52. Chapter 52

Chapter 52

T hat ever-growing pile of laundered uniforms never saw its end.

Every time Cyril had a free hour or two between packs and supplies and organizing, she’d get down to the last half a dozen pants and jackets before someone would come and drop off a new pile.

It became a progressively later and later, later Cyril problem.

Just like now, when she decided to give her damn hands a break and take a walk back to the palace proper for a change of scenery.

Maybe to be a little nosey too.

A hand-holding and back-rubbing dinner —as Mikael less than enthusiastically called it—had been underway for a few hours now. The reluctant prince was filling in for his stable, but still wholly unwell, older brother.

Cyril got the impression that these events were not something Mikael spent much—or any—time at, and probably for good reason. Prickly, Runa had referred to him as once, and Cyril couldn’t agree more.

Truthfully, she was relieved that this was the type of event she didn’t receive an invitation to. Running the barracks left her nearly dead on her feet and her patience had run remarkably thin with, well…idiots. A wandering hand from a certain crooked-nose councilor may have spelled disaster.

But the dinner meant the barracks were quiet .

Busy still, with bodies coming and going, but not with the sort of people who would stay and chat, or tease her and help pass the time.

She blamed Mikael for getting nothing but polite hello’s and thank you’s as the mostly green guards came and went with their supplies. The poor trainees were terrified of him and the commander persona he wore when he barked orders at them. Apparently, that made her guilty by association.

It was also his fault, she decided, that any of the King's Guard worth their merit—namely, the ones that liked to come and pass the time with her—were assigned out on discreet overtime to scour the city for leads, or stuck working security detail for the dinner.

A show of solidarity and reassurance, it was supposed to be, that required the best of their best to be on display. But that didn’t stop Kaia, Ari, and Gunner from groveling about it when she talked to them the day before.

They played their part well though, all cleaned up in their dark blue and black dress uniforms, stationed along the hall outside the ballroom’s main doors.

Kaia spotted Cyril first as she came down the hall to the state ballroom.

The pained smile and sagging shoulders she greeted Cyril with spoke to how thrilling their assignment was.

“You’re a sight for sore eyes,” Kaia chuckled as she ran a hand through the shaggy-cut, white hair on the top of her head. Her other hand stayed firmly planted on the hilt of her sword, sheathed at her hip.

Cyril learned that was the easiest way to tell the ascended and non-ascended guards a part—the size of the weapons they carried.

Ari and Gunner—who waved at Cyril from their posts down the hall—usually carried a variety of knives with them, but never anything larger than a short sword. They were both ascended, and for many years at that. Ari being a wind-aspected shifter, and Gunner? A fire wielder, much to Cyril’s dismay.

But Kaia and Cyril were cut from the same cloth of fucking nothing.

So Kaia leaned towards big and beefy blades , as she put it, to give herself some peace of mind. Many of the other guards held similar beliefs.

Cyril offered Kaia a smile before she let her attention drift to the double doors beside her. Just the faintest droning rumble of masculine chatter drifted through the ornate wooden panels—it sounded fucking boring.

“Has he come up for air yet?” she asked.

Kaia’s hazel eyes followed hers, and she shook her head.

“Not yet, the poor bastard. And talk about piss poor timing, with the shit from the city.”

“What shit from the city?” Cyril blinked.

Not that they’d talked much that morning when Cyril was half-conscious in bed and Mikael less than gracefully stumbled about the room in the dark trying to get ready. She barely had both eyes open when she’d helped with the finishing touches of his finery, and then the prince was gone.

“Did he not tell you what we found out this afternoon?”

“No…I haven’t seen him since this morning.”

“Oh, well then,” Kaia scoffed and leaned back against a pillar of moonstone running between the wallpapered panels of the hall, her arms crossed in front of her. “You know how Byron, Nik, and Silas headed out last night to go check out some of those warehouses, right?”

That much, Cyril knew. She just didn’t know every single what and why of the operation, because she’d fallen asleep while Mikael was explaining it all. It had something to do with a bit of information they gleaned from Astor, from his “treatments” in the city. Still nothing about Reyna’s whereabouts, but it was something.

“Yeah, Mika mentioned that.” Cyril tipped her head. Kaia made it seem like… Her eyes widened. “Did they find something?”

The brief flicker of hope that swelled up in her banked and died as soon as Kaia shook her head.

“No. Well…maybe?” Her features pinched. “They haven’t come back. Didn’t show up for their shifts at the station today.”

Cyril’s chest tightened up. “ What? ”

“I know, I know. It’s fucked up.” Kaia picked at a piece of lint that certainly didn’t exist from the front of her immaculate uniform jacket. “Long story short, none of us are allowed to go look until this”—she waved a hand back at the doors—“bullshit is all done. Which who fucking knows how long that’ll be with all these useless twats groveling away to His Majesty about their safety and their stupid businesses.”

“What about the city guard? Can’t they send a guard or two to look, or…?”

“General Ezra doesn’t want them involved, since this wasn’t exactly an official operation . Doesn’t want to cause unnecessary panic.”

Kaia’s shoulders rose and fell in defeat.

The staunch bureaucracy that had surfaced in recent days drove Cyril fucking nuts .

This damn need everyone felt to keep the masses calm, to keep everything hush-hush and work on the sidelines. And this was coming from a woman who spent her entire life around people who made their living in the shadows.

Cyril opened her mouth, about to speak a little too freely on exactly what she thought of the general and his decisions, but movement at the other end of the hall snagged her and Kaia’s attention.

One of the wooden doors eased open—Mikael.

He turned to Ari, but the captain pointed towards Cyril and smiled. Mikael spun on his heels and a measure of relief sagged through his cleaned-up form.

Something about the cut of that immaculately tailored jacket—black with deep blue panels and trim, with its stamped silver buttons and sash in Reykr’s colors—had Cyril just smiling like an idiot at him as he walked over.

She knew he despised his full dress regalia, but he cleaned up so nicely.

Mikael said he looked like a preening bird—a peacock, specifically, though Cyril had never seen one. But she shut him up pretty damn quick with a quiet mention of just how handsome she thought he looked as she pinned on his medals and badges that morning. It was an act that felt far more intimate than anything they’d shared in the flesh yet.

Mikael clasped Cyril’s face in his hands and kissed her so deeply that Kaia coughed quietly by the door. Cyril had to wrench herself away from him. The mingling scents of cologne that clung to him was the last thing she wanted a nose full of.

Desperation was plain on Mikael’s face as he said, “Please tell me you’ve thought up some otherworldly fucking excuse to get me the hell out of here. I don’t think I’m going to leave with my soul fully intact. These men…”

“Mika, if three missing guards aren’t enough to get you out…” Cyril raised her brow at him.

His chest heaved with a sigh and shot Kaia a pointed glare.

“I was going to tell you, once this ridiculous shit was over. I’ll have to go with the others, see if we can figure out what the fuck happened, but I don’t think it’s good, Cyr.”

That much was obvious. Going missing on a lead never ended well .

“That could be hours from now, Mika, let me go and—”

Mikael’s entire body recoiled from her as if she had just uttered the foulest words…

“Absolutely not.” His eyes narrowed. “Are you mad?”

Cyril stiffened.

That tone hit a little too close to fucking home.

They weren’t doing things like that. Not now, not ever .

“Am I mad?” she bit out.

“That’s dangerous, Cyr.” There was a challenge in his eyes as he shook his head at her. “And if you thought for a second I’d be okay with you going into fucking abandoned buildings on your own, with—”

“If you would have let me finish ,” Cyril spoke slowly, trying to rein herself in. Trying to cool that spark she was certain had been extinguished weeks ago. Kaia just watched them with wide eyes. “Let me go and look . I’ll find a roof and camp out. No one will see me. No going inside anywhere on my own.”

“Cyr…”

“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.

A sigh of relief left her.

The view was perfect.

The three warehouses that became a point of interest—based on something she really wished she listened to Mikael about now—all spilled out onto a dead-end courtyard. Mostly overgrown and poorly cordoned off by a half-rotted fence.

Unremarkable at first glance, except for how out of place all these abandoned and run-down buildings looked in a place as overflowing with life as Brynnhold. Later she’d have to ask Mikael why this section of the city was so neglected, left to be reclaimed by the environment.

Cyril adjusted the soaked black fabric of her cowl until she was nothing but a flicker of gold in the dark, and she waited. The steady pelt of rain on metal became nothing more than humming white noise as her eyes made a slow, appraising sweep of the desolate complex.

Her uncles always said camp-outs could be grueling, soul-sucking things, but Cyril was certain they must have felt otherwise on their first assignment. The prospect of a couple of hours up here, even with the chill of the rain seeping into her bones, might have been the most enthralling thing Cyril had ever done.

She would just need to spend a few days in front of a fire when she got back to the palace.

Dozens of cracked and clouded window panes sat tucked into the crumbling stone walls of each building. But Cyril couldn’t see a damn thing through any of them. The handful of doors facing into the courtyard weren’t much more useful, either. Nearly every man door had wooden boards nailed across the frame. The massive, sliding steel doors set into the front of each building were all pulled shut too.

Cyril’s excitement sputtered.

Not that she thought a couple of hours spent lying on a roof in the pouring fucking rain would amount to any earth-shattering developments, but, gods…she’d thought she might see something .

But that overgrown courtyard, with its network of vines and shrubs left to run rampant over the cobblestone paths, spoke to zero signs of life in recent years, let alone recent days. No trampled bushes, no walkways cleared, no—

The teeth-clenching sound of metal grinding on metal had Cyril’s entire body going stiff.

Her eyes darted from building to building, to— holy shit.

Whatever Cyril thought she might glimpse, it wasn’t people .

Six, specifically, walking in well-spaced pairs of two, exited from the warehouse furthest to the right of the complex. Cloaked and hooded, and of wildly varying heights, Cyril didn’t stand a chance of catching faces, especially not with the way the rain still fell.

Each pair walked tight to the building, sheltered by a modest roof overhang, and slipped around the back, away from the dim light of the single street lamp at the courtyard’s mouth. That shrill, grating sound of metal on metal rang out again as the final pair pulled the warehouse door closed before slipping around back too.

Cyril was climbing back down the drainpipe before she could give her actions a second thought.

Mikael had been fairly clear in his ask to not do something stupid, but this was, well…time was of the essence. If there was even a chance these people had anything to do with Byron, Silas, and Nik’s disappearance, waiting to act would be tantamount to a death sentence.

The wooded area beyond the warehouses flashed four times with bright white light when Cyril was halfway across the roadway and, for the first time in months , she felt that sickening ripple of energy pulse through her.

It had to be a group of phasers or shifters, for the magic to be that fucking strong.

At least it meant she had some privacy to work in.

Cyril swallowed down that simmering nausea as she climbed the half-rotted fence posts and got her back up against the outer wall of the warehouse. That first second of respite from the rain was a fucking godsend. She waited for a few slow breaths, listening and watching for any lingering movement before featherlight steps carried her to the sliding door.

After leaning her entire body weight into the damn handle, her feet anchored into the overgrown ground below, the door creaked open enough for Cyril to slip into the building.

The smell of dust and rot hanging in the air overwhelmed her senses, even through the damp fabric of her cowl still wrapped around her mouth and nose. Nothing but collapsed crates and rusted machinery stretched inside for as far as she could see, from one tired stone wall to the other.

Well, those and a path in the dust and debris-covered floor that looked remarkably well-traveled, shaped by footprints and sweeps of fabric.

Cyril followed it to the far end of the warehouse.

The path ended at a steel staircase leading up to a second-floor gallery missing all of its floorboards, and one hell of a well-used floor hatch.

And caught in the rivets framing the metal door of the hatch?

A torn piece of black and blue fabric.

Cyril breathed a quiet curse.

A rational part of her brain told her she needed to stop now .

That she needed to walk her impulsive, stubborn arse right out of this warehouse as quietly and quickly as possible, and haul herself back to the city station. That she needed to wait for Mika and Kaia, and Ari and Gunner.

But Rhodea blood flowed through her veins, and that meant rational thoughts came second to action.

Every part of the rusted metal groaned in displeasure as she hauled open the hatch and let its door settle at the base of the stairs. Cyril tugged off her cowl, pushing damp and clinging strands of hair from her face, and wedged the fabric into the hinges.

A single deep breath and she descended the haphazardly repaired steps into the dimness of the cellar below on uneasy legs.

The dust and rot-laden air gave way to something damp and heavy with a sharp, iron tang, and all Cyril could hear was the rushing of her heartbeat in her ears.

A warm, flickering firelight poured out from an entry halfway down the hall.

Cyril eased her way to it, her back pressed up against the opposite wall. She fought to school her breath into something more even, something more controlled, reciting those damn counts Bron drilled into her in her mind.

A count of five in, a count of five out.

A count of five in, a count of five out.

A count of five—

Cyril stepped into the room.

Her hand flew to her mouth, muffling the ragged noise that came out of her.