The Devil's Favourite Obsession

The phone vibrated against the nightstand.

Cixi groaned and buried her face deeper into the pillow. For a brief moment she wanted nothing more than to ignore whoever was calling and go back to sleep. Yesterday had been exhausting. Between the hospital, Michael’s endless questions, Cassian’s irritating answers, and the constant feeling that everyone in the Palace was watching her, her brain felt as though it had worked for a month without rest.

The phone vibrated again.

Annoyance immediately replaced her drowsiness.

Who in the world was calling at this hour?

With her eyes still closed, she stretched her arm across the bed and blindly searched for the phone. Her fingers bumped against the device before she finally grabbed it and brought it to her ear.

”Hello.”

”Cixi.” The familiar voice made her open one eye.

Officer Bill. The man never called for casual conversations. Especially not at six thirty in the morning.

Immediately, her sleep began evaporating.

”I am sorry to call this early,” Officer Bill said. ”But I have information.”

Cixi pushed herself upright against the headboard.

Her free hand instinctively moved to her stomach.

Only then did she remember there was no fake belly there.

For a second, her thoughts became tangled.

The terrace.

The fall.

Had she fallen?

Had she dreamed it?

The memory felt strangely blurred. The more she tried to grab hold of it, the more it slipped through her fingers.

Before she could sort through any of it, Officer Bill spoke again.

”I got information about the deepfake video.”

That sentence wiped away whatever remained of her sleep.

The deepfake.

”What information?”

”The hacker has traced the video. He has located the cities from which it was uploaded. I would prefer to give you the rest of the information in person.”

Cixi sat up slowly, wincing as her ribs protested. ”Today?” she asked.

”Today. After your work hours, if that’s convenient. The cafe on Hartwell Lane—the one with the brown awning.”

”At six PM, after my shift,” Cixi confirmed.

She nodded, but then realised Officer Bil couldn’t see her. ”Yes! What about the person who made the video?” she inquired.

”No, he hasn’t found that out yet. I am saying we’re very close. He just needs more time.”

Cixi sighed in disappointment. ”See you at Hartwell Café.” She ended the call.

She held the phone in her palm for a long second. The cedar and tobacco were still in her nose. The room around her was dim. The curtains were heavy. A long oak canopy hung above her in the half-light.

She set the phone on the nightstand.

She stretched. Both legs straight beneath the silk. Both arms above her head. The muscles along her spine pulled in three places. She made a small, involuntary sound in her throat, the kind of sound a cat makes when it has decided to be honest about how much it enjoyed a long sleep.

She put her feet on the floor.

The marble was cold under her toes.

She stood. She stretched again, arms extending in a long line above her head, shoulders rolling once, ribs reminding her once more that she had done something to them yesterday, which she had not yet been told the details of.

She walked to the window.

She placed her palm on the heavy curtain and pulled it back.

The morning sun arrived in the room all at once. The sort of sun that had been waiting on the other side of the fabric to be invited. Cixi closed her eyes against the light and smiled at the warmth on her face and stood for one long, contented breath in the window the way an animal stands in the first patch of sun it has found in a winter month.

She turned and nearly had a heart attack.

A woman was sitting on the high-backed armchair beside the bed.

Cream silk dressing gown. Hands folded in her lap. Back straight. Eyes on Cixi.

Cixi knew the face. It took her a second. The dining room. The Romanovs. The blonde woman in the cream dress who had sat beside her and had not spoken to her for the whole of dinner.

Cixi’s hands rose to her chest of their own accord.

”What —” Her voice cracked on the syllable. ”What are you doing here?”

The woman did not move. She looked at Cixi’s stomach and then back at her.

Cixi looked at her own stomach.

The fake belly was not there. The fake belly was, in fact, very obviously not there in a way that was now being noticed by a woman whose presence in this room had not been authorised and whose silence was beginning to communicate a fact Cixi had not yet given anyone permission to communicate.

Cixi grinned.

It was the grin of a woman caught with her hand in a jar she had been forbidden from touching. Wide. False. Terrible.

”Oh. The belly.” She gestured at her own midsection with one hand. Then both hands. Then made a vague pat-pat motion that was not the motion of a six-month-pregnant woman. ”In the mornings. The belly is. It is. It is not so swollen, you know. It is the sleeping position. The doctor said. Side sleeping. It makes the baby sort of — ” Her hands made an arc in the air, which was meant to communicate flatten out and instead communicated I have never heard a real pregnant person describe their morning. ”Compact. The doctor said compact. In the mornings.” Cixi didn’t know what she was talking....

”Your secret is safe with me. I am not going to tell anyone.”

Cixi blinked. She blinked again.

She had been preparing, in the three seconds since the woman had stood up, for a slap, an accusation, a phone call to Tamara, a shouted summoning of a Crown family member. She had not prepared for it is all right. She had not prepared for warm hands on her arms. She had not prepared for a sentence that began with your.

She made her face do something that was meant to be casual. ”Right. Yes. Thank you. The doctor said. Side sleeping is better but I forget.” Olga wasn’t buying it and Cixi knew that.

”Get dressed. I have ordered breakfast. It will be in the living room in twenty minutes. I am going to my own suite to change.”

”You. Are coming back?”

”I am coming back.”

”Why.”

The woman tilted her head by the smallest possible degree.

”Because there are things you and I should discuss this morning, Cixi.”

Cixi’s hand went back to her stomach. The belly was still not there. The woman was still looking at her with the soft, terrifying neutrality of a person who knew something.

She nodded.

”Twenty minutes.” Olga said and left.