a cross in the void // christopher lightwood {4}

four // mistakes, chains, bad habits, secrets

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notes:
this gets into some pretty heavy emotional stuff both from pluto (me working some things i've needed to work out) and cordelia (cordelia working out some things i feel like she should've in the books) so just be aware of that.

Ian picked up the telephone off Alan and Brigitte's kitchen wall. "Hello?"

"Hey." The voice was Pluto's, softer than usual, subdued. "It's Pluto."

"Uh-huh. What can I do for you?"

"I was wondering if you have any ideas yet about why Vitória was looking into that tomb in Amarna. We're sifting through all of the research notes Grace took and . . . we can't make sense of it. She's very very interested in this one inscription on this one wall that hasn't been translated yet. I . . . if you don't have anything that's fine, I won't bug you about it again, I was just wondering if maybe you'd done any speculating."

"Not really," Ian said. "It has been bothering me, too, but unless we could get to . . . Pluto, Grace Blackthorn is in the Silent City."

"Ian! Don't tell me you're going to go questioning—"

"If you're worried about her magic, it won't work on me. I know that because I'm pretty sure she tried when she came to ask me for Vitória's help escaping London in the first place. She touched my arm and looked at me with those huge eyes and all that happened was she got a massive headache."

"Magic?"

"Wait, nobody told you?"

"No, I don't have any idea what you're talking about."

"Well. Then this is going to get interesting. It looks like I have quite a lot of explaining to do."

It took a long time for Ian to get through his story: Grace, Vitória, James, Tatiana, Pluto's shirttail Irish cousins, and a Turkish werewolf named Nasreen. Pluto listened in the stony silence he knew meant they were really listening seriously.

"So she has magic that . . . allows her to brainwash men."

"Uh-huh."

Pluto took a deep breath, let it out. "Yikes. And she was just . . . running loose with this all over."

"Indeed she was."

"I can't—I'm going to need a minute to process this. I thought—I mean, she helped Christopher with the pithos project, he told me about that. She's brilliant. I mean, I always thought she seemed a little weird, but not . . . I don't know, more like my friend before me moved to Scotland, not . . . Merricat Blackwood." Another deep breath. "It's hard."

"I know."

"I mean, I can see why she did it, too. All of that. You—look, you know the whole thing about 'power corrupts,' right? Yeah. Let's just say . . . I know that being powerless can be equally corrupting too." Ian heard Pluto tap their fingernails briefly against the side of the receiver. "I just . . . there are a lot of bits and pieces to reconcile. If that makes sense."

"It does," Ian said. "It does."

< & >

Matthew was not used to thinking of Cordelia as a researcher. The sight of her seated at one of the heavy tables in Taigh Liath's library, one arm down on the table, the fingers of the other hand pressed thoughtfully to her temple, a thick tome of a book open in front of her, was a surprising image, but not an unwelcome one.

Before he wanted Pluto he had loved Cordelia, and in the wake of his and Pluto's most recent meltdown he found himself washed back to Daisy's shore. Not his Daisy. By the time of the fight in the Shadow Market that had become clear. Not his Pluto either, though he could've sworn that situation looked more open. Maybe just not to him.