The Devil's Favourite Obsession

Cixi let her head fall back against the cushions and pressed both hands to the false weight at her middle and breathed, finally, like a person alone.

She was not alone for long when another knock came lightly. Two taps at first. Then more. Whoever was behind that door was considerably unlike Emily. However, why can’t she have alone time with Cassian? Is it so hard to get time to talk to Cassian? At night, he distracted her, and in the morning... no, afternoon, people wouldn’t stop coming.

That warning sign was nothing but a joke when people did not follow it.

Cixi didn’t want to get up from where she sat comfortably. Before she could utter a word, ’Come in’.

The door was opened by Rafael. ”Hey, gorgeous!”

Alarm rang in Cixi’s every cell. ’What the hell was he doing here?’

Cixi’s eyes first snapped to the study room where Cassian was, and then slowly turned to see Rafael walking towards her.

”Why are you here?” Cixi asked abruptly, rudely. ”I want to take a rest, so please leave now.”

”You look not happy with me being here,” Rafael said, placing himself on the couch without an ounce of shame. ”Were you expecting someone else?”

”I was expecting privacy.” Cixi did not get up. Getting up was a production now, with the belly, and she was not going to perform it for Rafael. ”You did not wait for me to say come in.”

”You didn’t say don’t. I saw Emily leave, looking pleased with herself. I thought you might want rescuing from whatever she did to earn that face.”

”I do not need rescuing. I need peace time. So please leave.” Cixi was cursing Rafael to leave before his death certificate is notarised today.

”No.” His eyes moved over her and came to rest on her stomach with a frankness that made the small lit corner of her chest pull its shutters down. ”No, you seem very settled. Cassian’s child settled you in well.”

There was a thing under the sentence. Cixi heard it without being able to name it. Rafael had a way of saying ordinary words so that they sat at an angle, so that you spent the next minute working out what he had actually meant and missed whatever he said while you were working.

”What do you want, Rafael?”

”To congratulate you. And also apologise to you for making you angry at the dining table.” He drifted — not toward her, around her, the slow orbit of a man reading a room for what it would give him. He trailed one finger along the back of a chair. He then looked at the window and towards the Terrace door afterwards.

Cixi’s jaw set. ”Make it quick then. Wait, you don’t have to say sorry. I accept your apologies and now leave.”

”I will leave, girl. I walked too far. Won’t you ask me for beverages?” He smiled at Cixi.

”Ah! You might not know I am bad host. Never ever come here.” Cixi’s eyes drifted towards the study room before returning to Rafael.

”I find you interesting, Cixi. Cassian disappears for months — dead, everyone says, dead, and the empire starts dividing his bones at the table and here you sit, round and certain, telling everyone he is coming back as though you speak to him every night.” He tilted his head. ”Have you?”

And there it was. The whole visit, folded small inside a compliment. He had not come to flirt. He had come to find out what she knew.

She understood, in the cool, clear way that fear sometimes makes a person clear, that this was the most dangerous question anyone had asked her since she arrived.

”I believe my fiancee is alive,” she said carefully, ”because I am not a person who buries someone before there is a body. That is all. That is not a secret. That is just hope, and hope is free, even for a girl from a cafe.”

”Hmm.” Rafael leaned forward as if trying to reach Cixi. ”Why do I feel that you are a good liar. And that you came to live in the Palace for some purpose. And that it might be Cassian’s plan all along...”

The room went very cold.

Cixi did not move her hands. Moving them now would answer him. She held his gaze instead and let none of the panic out through her eyes, and she thought, distantly, that she had survived worse men than this in worse rooms, and that the difference was only that those rooms had not had so much marble in them.

”I thought you were here to ask for forgiveness,” she said, ”Or did I misunderstand?”

”I am sorry, Cixi. I should have asked you before telling infront of everyone about marrying you.”

No-no-no-no-no-no!

”I am not in the mood for your joke. Leave now!” Cixi could almost hear her heart thudding in fear for this stupid man’s life.

”I am not joking, Cixi. If you want, I can-”

”STOP!” Cixi exclaimed, desperately trying to keep this man alive, even though he seemed uninterested in living.

”Very interesting thing I heard two nights ago. A scream of a woman... Did you happen to hear it?” Rafael asked. ”Infact, I thought it was you... I do not know why?”

”Rafael.”

The name did not come from Cixi.

It came from the open window, behind him, in a voice that did not rise and did not hurry and did not need to do either, because it carried the weight of a man who had been somewhere in the quiet of that wing the entire time and had chosen, precisely now, to be heard.

Rafael was not startled by Cixi’s shock. And she glimpsed something move through his shoulders before he stood — a small recalibration, the body of a gambler who has just learned the other man was counting the cards all along.

He rose and turned, putting his pleasant face back on as he came around.

The doorway, when Cixi could see past him, held only the terrace.

Empty. A shadow where a shadow should not have fallen a half-second before. The faint, retreating click of a door somewhere out of sight, closing the way the heavy doors of the Palace closed like water over a stone.

Cassian had not shown himself. But that voice didn’t sound like Cassian at all. Does he know how to change his voice?

Cixi looked at the study room. Was he there? Or what just happened now?

It looked like Cassian had simply, magically, let Rafael know in one word that he was being watched.

”Well.” Rafael let out a breath through his nose, almost a laugh. He straightened his cuff. The drama he had wanted from the garden had finally arrived, and it had arrived pointed at him, and even he could not pretend to enjoy that. ”He really is alive, isn’t he?”

He looked back at Cixi once, and for the first time, the smile was something close to honest, which, to Rafael, meant something close to afraid.