Page 112 of The Mercy of Dawn

“Party trick.” Mikael shrugged like the exertion didn’t leave his hands shaky.

Even for all the years he’d spent training and refining his physical form, tapping into that sliver of his darkness wrung him out like nothing else. It would get easier with time, or so his mother had spent the last ten years telling him…

Cyril gaped, looking from him to her hand and back again.

“It…it was warm,” she breathed, full of disbelief. Then her eyes went wide and words tumbled out of her like cracks of lightning.

“Are you—? Have you—? When—?”

“Ascended?” he laughed. “No. Gods, no.”

Hells, he feared ascension more than he looked forward to it happening. In the decade he’d worked with the guard, they lost three of their numbers to injuries from inopportune moments of ascension and, in his opinion, that was three too many.

“Just a mostly unremarkable fae over here.”

Cyril plucked a handful of grass from the ground and aimlessly flung it towards Mikael, scoffing. “Alright, Prince of Darkness. Go show off somewhere else.”

“I would, but you never finished answering my question, Lady Cyril.”

He threw a handful of grass back at her. The outraged sputtering that came out of her was more than he could have dreamed of.

“You arse,” Cyril hissed, sitting up to brush all the blades off herself. And oh, if looks could kill. It probably wasn’t a great time to point out all the debris in her hair. “And what—what question?”

“Your mother…”

“Oh, uh—” Her eyes screwed shut, like thinking took an unreasonable amount of effort. Lockmead did that. “She was a half nymph. Water. And half moon-fae.”

“The spitfire is part water bearer, interesting…” Mikael mused, more playful than anything, but Cyril’s features narrowed in challenge. He couldn’t even imagine how much more temperamental she’d be if it wasn’t for that streak of tranquility that water nymphs bore.

“What do you mean interesting?” she said slowly.

Oh. He was toeing a dangerous line now.

“Just an observation,” Mikael chuckled, and Cyril rolled her eyes. He’d push her temper another day. Now? He was more interested in enjoying the alcohol-fueled ease that settled in between them. “One more question, if you’ll humor me?”

The side-eye she cut him was lethal, and he fucking loved it.

“What?” she grumbled, and Mikael stared for just a touch longer than he should have.

She raked her fingers through her hair, shaking all the grass and debris free, and gods… It was probably best for the sanity of anything with a heartbeat and a sex drive that she rarely wore it down.

He cleared his throat.

“Does it bother you, when people talk about your parents, since you never…”

Cyril raised a perfect, angular brow at him.

Shit.

He hadn’t thought about just how personal of a question it was until the words started leaving his damn mouth. He should have just asked her about her damn hobbies again.

“Since I never knew them?” She exhaled sharply through her nose and looked away. “Here comes the Prince of Darkness, trying to unpack all my fucking baggage. First, you flaunt your magic, now this.”

Oh, for fuck’s sake.

That was not a nickname that could stick around in any capacity. If either of his parents found out he let that bit of information slip…

“You can tell me to fuck off.”