Page 74 of Lone Spy

A crow hops back up on the wall, its obsidian eye watching our approach. "Hello." A woman's voice comes out of the bird’s beak, stunning me into stopping.

Victoria stills as well. "Amazing, isn't it? They mimic perfectly. Better thanparrots."

"Victoria," the bird says, bobbing its head and taking a few side steps.

"It knows your name."

"And speaks in my grandmother's voice." Victoria starts walking again and I trail after her.The crow speaks in the queen’s voice?“It's almost enough to make you believe in magic—in ancestors watching over us."

"Almost," I agree, though I don't know that I really do. Victoria is a princess; it makes sense the world is magical to her. But then again, she’s as trapped as me. Caught in a spider’s tacky web.

Two more birds join the first on the low wall as we reach it. Running parallel with the outer wall for about ten feet, it creates a partition for the plants growing on the other side.

Victoria pulls a plastic bag out of her pocket. "Nut, please, Victoria," the first crow says.

"Please, Victoria," another one says in the same voice—a queen's posh British accent.

The princess holds out a shelled peanut to the first, who takes it gently with its sharp beak. Then it shuffles away and the second comes for its prize.

A breeze swoops through the garden, fluttering the plants on the far side of the wall. The Queen Anne's lace has started to go to seed—the flowers gone, the thin stems that held them closing in on themselves. Like a goblet. Or an aging hand.

My grandmother's claw-like fingers flutter through my mind, there and then gone. And I'm back in the garden, enshrined in the scent of this place.

More crows drop into the garden, landing on the wall, each lining up for a peanut. "Queen Anne's lace is an abortifacient." Victoria doesn't look at me when she says it. My chest tightens, that word spiking fear in my gut. "All the plants in this area of the garden are.” Victoria says it quietly. Calmly. As if she isn't casually feeding a murder of crows and talking about abortion.

"I didn't know that."

Victoria glances over to me, her eyes still obscured by her sunglasses. She looks so pretty. So strange. With the black birds lined up elegantly in front of her.

“The queen cannot show emotion." She changes the subject as her attention returns to the birds. "She must be stalwart. The ideal of masculine power. Neither peaceable nor bloodthirsty. Unaffected.”

"That makes sense, I guess."

"Another, please,” a crow says.

"You already had yours, Felix."

"Another." The bird bobs his glistening head. "I dance." Victoria laughs but shakes her head. "I'm almost out and Winston still hasn't had his."

The bird sighs, sounding so human it's truly bizarre. And also super fucking cool.

We are alone except the birds. I reach into the inside pocket of my borrowed tweed riding jacket and wrap my hand around the compass. Inhaling I pull it free, keeping it mostly hidden in my gloved hand.

Victoria glances over at my movement. She straightens, and I open my palm. The bronze cover glows dully in the cloud darkened afternoon light. Victoria’s smile is subtle, almost sad, as she takes it from me, disappearing it into her pocket.

“You know what this is?” I ask.

She nods, turning back to the waiting birds.

"What are you going to do with it?" I go on, emboldened by the intimacy of this moment.

"Use it to convince my grandmother we need to do something."

"Do you think she’ll take action?"

"Honestly, I don’t know." Winston, I'm assuming, arrives, landing next to Felix and pushing him slightly away. Victoria offers him the last peanut. "My grandmother does not think we should interfere in other countries’ elections." Her tone is even but there is something underneath it. Her grandmother won't always be in power. She's in failing health. Soon Victoria’s father will be king…unless something happens to him.

"You think interference is warranted?"

---