Page 7 of The Falcon and the Flame (The Birds: On Her Majesty’s Sapphic Secret Service #2)

Lottie flopped beside Bili on the bed and they blinked at the fresco on the ceiling.

Golden cherubs. They looked at the schedule.

This evening had them heading out to a cocktail party on one of the islands in the archipelago to kick off the Green Futures Alliance conference the princess was keen on.

Surely Lottie could contrive to bump into her there.

“How do we play this?” Bili asked. She stared dubiously around at their golden cage. “How do we fuck up Malik from a place like this?”

Bili was always working.

“Shame?” asked Lottie. “Expose some of this disgusting decadence and excess?”

“Not enough. Ain Zargiers is as liberal a society as Britain. There’ll be voters who’ll see this as something to aspire to. Idiot incels who will want to be him.”

Lottie pulled a face. “Turn his business associates against him?”

“Not bad. We could play them all off against each other. There’s nothing a billionaire hates more than another billionaire threatening his billions.”

They stared at the ceiling again. On closer inspection the cherubs were definitely not as innocent as they appeared at first glance.

“Eew,” Lottie mused. “Is that possible?”

“Focus,” sighed Bili.

“Malik is anti-renewables, right? That’s a good angle. We could always blow up some of his oil refineries. No one would want to invest with him then.”

Bili swatted her. “Did you learn nothing after Latvia?”

“The Nightingale said ‘chaos’.”

“That doesn’t always mean explosives.”

“But we brought rocket launchers,” grumbled Lottie. “You’re no fun.”

“And you’re unhinged.”

They decided they couldn’t look at the obscene cherubs any longer and got up to unpack.

“Let’s just start with meeting them both first,” said Lottie. “You impress Malik and I’ll get close to Zynara.”

Bili looked at her closely. “Don’t think I can’t see that funny look you get in your eye whenever you talk about the princess.”

“No idea what you’re talking about, Bil,” Lottie said, as airily as she could. “It’s a job. Just one more round of the game.”

But she knew she wasn’t fooling either of them. That picture of the Qasira watching her—watching her— like that had changed things.

For Lottie, life had always been a game—just not always the fun kind.

When she was five, she struck deals with her toy bear—and the stakes were high.

She’d brave the kitchen and sneak the last biscuit from the packet if Aloysius could be perfectly silent.

Being exactly the right kind of kid for her mother and the string of drug-fucked lovers her mother dragged into their lives was a matter of survival.

Little Lottie and Aloysius the Bear could disappear into the background like magicians.

For a while, she’d even believed she was invisible.

Later, she played the game of standing out.

The shabby playground in the crumbling Bethnal Green public housing estate became her stage and the dull-eyed brats from the other flats were easy to manipulate.

She lifted sweets from the corner shop with an innocent smile and nimble fingers.

She swiped purses right out of the handbags of little old ladies on red London buses and let them tell her how beautiful her curls were while she did it.

She could slip watches off the wrists of businessmen who fell asleep on the Tube.

She could thrust baggies of smack into stoners’ hands and pluck the cash from their fingers all as they brushed shoulders on the footpath.

She learned the rules of the street, bartering, bluffing and blagging, stealing away with more than she’d bargained for, and it didn’t hurt that she was quick thinking, quick on her feet, and quicker with her tongue.

School wasn’t a place to learn, not really—it was a training ground of strategy. She clocked early which kids the teachers adored, who they loathed, and who could be bribed with a perfectly timed compliment.

She went through four schools before her darling Memeti—the grandmother figure in the flat down the way who had babysat Lottie since she was a toddler—insisted she had the wits to apply for a scholarship to an exclusive secondary school, and Lottie saw the wisdom in giving it a shot.

She won a place, of course—she wasn’t stupid—and the posh girl’s school simply turned out to be a whole new game that leveled up her skillset. She aced it in no time.

Life was all about which pieces to move, and when.

By the time her moves had expanded from sourcing fake IDs for rich girls to sweet talking dealers in the Rust, from moving discreet packages through London’s most exclusive circles to negotiating arms deals with wannabe warlords, Lottie liked to think she’d refined those moves to a fine art.

Was there any difference between the costumes and lines an actor learnt, or the role a spy or con artist slipped into? Did it matter if the reward was applause, kudos, ten grand in her hand or half a million wired to a Swiss account? The satisfaction of winning was just the same.

It was only once she’d met the Nightingale and found a place in the Circle that the stakes changed again. Now, the thrill was sharper, her opponents smarter. The adrenaline sweeter.

Plus there was that odd sense of doing something right . For Britain. For a good and noble reason.

Lottie hadn’t quite squared with that yet.

She ran her hands down the silk of one of the designer party frocks the Circle had sprung for her.

It was a fuck off gorgeous dress, but it was just another costume.

It clung in all the right places. The vivid aquamarine matched her eyes and set off the curls that framed her face.

She looked perfect. Even the heels, silver, strappy and stupidly high with gorgeous red soles, gave her exactly the right sway in her step to make her wholly dangerous.

She smirked at her reflection.

Top of my game, she thought, twisting a stray curl into place.

She was brilliant at what she did, spoke three languages, could blend in in any social situation—and she was hot as fuck.

Sure, she liked to wing it—planning was for people who didn’t trust their instincts—but tonight, her instincts told her one thing: this game was all hers.

The vision of the Qasira watching her in her club back in Blackcroft flickered once before her eyes and Lottie’s confidence wavered just a little.

She wouldn’t say no to a round with a woman of that calibre, but it was just a game, she told herself.

She grabbed her clutch and followed Bili to the door.