Page 158 of The Mercy of Dawn

“Gentlemen,” Mikael said by way of a remarkably calm and collected acknowledgement, and then the prince disappeared from her sight.

Bron tracked him for a moment, though, with a look of wicked curiosity, and Cyril felt sweat slip down her back as she walked to meet them. The raised brow Bron pinned her when she came to a stop beside Tyr did nothing to help. Even Tyr’s usual quiet smile had an air of judgment about it.

“Hi, dove.”

Bron pulled her in for a hug so tight the hilts of the knives strapped across his chest dug into her cheek. Her uncles hadn’t been back long if they were still geared for travel.

Cyril wrestled herself away from Bron, but he slung an arm across her shoulders and started steering her back through the stables. Tyr fell in step behind them.

“I didn’t know you were all coming back,” she said. “Is everything alright?”

Bron half shrugged. “Eh, just an impromptu visit. Investigation’s a bit stale, felt like getting out of the city for a little.”

“Oh. Ren didn’t come too?”

“He did, but he’s with the boss. Probably for the best that someone kept him busy.” Bron winked at her, and Cyril was just about ready to disappear. “And if I could offer you a morsel of advice, dove? Scrub up before dinner, and get changed. You reek.”

Cyril blinked at him.

She lifted her shirt to her nose and…No? A little sweaty, maybe, from the damn blistering heat that didn’t want to break, but reek? Unless…

“Is it the horses?” Cyril sniffed her sleeve. She was probably just so damn used to it by now, not that they smelled bad…

“No, not the horses.” Bron shook his head, and Tyr fucking laughed.

“If you’re just being an arse—”

“You smell an awful lot like the prince, Cyr, and he smelled an awful lot like you.”

Cyril nearly tripped.

Oh, fucking hells.

“I…We—” She cleared her throat because she needed half a fucking second to think. “We went for a ride together. Of course, we smell like each other with your freakish sense of smell.”

Cyril, perhaps, hadn’t thought about what a problem ascended fae and their absurd senses could be. She was going to have to talk to Mikael as soon as everyone left, or she could catch him alone.

The total silence they met her with had her looking from Bron to Tyr, and back again between each when they met her with tight smiles.

“Oh, this is all you, friend,” Tyr said to Bron after they exchanged a look that Cyril understood no part of.

A sigh slipped through Bron’s entire body as he said, “Dove, dear, you smell like sex. Reek like it, in fact.”

That stopped her right in her fucking tracks. Cyril nearly swayed into the bushes lining the pathway back to the palace.

“We did not…”

Gods, she didn’t even want to say the words, not to her gods damned uncles, of all people. And they hadn’t, truly! Not that this was the place to get into technicalities…

“I did not…” Cyril waved a hand back towards the stables, like that would help her case out at all.

The doubt in both of their faces spoke to just how convincing any of that was.

But it was Tyr that said, “Cyr, you have grass in your hair.”

Her eyes flared, and she fought to get the tie out of her braid, shaking it all out. Grass, white wisteria petals, and a single fucking twig fell out.

Backup plan.