to share food with Carrion. Saeris pushes Kingfisher on the Fae’s history with vampires. He explains that there are mindless feeders, and then there are High Fae vampires, with Malcolm at the top.
As he talks, she realizes that Kingfisher spent his exile with Malcolm. She can see the proof in the way he moves around the subject. She tells Kingfisher that he doesn’t actually hate her. What he feels is something else.
What follows is urgent and unguarded, Kingfisher’s tattoos moving across his skin and onto hers.
Then it’s over. Kingfisher tells Saeris to stay, steps through a shadow gate, and goes back to the war camp without invoking the blood oath.
Archer suddenly materializes with refreshments and mentions he may have overheard a disturbance. Saeris tells him she was moving furniture and goes back inside.
Quicksilver Chapter 23: Ticking Clock
Saeris wakes to find one of Kingfisher’s bird tattoos on her chest. She goes straight to the war camp. He tells her it’ll fade.
Then Kingfisher pivots. Saeris needs a contraceptive potion. He tells her fae-human children don’t happen often, but they happen. Saeris laughs and tells him not to bother. She was sterilized at fourteen as part of Madra’s policy and tips her head to show him the mark behind her ear.
Saeris expects relief, but Kingfisher reacts with shock and sudden anger. Kingfisher doesn’t explain his outburst, telling her only to get back to the forge before he leaves.
Her equipment is laid out when she arrives, but the quicksilver is gone. Saeris follows its faint whisper to a cave and finds Carrion inside with a book about the Fae. He hands over the box without much fuss and follows her back to the forge. They run three experiments. All three fail. One leaves them both feeling sick.
Kingfisher turns up at lunch, visibly injured. Saeris brings up the quicksilver. He calls what he did training and doesn’t apologize. Then he turns on Carrion, sends Carrion’s food to the ground with a flick of magic, and gives him a choice between finding Renfis or latrine duty. Carrion grins at Saeris on his way out and calls her Sunshine. Kingfisher corrects him that it’s Majesty, not Sunshine.
Then Kingfisher tells Saeris she’s done at the forge. He needs her for something else.
Quicksilver Chapter 24: Lupo Proelia
In the war room, Renfis gets to the point. Danya’s shattered sword contained quicksilver, which is why it reacted to Saeris. Past Alchemists needed far greater quantities just to move it, which means Saeris is something stronger. She argues it doesn’t matter if she can’t produce a relic, but Danya has no patience for the excuse. Renfis cuts her off. Their army is shrinking, supply lines are gone, and at the current rate, Malcolm wins in a year.
The weight of the war hits Saeris all at once. She has a panic attack, and Lorreth stays with her until it passes. He tells her that Kingfisher has gone to Cahlish to see Te Léna. Something unpleasant moves through Saeris. She doesn’t examine the feeling.
They end up in the camp tavern with whiskey. Saeris says Kingfisher lies. Lorreth explains the Oath Bound Fae. At twenty-one, they take a vow, and after that, lying isn’t possible. She looks back at things Kingfisher said with different eyes.
Saeris asks about Fae canines. Lorreth tells her blood drinking got tangled up with sex at some point. The euphoria is real, but so is the danger.
Then Lorreth tells Saeris about himself. He was young when vampires found him. Kingfisher got there in time, but saving him required a sacrificial rite that left a fragment of Kingfisher’s soul inside Lorreth. If Lorreth goes first, the fragment returns. If Kingfisher goes first, that piece stays trapped until Lorreth follows. Lorreth says that if Kingfisher dies, he won’t wait long to follow.
Quicksilver Chapter 25: Ballard
Kingfisher doesn’t appear the day after Saeris’s evening with Lorreth. Saeris drifts through Cahlish with nothing to do, the relic work stalled, and the stillness wearing on her.
When Kingfisher returns the following afternoon with fresh wounds, he mentions Te Léna. Something tightens in Saeris’s chest that she’d rather not name, but he promises to take her somewhere important afterward.
The shadow gate opens near Ballard. Kingfisher promises forge time and asks why she hasn’t brought up their night together. Saeris tells him that he was the one who said their night was a one-time thing, and she’s not about to chase someone who leaves her hurting.
An elderly Fae woman appears before Kingfisher can respond. Wendy pulls him close, scolding him for staying away, then turns to Saeris. Wendy recognizes her as Zilvaren, senses a bond between them that neither has named, and calls Saeris more than a companion. Kingfisher goes rigid. He says she’s just a friend and that she’ll be going home before long. Wendy lets the matter drop and brings them inside.
The meal is easy. Saeris teases Kingfisher about how rarely he smiles. He admits it doesn’t come naturally, but adds that it’s getting easier. Then voices hit Saeris, sharp and sudden. She drops her plate. Kingfisher gets them out quickly, but when she repeats the phrase she heard aloud, his composure cracks. He tells her never to say it again. Underneath his words is something that sounds like fear.
Kingfisher takes Saeris to a square in Ballard with a statue at its center: his mother Edina, Lady of Cahlish. Saeris understands something new about him. The apartment above the square is dusty and still, most likely his mother’s once. Kingfisher pulls the curtains to block the statue, redirects Saeris away from a covered painting, and shows her to a bedroom. He summons her forgotten bag and closes the door.
Quicksilver Chapter 26: Ash and Cinders
Saeris wakes to screaming and finds Kingfisher locked in an episode. He tries to send her away. She refuses and tells him he’s never to use the blood oath against her again. He agrees. She stays for hours.
To pull Kingfisher’s attention from the pain, Saeris talks. She tells him how her father died and her mother became a prostitute; how she found the rebels and learned to survive. She speaks of her mother’s execution, the quarantine of the Third Ward, and how she and Hayden were left with nowhere to go. She keeps talking until the episode finally loosens its grip.
When the tension passes, Kingfisher asks Saeris to lie beside him. She does, and he pulls her close. Just before sleep takes him, he whispers that his mother was killed too.