The Devil's Favourite Obsession

Lily looked down at the hand on hers.

She did not pull it away. She also did not return the pressure. Lily left the hand where it was, a situation comparable to a person not disturbing a stray cat that has taken a seat on their lap.

”You are asking me,” Lily carefully asked, ”to lie to Cixi and bring my friend to a place or not inform her that you will be there?”

”For her own good.” Silviya’s eyes showed innocence. ”And we definitely can’t meet here because it’s her working location and I don’t want to cause trouble for her.”

”But you came today!” Lily mentioned.

And Sylvia smiled at that. ’This Bitch is too attentive.’ She told herself in her mind.

”And I am glad she wasn’t here today. It was my mistake that I couldn’t stop myself from coming here without thinking about how Cixi would react. Stupid of me. But after talking to you, I realised more how wrong it was of me to come here.” She gave her pressed-lips smile to Lily as if she were really feeling guilty.

”I have not agreed to anything,” Lily informed Silviya.

”I know. I know.” Silviya let go of the hand, which was its own kind of cleverness, because a person who releases you of her own accord feels less like a person who was holding you. ”I am not asking you to trick her. I am asking you to be in the room. So that when she is frightened, there is someone there she trusts. I don’t even know how she will react to me. So, to be on the safer side, it would be nice if you were there and not only me.” She wiped a false tear from one eye with a knuckle.

”If I do this,” Lily said, and there if’ was a door she was leaving her own foot in, ”I do it my way. I chose the place. Somewhere public. Somewhere with people. I will tell Cixi that I want to meet her. Nothing about you. And if she so much as looks like she does not want to be there, I take her home, and you never come to this cafe again.”

”Yes,” Silviya nodded fast, grateful, exactly as grateful as the moment required and not one degree more. ”Yes. Of course. Anything.”

”And you come alone. And with those men!” Lily thought, for once, to warn her not to bring men. She had witnessed what Cassian did. Well, if I tried something funny, she would beat them up and then smash them like a boiled potato.

”Alone,” Silviya agreed.

”My break is over,” Lily said. ”Take my number and text me. I will message you when I have spoken to her.”

Silviya immediately unlocked her phone and saved Lily’s number before Lily left.

*

Outside, the afternoon had gone flat and white. Silviya crossed the cafe floor without looking at the corner table, which was how Rony and Kevin knew to stand, and follow her into the street.

She did not speak until the cafe door had swung shut behind the three of them and the glass had put a wall between her face and Lily’s.

Then she smiled. ”She will do it,” Silviya said. ”I made her convince to get Cixi for us.”

Kevin fell into step with her on her left. ”You are sure? She looked like she was reading you the whole time.”

”She was,” Silviya’s smile did not move. ”That’s why she will do it. A stupid girl I would have to drag. A clever one walks herself there, because a clever one needs to believe it was her idea.” Without turning, she tilted her head back towards the cafe. ”She thinks she is protecting Cixi. She will bring her somewhere public, somewhere she has chosen.” And Silviya laughed....

Rony glanced at her. ”And us?”

”We don’t go near the cafe again... for now!” Silviya stopped at the kerb and turned to face them both, and the wet, trembling thing she had worn in the cafe was simply gone, peeled off and pocketed.

”So, what do we do?” Kevin asked.

”We will pick the spot.” Silviya started walking again. ”Somewhere I can make it look like a meeting and turn into something else. And the day it happens —” she looked at Rony, ” — we need to bring diversion for that stupid female Lily to make her stay away. Far from Cixi.” She let that settle. ”Six months I waited for her to surface. I am not handing her a seventh.”

Rony nodded at the plan.

*

Back in the Palace, once Olga and Lorian entered their private room. Olga closed the door behind her with both hands before repeating the words. ”I want a divorce!”

Lorian did not look up from the cufflink he was working loose at his wrist. ”No, you don’t.”

”Do not tell me what I want. I have already decided!” Her voice did not rise. ”We failed, Lorian. Both of us. Our daughter wants to marry Rafael. Despite knowing I am against it. Despite knowing i am giving her the freedom she wanted before.”

”Tatiana is making a good match.” The cufflink came loose. He set it on the dresser with a small, deliberate click. ”Better than good. She will be married to the next president of the Empire.”

”She will be married to a man who plays with people!”

”She knows what she is doing.”

”She is only nineteen.” Olga crossed the room. Not toward him but toward the window, because she could not look at his face and say the next part, and the window gave her somewhere to put her eyes. ”I am leaving. And I am taking Tatiana with me. We will be gone before the engagement, and you will tell the Crown whatever you tell people. You have always been good at that.” She can’t let her second daughter get sucked into Crown’s family scheme while the first is already in Cassian’s hands. She has no choice but to devise a plan to take her daughters away from the men of the Crown.