a struck link // christopher lightwood {3}

twenty-three // consulté

Much to Cordelia's relief, Pluto not only accepted her request for an early-morning meeting, but sent the runner back with a message proposing they hold that meeting at the Aerated Bread Company depot halfway between Castle and the Devil Tavern.

Pluto, being an early riser, was already there, cradling a mug of hot cocoa, when Cordelia walked in, bundled against the cold. The moment Cordelia sat down, Pluto laid their hand out on the table, and Cordelia took it without thinking. Cordelia had struggled, before, to try to explain exactly what Pluto was to her. Certainly nothing romantic. Not as simple as an ordinary friendship though, either. It hit her then, as she clung to them in her grief, that she saw Pluto, despite that they were the same age, almost like an aunt or a grandmother, someone eccentric and not necessarily wise, but who felt like it. She'd never really had aunts before. all of her relatives, save Jem, were in Persia. And now her father was gone, and . . .

Finally, after what felt like far too long, the tears came. Cordelia swiped them away with her hand. "I'm sorry," she said, somehow giggling through the tears, a strangely unforced thing yet still so at odds with how she felt. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't be crying on you like this, certainly not in here . . ."

"Oh, don't worry about it." Pluto offered Cordelia an awkward smile. "Get it out, if you need to. I've seen people cry in here before, nobody's going to judge you. I'll hit them with my book if they do."

"Terrifying," said Cordelia, glancing at the book at Pluto's elbow: a slim, serious-looking paperback titled The Phenomenon of Man.

"I'm not going to ask if you're okay," Pluto said slowly. "I think . . . I think we both know the answer to that, right now. But . . . you're going to be?"

"In time. I hope." Cordelia swiped more tears from her eyes. "By the Angel I hope so." She let go of Pluto's hands and sat back in her chair. "I'm really worried about Alastair. And Mama. I'm carrying so much. So much more than my own grief."

"I know. And it's . . . it's not easy, carrying so much for other people too. But . . . I can promise that we're here, to carry for you, if you need it."

Cordelia smiled. "Thank you," she said. "Really." She glanced toward the doors. "Matthew's coming to get me shortly, and we'll be going for a drive—out towards Wiltshire. Just to escape for a bit." She still hadn't told Pluto about Cortana. Hopefully, if this worked, she wouldn't need to."

"That sounds like a good idea. Not . . . not to run away from your problems, but . . . to take time out, to go somewhere you can process them a little more without having to deal with everything else as well." Pluto returned the smile. "You might even get to see some goblins. They've been tunnelling into the chalk, since they've got to stay here. They prefer it to the city."

"Precisely." Not exactly. "Pluto . . ."

"Mm?"

"Last night when I . . . when I talked to Matthew, talked him into this, he . . . shared some things with me, about himself, his past . . . I won't say what they were, in case he hasn't told you, he ought to do that himself—but they were heavy, heavy things. I'm very worried for him. And I don't . . . I don't know what I'm supposed to do."

"I've been . . . holding a lot of weight for him, too. He's . . . very afraid of the shape of his future, and yet so desperate to know if I have those answers. He's opened up so many things, working through that. And . . . sometimes there is nothing to do, but to hold that and hope."

"He loves you," Cordelia said. "I hope you know that."

"I do." Cordelia could tell there was a second part to that, one Pluto wasn't ready to say yet.