"It would seem funding makes the world go 'round," she stated dryly. Melinda relied on it for her profession, and Cordelia relied on it for her own. What a nuisance money was—and that was coming from someone who had grown up with it. "Do you already have your travel companions sorted?"

Ideally, she would be able to skirt around the topic of her friend's ex-husband. Hadrian had been her traveling partner for a long while. Melinda hoped, for Cordelia's sake, that replacing him would be an easy, painless process (whether that was for a traveling companion, or if Cordelia wanted another husband, then that too.)