a struck link // christopher lightwood {3}

nine // on ghosts

{ Correspondence: Grace & Lucie)

Saturday, December 4th, 1903

Lucie,

I am glad to know that James is alright, but you need not report on his condition to me. Our relationship was more complicated than you know right now. Perhaps I shall tell you that story one day. For now, I'd just rather not hear about him too often.

As for my own condition, I cannot tell you where I am, but I can tell you that it is warm here, and there are always plants that are green and flowers that are blooming, no matter the weather.

My house here is small, but it is spacious and cool, and is in the centre of some gardens of the sort that I have heard Cordelia call bâgh. The gardens and the house are owned a family of werewolves: a young couple, just a little older than us, who have a darling little baby girl. Their father lives with them also. He is a kind man, from what I have seen, but he doesn't speak much. I'm merely renting the house, on money I receive from Vitória. In exchange for the money, I write letters to her describing the city, and the river, and the weather, and the things I do, because she's all but housebound and likes to live through my eyes.

There are several very fascinating markets here, and I'll confess to having developed an unfortunate addiction to buying things from them. I've never really had that freedom before, and I like being able to dress myself, and choose what jewelry I wear, and what I have to decorate my house. I love white, but it gets tiring only wearing shades of one color and I can get these loose dresses in colors like red and purple and black, with all this rich embroidery. I don't know how good I look in them, but they don't require a corset and they're entirely more comfortable than what Tatiana dressed me in. The women who sell them in the markets have started calling me 'little ghost,' and I'm not sure what to think of that.

I read a lot. Some days I just go walking along the riverbanks, and I look out at the water, which never seems to be the same color twice in a row: some days, it's a vivid turquoise, others it's a muddy brown. It never stinks nearly as much as the Thames, though, and the air is much cleaner here: fewer factories, and no need for all that burning wood and coal to heat people's homes.

I'm a little worried that Jesse still hasn't shown up yet. He'd better, before I start to think he's abandoned us on purpose.

— Grace

< & >

{ institute. }

Lucie set Grace's letter aside and stared out the window over the top of her typewriter. The full moon was yesterday, and now it was beginning to wane, and Lucie wondered if it was in the same phase for Grace, wherever she was. Lucie could only guess where Grace had gone to hide was somewhere in the East: perhaps the Ottoman Empire, maybe even Cordelia's native Persia. It could have been anywhere from Istanbul to Esfahan.

Lucie had received the letter that morning, again surprised by just how quickly Grace had responded to her own reply. Lucie sensed that Grace was a little lonely, wherever she was, and that perhaps she even missed Lucie a little. Lucie had been trying to concoct a response ever since, reading and rereading Grace's own letter, looking for inspiration. What was there to tell her? Lucie doubted Grace would be interested in the Inquisitor's recent fit of temper surrounding Pluto Lochlyn Westhouse, and she might know already that Ian had come to the Institute to talk to Will about something yesterday which had resulted in a closed-door conversation in Papa's office after which her father had cried. Lucie still didn't know what that was about. She wasn't sure it was something Ian would want anyone else knowing.