Page 123 of The Mercy of Dawn

Sixty seconds is what she’d give them, to move on and leave her the fuck alone.

Sixty. Fifty-nine. Fifty-eight. Fifty—

“Cyril?” She blinked. “Are you alive?”

Was that…?

No. There was no way he’d come and—

“If you are alive, I have a peace offering.”

Cyril groaned and tossed back the covers.

She breathed through the wave of dizziness that swept through her as she slid out of bed and stalked over to the door. The equal parts arrogant, intolerable, and handsome prince smiled down at her when she pulled it open.

Mikael’s brows climbed as he said, “Hi. You look…”

She leveled a flat, unimpressed stare at him.

“Do not say it.”

Gods, her voice still. She sounded like Dion after he spent a few too many nights in a row smoking in the lounge.

“Say what?” His lips quirked.

Cyril knew she had to look as wrung out as she felt that morning. She’d caught one glimpse of her gaunt face in the bathroom mirror, and that had been plenty enough. How the prince looked relatively fine, she did not know.

She leaned her forehead against the edge of the door and sighed, gesturing vaguely at herself. “That I look like I got into a fight with a badger, and the badger won. Or whatever snarky version of that you prefer.”

Every possible iteration of that came from her uncles at some point or another. She was certain she’d heard them all by now, but badgers and bushes seemed to always be their go-to.

“You look tired. Almost like you had a late night or something.”

Mikael’s eyes lit up with amusement and, if Cyril wasn’t so damn drained, she’d have shut the door in his face. But it was currently supporting the near dead weight of her body, and she didn’t feel like moving.

She snorted. “Imagine that.”

Mikael smiled.

“I come bearing tea, wine, and cake.” He tipped his head towards the entirely out-of-place wicker basket under his arm. “If some company and any combination of those interest you?”

Just the word wine made her stomach turn.

“Tea and cake. The company too, I guess,” Cyril said after a long, appraising moment, and relief flickered on the prince’s face. She pushed off the door and motioned him through. He didn’t need telling twice, thankfully, and headed right over to the sofa and table.

“I’ll just be a minute,” she said.

Mikael waved her off, and she slipped into the bathroom, dealt with her painfully full bladder, and braved a glance in the mirror.

Just as bad as she thought.

Cyril wet a cloth with some balm and roughly scrubbed at the kohl smeared every which way around her eyes. Crying was something she had no recollection of doing the night before, but the tracks of black and gray running down her cheeks said otherwise.

Her face was far from perfect, but it was better. It took just a few seconds more to pass a comb through the limp, tangled lengths of her hair and brush the filmy feeling of sleep from her teeth.

By the time she’d made it back out, Mikael was in full domestic swing, adding logs to the hearth and stoking the flames. Laid out on the low table behind him were two lightly steaming mugs, a teapot tucked between them, and a single bowl with a heaping serving of cake. Sponge cake, specifically, with berries and cream, that had her stomach growling.

Those tonics did a remarkable job.