Earth and Salt, Fire and Mercury Read online

  He was usually sleeping.

  “Darling,” she said softly, and she pressed her fingers to the glass box in which he slept. It was warm to the touch—the Ice used the cold when they did this, but Zerena had developed her own method. She leaned over the box. Her husband’s eyes were closed, his mouth resting in a smile. He looked so peaceful like this. It was good for his heart, she had told him. The rigors of the job caused too much stress. Better for her to use one of her little tricks on him, to keep him healthy. To keep him safe.

  He didn’t need to know all of her reasons, of course.

  Zerena brushed her fingers gently against the box, as if brushing his cheek. Seeing him soothed her jangling nerves. Reminded her that the failed ritual wasn’t the end of the world. Not even close.

  “You mustn’t worry, though,” she whispered, speaking to him, speaking to herself. “I have other plans in mind.”

  Her smile reflected across the glass box, and across her husband’s sleeping face.

  Up Next

  Lies and traps; spells and sex.

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  Writer Team

  Lindsay Smith is the author of the YA espionage thrillers Sekret, Skandal, and Dreamstrider, all from Macmillan Children’s. She lives in Washington, DC, with her husband and dog, where she writes on international issues in cyber security. LindsaySmith.net. @LindsaySmithDC.

  Max Gladstone has been thrown from a horse in Mongolia, drank almond milk with monks on Wudang Shan, and wrecked a bicycle in Angkor Wat. Max is also the author of the Craft Sequence of books about undead gods and skeletal law wizards—Full Fathom Five, Three Parts Dead, Two Serpents Rise, and Last First Snow. Max fools everyone by actually writing novels in the coffee shops of Davis Square in Somerville, MA. His dreams are much nicer than you’d expect. MaxGladstone.com. @maxgladstone.

  Cassandra Rose Clarke grew up in south Texas and currently lives in a suburb of Houston, where she writes and teaches composition at a pair of local colleges. She holds an M.A. in creative writing from The University of Texas at Austin, and in 2010 she attended the Clarion West Writer’s Workshop in Seattle. Her work has been nominated for the Philip K. Dick Award and YALSA’s Best Fiction for Young Adults. Her latest novel is Our Lady of the Ice, out now from Saga Press. CassandraRoseClark.com. @mitochondrial.

  Ian Tregillis is the son of a bearded mountebank and a discredited tarot card reader. He is the author of the Milkweed Triptych, Something More than Night, and the Alchemy Wars trilogy. His most current novel is The Rising (Alchemy Wars #2). His short fiction has appeared at numerous venues including Tor.com, Fantasy & Science Fiction, and Popular Science. He lives in New Mexico, where he consorts with writers, scientists, and other disreputable types. IanTregillis.com. @ITregillis.

  Fran Wilde’s work includes the Andre Norton-, and Compton Crook Award-winning and Nebula-nominated novel Updraft (Tor, 2015) and its sequels, Cloudbound and Horizon, as well as the novella The Jewel and Her Lapidary (Tor.com 2016). Her short stories appear in Asimov’s, Tor.com, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and Nature. She writes for publications including The Washington Post, Tor.com, Clarkesworld, and iO9.com. franwilde.net. @fran_wilde.