Page 54 of The Mercy of Dawn

“Right? And the prince did not seem happy about it at all.”

Bron eyed her. “You enjoyed his suffering, didn’t you?”

“Do I even need to answer that?”

“No, you don’t.” Bron shook his head. Something crept into his mind, though, and he narrowed his eyes. “The prince isn’t…attached to anyone, yeah? We talked to all the family, but I don’t think—”

“Oh, no. He made that crystal clear. She was just a bit of fun, apparently.” Cyril rolled her eyes.

“Look, dove, when two people just want to—” Bron’s own eyes flared wide with amusement when Cyril clamped her hand over his mouth.

“Don’t you dare finish that.”

He pulled her hand away and laughed.

“In all seriousness, though. This woman, was she about this tall”—he held his hand halfway up his chest—“and curly-haired? Generously endowed, too?”

Cyril sighed. These men.

“You’re disgusting, but yes.”

“We questioned her. Violet or Daisy. Rose, maybe? Some kind of flower for a name. She’s a courtesan from the city, apparently, and an expensive one at that.”

“Oh.”

That was…more than Cyril needed to know. A true testament to the prince’s demeanor too, if the only company he could get had to be paid for.

“Mm. But the prince’s warm bed aside”—Bron bumped her shoulder—“I take it your research hasn’t been very fruitful?”

“Not exactly,” she grumbled. “I don’t even know how many hours I’ve spent in the damn archives, but I haven’t found anything useful. One of the poor scribes even spent an entire day translating this decrepit old scroll with me, and it ended up being all for nothing.”

Cyril sighed and took a healthy swig of her wine. Tobias easily took the spot for the most patient person she had met in her life thus far, but she still felt awful about wasting that much of his time, even if he insisted he’d be happy to do it again just for fun.

“Just an ancient bread recipe?” Bron chuckled.

“Not even!” she groaned. “It was about this practice of the old culture here, called elemental cleansing. Apparently, they were big on using these displays of the elements to balance evils. They had all kinds of ceremonies for it too, but it seemed like most of them involved making some sort of offering back to the gods, like salt for the earth, or incense for the air. I just—”

She sighed again. It had been one thing to admit defeat to herself, but it felt a special kind of awful to say it out loud.

“You just, what? That doesn’t sound like it's nothing to me, dove.”

Leave it to Bron to find her infallible.

“I thought that maybe this meant someone was trying to do some cleansing, you know? Take matters into their own hands and clean up Reykr like that vigilante in Epheos a few years ago.”

“I’m still failing to see where this is nothing.”

“I was getting there.” Cyril shot a narrow look at Bron. “Honestly, I thought I was onto something, so I asked Dion if I could see the victim files.”

Bron’s brows climbed. “Did he let you?”

“He did.”

“And?”

“Crystal clear records, all four of them. Everyone who knew them loved them, too. The carpenter used to make toys for kids at the infirmary with his wood scraps, and I found out Rika volunteered at a temple in the city whenever she had time off.”

Bron’s nose wrinkled before he said, “That’s sad, isn’t it?”