Page 216 of The Mercy of Dawn

“Please, Mika. Let me be useful.”

A careful choice of words, and she hit her mark—Mikael's eyes softened.

“If I see anything fucking weird, I’ll go to the city guard and wait for you, okay? And I’ll go armed too, just to be safe. But let me see if I can get some information for you.”

Mikael took a step away from her, scrubbing his thumb and forefinger across his brow as he paced. She knew she had him. It was just a matter of how difficult he would make it for her.

Slowly, he turned back and said, “For the record, I do not like any bit of this, okay?”

From over his shoulder, Kaia gave her an encouraging grin.

There was nothing but conflict in Mikael’s eyes as he notched his fingers under Cyril’s chin and sighed. “Be back at the city station by midnight, regardless of if you see anything or not, okay? We’ll meet you there and figure out a plan.”

The grin that crept across Cyril’s face was something she had little control over.

“Okay.” She nodded, and her heart rate started climbing. “Midnight.”

Mikael leaned down, brushing his lips against hers. “Be safe, please,” he murmured, so only she could hear. “And don’t do anything stupid.”

Just over halfway to Brynnhold, a rumble of thunder shook the very ground beneath Cyril and Attie. Moments later, the skies opened up and drenched them both. Water and mud flew up in all directions as Attie’s hooves tore into the pathway, but Cyril couldn’t wipe the damn shit-eating grin off her face.

It didn’t matter she was soaked through to the bone, or that her next couple of hours of rooftop recon were now going to take place in a torrential downpour.

Mikael trusted her.

He put aside his instincts and his worries, and he put his faith in her ability.

It was such a wild fucking feeling.

Faelock had nothing on the buzz of excitement that coursed through her body.

Her hands were unsteady things for the few whirlwind minutes she spent digging her reinforced leather jacket from her old room—really just a glorified closet now—and strapping a few blades to her thighs and into the sheathes in her boots.

After she tossed a cowl over her head, she took off running for the stables and never looked back.

Cyril’s first bit of proper rogue work in her entire damn life, and it was happening in fucking Reykr. Not that she was a rogue anymore, or had ever really been, but still…

Just months ago, if someone said that it wouldn’t be Dion assigning her out for work for the first time, Cyril would have been skeptical. If they said that it would be the Prince Commander of the fucking moon-fae kingdom—who she also was sharing a bed with—leaning on her in a time of need, Cyril would have told them to get their head checked.

It was frightening how much could change in a matter of months.

The few guards working at and taking shelter in the city gate didn’t bat an eyelash when Cyril asked if she could leave Attie in their modest stables for a couple of hours while she ran an errand in the city. They just waved her on with a smile, and Cyril slipped into the streets.

The map Kaia drew of the warehouses the guards went to check was crude at best, and a soaked piece of parchment now, but Brynnhold’s streets were well marked enough that Cyril managed.

Despite the sheets of rain falling from the night sky, the path Cyril walked through the shopping and tavern district still buzzed with evening activity. Bodies moved in all directions, some laughing and shrieking in the rain. Others clung desperately to buildings to spare themselves a soaked walk to and from wherever their night took them.

Slowly though, as she wove and wound her way through the cobblestone and puddles, those crowds grew thinner, quieter.

The bobbing faelights and warm street lamps became scarce as the stone townhomes and shops gave way to cold, industrial buildings.

All she could hear now was the rain, and she slipped herself into the growing shadows.

Climbing up the drainpipe on a building Kaia had marked as a promising vantage point proved to be…trying.

By the time she hauled herself up onto the tin roof, she had lost her grip three fucking times and tore a hole through the palm of the leather gloves Tyr and Ren bought for her two birthdays ago. The entirely debatable integrity of the half-rusted metal roof had her crawling across its slick surface on her hands and knees, praying she wasn’t a wrong move away from a two-story fall.

When Cyril reached the far edge of the roof, she eased down flat on her stomach between two ridges on the corrugated surface.