Page 153 of The Mercy of Dawn

“This isn’t just interrogate Mikael time, wrath.” He kissed the top of her head, and the quiet, contented noise she made just about cleaved him in two. “Same questions. Your turn.”

“But you know everything already.”

“Not everything. I know you are twenty-one, and you love cake. Oh, and you are also a lady of culture and violence, with no shortage of hobbies.”

Cyril laughed.

“But I don’t know when you were born, or what your favorite color is.”

“Samhain,” she said with sudden softness.

“…You were born on Samhain?”

He wasn’t sure how they regarded the day in Helia, but in Reykr they always said it marked the start of darkness. Shorter days, longer nights, and, the worst part, cold.

He felt the warm puff of her sigh on his neck.

“Unfortunately, yes.”

“What’s wrong with—”

Mikael was a gods damned idiot. Of course, her birthday was a sensitive topic. Cyril had already made her thoughts on the matter of her existence crystal clear.

He wouldn’t drag her back down that road again tonight.

“Nevermind. Favorite color?”

“I like the colors of our crest.” She sighed again. “Red. Orange. Yellow.”

Mikael really had a grade-fucking-A talent for putting a damper on Cyril’s evenings.

The woman hated the entire notion of being born and was undoubtedly homesick, and he had her thinking about both. At least on the solstice, he had a day of drinking to blame for his idiocy.

“You look good in orange,” he said, but Cyril was quiet.

Mikael ran his hands up her back, and warmth radiated through the damp fabric of her shirt. One of the unfortunate side effects of the stimulant running its course, and the downfall of many an over-eager reveler. He’d lost count of how many guardsmen he’d helped haul back to the city station to ply with tonics.

“How are you feeling?”

Other than a soft, contemplative noise she hummed into the crook of his neck, Cyril didn’t answer right away.

She shifted and fidgeted in that same uneasy way she had all night, with the added torture of doing so directly in his lap. He adjusted them both as discreetly as he could, trying to relieve some of the merciless friction he was in no position to act on.

“Cyr?”

“I feel…” A rush of air left her lungs. “Tired, but I don’t want to sleep. And my body, it…it’s buzzing. And…” She laughed, quiet and almost sheepish. “It feels really nice when you touch me.”

Ah, she was in the thick of it now.

Better her thinking about that than anything else.

“I’m sure it does.” Maybe to appease them both, Mikael slipped his hands under her shirt and splayed them across the damp, bare skin of her back. Skin that was fucking hot to the touch. “Cyr… You’re really, really warm.”

“Mm. That too.”

“That means we should think about leaving.”

This may have very well held the record for his shortest night out at The Stairs, ever. Not how he envisioned their night going by any means.