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

eleven // meeting for business

Pluto,

I felt I ought to write and tell you that I'm in São Luis with Gloria and her fathers and we're safe. It is gorgeous here: sunny and warm and clear as often as not. August has created an incredible garden, I look out my window and I see something like the bâgh Cordelia describes from Tehran: flowers and trees and flowers and trees as far as I can see. I have the loveliest climbing roses by my window, and lemon trees below it. Some day when everything in London has died down, you will have to visit.

I hope that everything is going alright there. That you and Matthew aren't fighting so much anymore. That you and Kit are still happy together. I hope you make it out of this alive and okay.

—Seanan Lochlyn

P.S. Put your letter in the envelope I sent this one in if you want this to get back faster.

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seanan,

i kind of destroyed your envelope because i kind of don't know how to open one properly. sorry. (i've been handling mail since well before i moved to the 20th century so you would think i know what i'm doing but nope.) i fixed it with the only tape i could find—has tape other than surgical tape been invented yet?—so i hope it still works.

we're doing okay here. there's a lot of tension and anxiety in the air. i'm sure you know by now what happened to my father, if not i can fill you in. greta stoneberg holds court from her infirmary bed. bryn is crashing on my sofa. i'm trying to teach her to cook but so far even boiling water seems to frustrate her to no end. i know i should have more patience, but i don't. i don't know what's up with matthew. i'm not sure i want to.

hasta luego,

pluto.

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The war, the Merry Thieves, and the plotting of the revolution found Pluto in the form of letter tucked into a pile that included a magic postcard from Seanan and a propaganda leaflet from the Seelie Socialist Collective.

"Well," said Pluto, "it looks like we'll have to postpone cleaning out your shop. The Thieves want me at the Devil this afternoon."

"Oh, well," said Bryn. "Am I invited?"

"They don't even know you're staying here, and even if they did, I highly suspect not. I don't think they trust you. Quite frankly, I kinda still don't, either."

Bryn shrugged. "I suppose I can't ask you to."

"It's still just . . . so weird to me having basically an eldritch faerie goddess crashing on my couch while she figures out what to do with herself."

"I'm not sure that's still what I am," Bryn said. She looked at her hands, twisted together in her lap. "I still . . . I still have the memories, memories of things that haven't happened yet or that happened in other worlds or that I simply won't witness. But of all the kinds of power I've had, I've never had power like this. It's cool and quiet and unmoving, something locked away that I don't yet know how to access, much less what it does." She took a deep breath. "It's rather frightening."

"Well," said Pluto, "feel free to tell me if you ever figure it out. Right now I'm heading to a strategy meeting, and I'm going to talk to Saorise on the way out about finding space for you to stay. You know, so you don't have to sleep on the man-eating sofa."

"Thank you," said Bryn. "I did wake this morning with absolutely no idea how I was supposed to sit up."

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