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

ten // voices in the dark

act two // prince john

"Whenever she stopped, the outdoor silence pressed as close as suspense: you had the sensation of a great instrument out there in London, unstruck"

Elizabeth Bowen, 'No. 16' (1939)

— — —

"Can you do something to distract me?" Pluto asked Christopher, once they were out the door. "I need to not think about this right now. Have you been to see Grace yet?"

"Yes, actually, I have."

"And how'd that go?"

"Very well, actually. She has some very interesting ideas about how we could make the fire messages work, and I have left her with some calculations to do, bits and pieces that I can't figure out and she says she'd be willing to try."

"How's she doing, then?"

"I don't know," Christopher said. "She seemed alright but she's so hard to read, even more than most people, I really can't be sure. But she didn't seem like they were hurting her, if that's what you're asking. Just tired, and sad. I suppose she must be lonely. And frightened."

"I can only imagine I would be," Pluto said. "After spending over a week down there." They thought of Dash, holed up in the goblins' caves.

"I didn't think you liked her," Christopher said.

"I don't know." Pluto sat down on the low wall of someone's front flowerbed. "I . . . I know she's done a lot of nasty things to a lot of people, I know what she's done, but it hasn't been anyone I'm really close to, and . . . not to me personally either and . . . I've never really spoken to her. I just know what everyone else has told me, I haven't really . . . been able to form my own opinion. And I also know that . . . the whole thing with Tatiana was really bad and messy. So before now I . . . kind of didn't have much of a stake in that and now because you're working with her I do and I feel like I'm having to pick a side on whether to like her or not and . . . I haven't even really talked to her. And I've read enough books to know that I'm supposed to err on the side of jealous. But that's not how I feel."

"Then how do you feel?"

"I love you," Pluto said. "And I want you, want to be with you, want to have you here with me. But I can't work with you, not on the fire-messages; I told you why. She can work with you. And . . . even if she couldn't, I know, I just know, that you'll be miserable if I tell you I don't want you seeing her, nevermind what I do and don't know about her. So until I can get to know her myself, and decide from that whether or not I like her . . . I guess I've just go to accept that you've made a friend and . . ." Pluto shrugged. "Yeah."

"You should go to see her," Christopher said. "If your trouble is that you feel like you don't know her well enough, then you should fix that."

"Will do. When I've dealt with Elsie Stoneberg. I need to give her notes back to her anyway."

< & >

This time, it was Anna answered the door to her flat. "Pluto," she said. "I hadn't realized you were back."

"I got in last night. Where's Ariadne?"

"In the kitchen. Why?"

"I heard about Elsie. And my dad. I have to figure this out but we've got to deal with Elsie Stoneberg. I know we'll need some kind of interim while my dad wakes up and she's going to argue that because she was with him when he was attacked it should be her."

"And you don't trust her," said Anna.

"I know her from when Dash ran to Isafjordur. That's why my dad went there instead of Reykjavik even though Reykjavik's closer to the Citadel. We agreed that since Dash is comatose and all, it was time she knew the truth. It's not that I think she's evil or anything. It's that a lot of stuff happened in London that she just wasn't there for and really doesn't know about. If the kind of trouble is coming is coming, we need a strategist who knows the city, every hidden little corner of it."