Page 148 of The Mercy of Dawn

No one was shy, with their hands or mouths, or even their eyes, for that matter. Her own eyes snagged on a couple laid out on a chaise against one of the far walls. Half-dressed and wholly entangled with each other, they had an audience.

Heat flared in her cheeks.

“Welcome to The Stairs, Lady Cyril,” Mikael whispered in her ear, and Cyril turned back to look at him, her eyes wide. He grinned. “I thought I should show you what a proper night of fun in the city looks like. We’ll grab some drinks and get settled in.”

Cyril had no words.

She just nodded and let him guide her along as she gave in to the pull to look back at the crowd. Her eyes drifted as they walked, taking in faces and bodies, drinks and pipes, and lewd acts she wasn’t sure she understood the mechanics of.

Then she froze.

Those eyes… She wasn’t supposed to see those eyes here.

Or that scar.

“Mikael,” Cyril hissed, latching her eyes desperately onto him. He cocked his head at her. “Is that… Is that fucking Dion over by the—”

She waved her arm vaguely behind her. There was no way it wasn’t him, but a woman was straddling him and Cyril looked away quickly. His hands were moving, and she wanted no part in witnessing that.

“Dion? No, this isn’t the sort of—” Mikael looked past her and his eyes went wide. “Fuck me.”

For a moment that felt painful, he just blinked.

“Mika? I think we—”

“Change of plans,” Mikael said as he grabbed her hand and pulled Cyril past the bar with determination.

She kept her eyes glued to the ground, to the sheen of things coating the stone that stuck to the soles of her boots, and only dared to lift her attention when Mikael finally came to a stop.

They were at the base of a narrow set of metal stairs.

A glance upwards told her they led to some balconies up on the second floor that she still couldn’t quite see.

A fae woman stood there, clothed in a sheer black dress that just grazed her hips, and she grinned at Mikael.

“Your Highness. Should I tell Lily you’re here?” she said to him before her eyes darted to Cyril, “Oh, and with a friend? I’m sure she’d be willing to entertain the both of you.”

Mikael winced.

“No, gods. No. Just a suite.” He dug a gold coin out of his pocket that Cyril even blinked at. “And discretion, please. I’m not here, and neither is she.”

The woman took the coin without a second thought, slipping it into a velvet bag belted around her waist, and unlatched the gate at the bottom of the stairs.

“Go with her. I’ll be back with drinks,” Mikael said quietly to Cyril before he vanished into the crowd.

But Cyril’s damn legs didn’t want to move.

This night had gone from possibly one of the most exciting of her life so far to one she already wanted to forget about. The fucking odds that Dion—

“Come on, darling,” the woman’s voice drawled from halfway up the stairs, “I don’t have all night.”

Cyril took the stairs up behind her two at a time.

She followed the shimmering fabric of her dress down a catwalk at the top of the stairs, lined with dim faelights along one side, and numbered doors along the other. The muffled noises seeping out from under the doors told Cyril everything she needed to know about what went on up here.

“You haven’t been here before, have you?”

Unlatching a keyring from her belt, the woman looked back at Cyril with some unmistakable judgment.