a struck link // christopher lightwood {3}

six // anticipate a message (let it begin)

{ edinburgh. }

It had snowed in Edinburgh, and Pluto got out of the train station with Carolina to find xyrself knee deep in it.

"And now?" xe asked.

Carolina said, "We walk."

"Well, duh," Pluto muttered, and followed her.

Carolina laughed.

Eventually, Carolina led Pluto to a nice, grey stone townhouse with a cream-colored door. She pressed the bell and after a moment a middle-aged blonde maid with blue eyes opened the door. She looked at Pluto and her eyes went wary. "Caró?" she asked. "Who's this?"

"No-one who should trouble us," said Carolina. "Please, let us through, it's cold out here."

The maid nodded and stepped aside to let them into the brightly-lit, lightly-colored foyer. Pluto let the maid take their overcoat and their hat (they were still getting used to the staff in houses, they'd never had such a thing back home in the future) and kicked the snow off their boots.

"We're here to see Miss Blackthorn," said Carolina, turning to the maid. "And Vitória."

"Vitória?" Pluto asked. "Who's Vitória?"

"She owns this place."

"O...kay then."

The maid had already vanished, and Carolina led Pluto into the parlor, where she plunked xyr down into a chair and took a second one for herself, further from the fire almost as if she was afraid of burning her skirts on it.

"And now we wait," said Pluto.

Carolina nodded. "We do."

< & >

The Grace who arrived in the downstairs parlor looked little like the one Pluto had met in passing at the wedding. That had been a small, nervous creature who'd skittered away from Pluto as if xe were some snarling monster. This Grace carried herself with just a little more confidence—not much, but enough. "I knew they'd send you," she said.

"By they meaning...?" Pluto asked.

Grace shrugged. "The Clave, probably."

Pluto shrugged. "Matthew."

"Matthew? Matthew sent you? Why?"

"I think he wants me to confirm that James didn't scare you away."

Grace wrinkled her nose. "Why would he have done that?"

"I...told Cordelia some things that Lucie decided it was important for her to know and it caused...far more of an explosion than we thought it would. Cordelia is mad at James and at Matthew and at both Tessa and her own mother, Lucie's mad too, Matthew's mad, he's trying to figure out how blunt of an idiot his parabatai really is, Christopher tells me he feels a little like murder, no word on James but knowing him he's probably come to the untrue conclusion that he's now London's most hated man and locked himself in somewhere."

The corner of Grace's mouth quirked up. "Murder? That doesn't sound like Christopher."

"I know. I didn't think it sounded like him, either, but considering he broke down crying about half an hour later I'm not sure he was all there when he said it."

"Well," said Grace, "you can rest assured that I'm safe, and I'm well, and I left for reasons that have nothing to do with anything that James did to me—not of his own volition at any rate. But I also won't be returning to London any time soon, and I might not even be in Edinburgh for very long, either. I don't know how long I'll be here or where I'll be going next. And if they're worried about me, well..." she shrugged. "I suppose they can worry if they like."