Quicksilver

Quicksilver is an old name for the element mercury, which comes from its liquid state at room temperature. In Quicksilver, the eponymous substance is more closely related with regular silver, the only metal that can create magical weapons. Quicksilver has several functions in the novel. It begins as an obstacle when Saeris must learn to manipulate the mysterious substance to earn her way home and later to help her friends. It is a poison that is the cause of Fisher’s “madness,” paralleling the real-world correlation with mercury poisoning and erratic behavior. The phrase “mad as a hatter” arises from the illness suffered by 19th century milliners after working with mercury-treated materials (“Mad as a Hatter: Global Efforts to Reduce Mercury Emissions.” Vanderbilt University, 18 Feb. 2013). Later, it becomes a character, speaking telepathically to Saeris and seeking to make bargains. 

As a character, quicksilver acts as an amoral agent. At the novel’s climax, the material is unmoved by Saeris’s pleas that she needs to save her friends or defeat evil Malcolm; it instead demands boons that benefit its own interest. Despite its neutral position in the battle between good and evil, the quicksilver symbolizes a preference for the living over the undead: The substance is more poisonous to vampires than it is to the Fae (though both are affected by it), indicating that it does not consider the undead as worthy in its own moral system.