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The other world was warm. That's the first and last thing Lyra and Pantaleimon knew of it. The city in the aurora was a gust, nearly a wall of tropical heat after months of cold arctic air.
She would have taken the next step easily. Gladly. Roger was dead in the snow behind her by Uncle - Lord Asriel's hand, and there was nothing for her to return to. She doubted even Ma Costa could soothe this hurt. Her parents were a matched set after all. And Lyra had given them Roger. Delivered him like a stamped letter.
The hand that reaches and grips Pan isn't golden. It's Mrs Coulter's, clad in soft leather gloves, but still an alien and unwelcome touch. Lyra stumbles at the firmness of it. The pouch with the alethiometer in it slips from her grip, and falls on the cobblestones of a city in another world. Lyra sees it land, even as she's dragged away from it.
Mrs Coulter's face is set as she drags Lyra away from the rip in reality. It's set as she shoves Lyra into her snowmobile. It's set when she knocks Lyra, Pan biting and hissing in his wildcat form, back against the cold metal.
The pain is sharp, but Lyra suspects it's also misery and just plain old exhaustion, that has her faint right then and there.
*
The airship journey back to London feels short and colourless compared to Lyra's harum-scarum adventures the other way.
She's not conscious for most of it anyway. Mrs Coulter pinches Lyra awake every few hours so she can feed her warm milk mixed with honey and something faintly medicinal. Like a baby at her breast, Lyra thinks, looking up at her mothers face. It goes curiously slack when Mrs Coulter gazes at her in these moments. Lyra feels the golden monkey running his paws over Pan, over and over, grooming him to the edge of pain.
So she makes herself soft and slow, and Pan becomes the most endearing of all his forms, a little snow mink. When they fly over Køpynhagen glittering at night, Lyra is almost able to form a coherent thought. Her mother sleeps wrapped around her in the big first class travelling bed, and Lyra uses this bit of space to squint into the darkness and try to plan. Pan becomes a salamander and blinks at her across the pillow. None of her friends know where she is. The gyptains will have gone home to Oxford, and she has no way of alerting them. Lee might be able to follow her, but Iorek and Serafina are creatures of the north. She could no more picture them rescuing her in London than she could picture the Master of Jordan on a cloud pine.
Mrs Coulter's arms tighten around her, and Lyra knows that outside this little bubble of travel her mother's vast anger is waiting for her. She destroyed Bolvangar. Mrs Coulter's other child nearly. Her dark twin. Something fierce glows in her with pride at that. Her and Roger did that. But that brings back the memory of his body discarded like rubbish in the snow, as Lord Asriel stepped over him and out of the world. Oh she would kill him if she could- to think that he could do something like that- to Roger- to Lyra-
"Darling, you really must get some rest" The words are light and coloured with sleep, but Lyra stiffens all the same. "London will be a test for us both" Mrs Coulter noses into the space behind her ear, dropping a side-long kiss on her cheek. Lyra braces herself, then wriggles to free herself enough to turn in her mother's arms.
"What's gonna happen to me?" She whispers.
The safety lights of the airship allow Lyra to only see the edge of her Mrs Coulter's face. A pair of glowing sparks where her eyes are. Then the edge of teeth. A smile.
"Whatever do you mean my love?" Mrs Coulter drags the words out, her hand coming up to stroke the hair out of Lyra's face. Lyra considers swatting her hand away, but Pan slips into the nape of her nightclothes as a little tree snake, his scales cool against her clammy skin and she resists. She has to lie better than ever now. Maybe for the rest of her life.
"I wrecked your machine" She says, feeling her mothers fingers pause in her hair "I was sad to do it because it was yours- but it killed Billy. It would've killed Roger." She waits until the Mrs Coulter begins stroking her hair again before taking her final shot "It would've killed me."
"How many times must I say this" Mrs Coulter's other hand comes up to cup her face, digging her fingers in to edge of pain "I would not have allowed that to happen Lyra."
Lyra's eyes have adjusted enough to see her face a little clearer. She stares back at Mrs Coulter. They're back in their game, Lyra can tell. The one where they see who can lie the most. The problem is Mrs Coulter knows it too. Lyra's going to have to work on that. She makes her face frown, like when one of the scholar's tried to get her to understand a particularly difficult concept about arithmetic, or biology that had nothing to do with becoming a famous adventurer in the arctic.
"You said you was sorry, back at the station"
She makes her voice small and Pan crawls out from behind her ear as a moth, and sits on her cheek "Well I'm sorry too"
She feels Pan tense, knowing what she is willing him to do next. "I was frightened of you. I thought you was going to hurt me." She still does, but that is neither here nor there right now. Her mother's eyes glitter and Lyra wonders how many more times she can use this arrow of a lie before it stops finding its mark.
Pan lifts of her face and flutters between them. There's a flash of movement out of the corner of her eye, and Lyra can see that the golden monkey has come to perch on the bedpost behind Mrs Coulter. Its dark eyes watch her intently.
"I would never-" Mrs Coulter chokes out and Lyra knows she's nearly got her, now if only-
Pan hesitates for a moment longer, while Lyra begs him with everything she has, then floats down and lands on her mother's cheek.
Mrs Coulter exhales sharply. Lyra can see her tears flowing in earnest now, eyes still fixed on her. She's even pretty when she weeps. It makes Lyra feel something worse than hopeless, because less than a year ago she would have given anything for a mother like her. Her and Lord Asriel, with Lyra as the baby, living in some grand adventure in the North-
Lyra resists the urge to shake off Mrs Coulter's hands. She resists the shiver threatening her whole body. The worst part is it actually feels nice. Pan rests, batting his powdery wings on Mrs Coulters cheekbone, once, twice, then lifts, only for a moment, to change into an ermine to wrap across her mother's neck. She's seen babies do this, gyptian babies who's mothers smiled and petted their daemons who didn't know any better. Mrs Coulter's tears drip into Pan's fur, hot and wet, and Lyra knows that Pan hates it, but is forcing himself to relax-
"I wish you had kept me" Lyra lies with her whole being "As a baby I mean" She shuffles closer steeling herself for the monstrous lie she must tell next. "Then I would have known better than to destroy your machine. Maybe I could've even helped you." She doesn't look at Mrs Coulter's face as she says this. Instead she tucks her face into Mrs Coulter's chest, just underneath Pan, and wraps her arms around her middle. Something soft lands on the bed, and the next moment she feels hesitant calloused paws in her hair.
After a moment she feels Mrs Coulter exhale a shuddering breath, and arms come around her. She would smile against her mother's perfumed neck, but Pan digs one claw very firmly into her scalp in warning.
This is only a battle, and Lyra has a war to fight.
*
When Lyra wakes the next morning, Mrs Coulter is already up and dressed. The sky outside is blue. Lyra blinks at her, surrounded by paperwork, before she realises what's bothering her.
She's awake. Fully awake! Not a clouded thought in sight. Her mind is blue and fresh and clear, like the air pressing on the windows. Pan changes from a hare, to a dove, to a rat, all in the leap off the bed.
He scurries to the window. "I think we're flying over Brytain Lyra!"
The golden monkey studies him from a chair near the bed. Pan dutifully transforms into a nagapie and tentatively climbs up to join him. The golden monkey reaches out a paw, and Pan, her wonderful clever Pan, climbs up the offered arm and settles himself on the monkey's shoulder, even as she feels the fear and disgust radiate through their bond.
Lyra looks up to see Mrs Coulter watching them. She tilts her head and smiles, and Lyra feels a brush of horror. It's how she smiled at the girls in Bolvanger. She forces herself to get up, and pad over to her mother. She'd meant to mirror Pan and kiss her cheek or something, but now that she's stood in front of Mrs Coulter, all she can see is Billy. Billy in that horrible little village. Alone and without a daemon. Left to die-
She reaches her hand out. Something like a grin quirks the edges of Mrs Coulter's mouth as she takes it. They shake hands a little awkwardly.
"Good morning Mrs- Mother" Lyra says, feeling her cheeks go pink. Silver-tongue indeed! She's barely worth the title Iorek gave her. "Thank you for rescuing me"
Mrs Coulter still watches her, expression shifting into something inscrutable. Lyra makes to remove her hand, but her mother grips it tightly. Lyra stiffens. Behind her the golden monkey holds Pan, forcing him to stay on his shoulder. Lyra wills him not to give into fright and change forms.
"We are overdue for a little chat" Mrs Coulter says, sounding like not a moment has passed since she gave Lyra lessons in her penthouse apartment. "When we land in London, we'll be in a delicate situation."
"Is it 'cause of me?" Lyra asks, unable to stop herself "Because I destroyed Bolva- the station?"
Mrs Coulter's eyes darken, and Pan gives a little squeak of pain. Lyra looks at the golden paws digging into his fur and begs him to be brave. They will get out of this. They'll lie so magnificently that it will go down in history.
"Partially" Mrs Coulter says, a world of danger flashing in her pretty blue eyes "There is also the matter of the lost alethiometer"
"I gave it to Lord Asriel before- before I realised what he was" Lyra lies, knowing that the golden compass was better off rotting in another world forever than falling into Mrs Coulter's hands.
Mrs Coulter lets go of Lyra's hand, and makes a show of exhaling. Her outfit is cream today with a delicate scalloped edge. Lyra wonders if one day she'll be that beautiful. She hates herself for wondering. "This is why you must learn to trust me Lyra. Look at where the opposite has gotten us." For the first time something like true emotion colours Mrs Coulter's voice "How many times did that man have to fail you before you understood that, hmm?"
Just the once, Lyra thinks, holding Roger's face in her mind. Just the once was enough.
For once Lyra and her mother seem to be in perfect accord. Mrs Coulter looks far off and angry for one second before her mask settles again.
"Would you have gone with him?" Lyra asks, unable to stop her curiosity. Her parents together was not a sight she was ever going to forget. It was like seeing a pair of tigers at the zoo, all rippling fur and sharp teeth, but without the bars.
Mrs Coulter eyes her, a flash of predator about her even now. Especially now. "Were you going to follow him?" She asks, ignoring Lyra's question, a catch hidden somewhere in her voice. Hatred of Asriel no doubt. Lyra doesn't have to lie about this. It's a relief.
"No." She says looking her mother dead in the eye "I was going to kill him. Still will, when I see him next."
Mrs Coulter looks surprised for a moment, then an expression of genuine delight blooms on her face. "Were you just?" She laughs, a sweet, clear sound, that Lyra of a few months ago would have basked in like a flower. The golden monkey releases Pan, who flies to Lyra's side as a sparrow. "You really are our child aren't you?" Something like confusion settles in Mrs Coulter's face, her hand reaches as if to cup Lyra's face, before shaking her head and pulling back. "You should get dressed darling. We land in an hour."
Lyra turns, already wondering what outfit will give her the best chances of running, of blending in with the fashionable airdock crowd, when Mrs Coulter speaks again.
"And there's the matter of the gyptains of course" Her eyes are full of laughter, as if daring a horror-struck Lyra to correct her "The ones that kidnapped you darling. They must be found an punished."
*
The townhouse is much as Lyra remembers it, except this time Mrs Coulter deposits her squarely in her own bedroom.
"Yours going through a touch of remodelling" She explains, when Lyra when she asks over the slim lavender book of etiquette and manners, bought for her with a pointed look at the airdock giftshop. "Have you finished the first chapter yet?"
Lyra hasn't but she nods, and soon the lamp is clicked off. After a moment Mrs Coulter's arms wrap around her. She feels the touch of the golden monkey settling near her feet. One paw rests on the curve of her ankle. Pan hesitates a moment, then tucks himself into Lyra's arms, his fur touching the back of Mrs Coulter's hands.
Good, Lyra thinks, willing all her sharp edges to sink to the bottom of herself. Let her think she's got us. Her eyes are heavy, and Mrs Coulter's scent is all around her, like the jasmine flowers that bloomed in the Oxford country lanes when the moon was bright. Lyra imagines herself as the stoat who moves underneath, little teeth and claws sharp in the pale light.
Let her think I wouldn't scratch her eyes out if I had the chance.
*
Mrs Coulter is gone before Lyra wakes up.
"She's probably got a lot of grovelling to do" Pan says wisely, licking his flank in his grey weasel form "With the magisterium and that"
"I wish you wouldn't use words that you know I don't know" Lyra groans at him from her pillow. Pan licks her cheek. "That's cause you've never grovelled a minute in your life" He nips at her face "Now come on, let's have a look around."
Nothing much has changed except that the vents and windows now have locks Lyra can't open. "Wouldn't have expected anything else" Lyra says to Pan, feigning a cheerful attitude while munching on a green apple liberated from a decorative bowl in the dining room. "We're much too good at climbing"
The study is still locked, and Lyra doesn't see very much use in bothering with it, no matter how much Pan paws at the door. "We know what she's up to" She reminds him. "Was up to." She amends.
Pan doesn't look convinced, but he follows her when she wanders down the corridor, tapping her leather shoes against the marble floor. "I feel like I've grown out of everything again. These shoes pinch." Her own room catches her eye. The door is closed, but there's light shining underneath-
"I'm sure she'll enjoy dressing you like a doll again-" Pan stops short. Lyra stands at the threshold of her wrecked room. It's like a wild animal was locked in and had destroyed everything in its path. Lyra stares at the scattered feathers, the broken desk she used to study at-
"Monkey claws" Pan whispers, tracing the sharp rips in the wallpaper. His fear flows into Lyra like quicksilver.
She steps over the splintered remains of her chair. "Human too" She whispers, turning over a face-down book with the toe of her shoe. It falls open to a picture of a panserbjørne, ripped in two by unseen hands. She thinks of Iorek, of tucking her face into his sour-smelling fur while the aurora illuminated the sky. Pan becomes a white arctic fox in sympathy, and wraps himself around Lyra's ankle.
"We have to get away from her Pan" She whispers.
"I know Lyra" Pan says, sounding older than her for the first time since they were born "You keep forgetting what she is."
"I do not!" Lyra shakes him off, opening the wardrobe to find, there, her old Jordan dress. A hand-me-down even when Mrs Lonsdale had given it to her. Oh how she despised it when she first started wearing the pretty things Mrs Coulter liked her in. She presses her face to the soft red corduroy. It doesn't smell like Oxford. Just like the vaguely floral scent that fills the whole apartment. The last time I wore this Roger was still alive. Lyra squashes her eyes shut. She feels Pan's cold fox nose touch her ankle again.
"How are we going to get out of here? How are we going to get all the way back to the north and through the window?" She sits on the plush carpet, dragging the dress down with her. Pan nuzzles his way into her arms.
"We'll think of something Lyra. We always do."
*
Mrs Coulter returns at lunch, hair flat and expression sour, only to lock herself in her study without a word.
Not that Lyra had been listening for the lift. But there’s nothing to do in the apartment now that her room is in tatters. Her and Pan dawdle outside the door of the study for a moment, listening hard, but even the monkey seems absent from the vents today.
Lyra flicks through the big books that weigh down the low glass table in the living room while the sun grows red. One is full of photograms of Afric jungles. Lyra stares at the children her age, children with daemons shaped like animals she’s never seen, and wonders whether they were to have their own Bolvanger. Maybe manned by warriors with hyena daemons, but always overseen by her mother.
“Lyra”
Mrs Coulter stands over her, next to her a woman Lyra vaguely remembers, even as she blinks furiously. She must have fallen asleep, still leaning on the glossy book. Not for very long though, judging by the afternoon sun.
“I’ve had a dress made for you” Mrs Coulter says, moving the book from underneath her, frowning at the spot of drool where Lyra’s face had been pressed. Her hands flex as if to touch, and Lyra quickly stands, rubbing the beginning of a cramp in her neck.
“Another one?” Lyra says, momentarily forgetting herself. Mrs Coulter’s face darkens. Behind her the seamstress frowns. She’s the older one of the two who fitted Lyra’s party dress. Her daemon is a St Bernard and there’s a bit of Ma Costa about her around the edges. She holds a tissue-wrapped package. Lyra can see the edge of baby blue.
This fitting somehow takes even longer than the party dress. Mrs Coulter circles the two of them, frowning all the while, as Miss Dodson, as Lyra learns the seamstress called, sticks pins, and marks adjustments.
“It must be perfect” Mrs Coulter repeats for what feels like the thousandth time “Get rid of that lace around the collar- use something simpler. We don’t want her looking like a spoilt banker’s daughter.”
Lyra stands still for at least an hour longer than the last time, Pan perched on her hair as a gecko, but eventually she breaks.
“I’ve got to use the bathroom Mrs Coulter” She hedges, needing no such thing, only a little bit of space from the two of them. “Mrs Coulter?”
Miss Dodson pauses, but Mrs Coulter ignores her, mouth set in a hard line, holding two different pairs of gloves up to Lyra’s hands. The monkey, which until now had been sitting on the floor near the window, glances up.
Lyra knows from the children at Bolvanger that now is the time where any sane child would be quiet. But her mother draws something out of Lyra like poison from a wound. She sets her own face in a matching grimace and takes a deliberate step off the low stool they have her standing on.
“Lyra.”
The warning note in her mother’s voice would be enough, but behind her the golden monkey has moved into a low crouch and bared its teeth. Pan turns into a wasp and circles the ceiling. Lyra pulls off the dress, feeling Miss Dodson’s fingers helping, but still stabbing herself with pins. She shoves the mess of baby blue silk into the woman’s hands.
“Lyra,” This time Mrs Coulters voice is chiding, but warm. A perfect parody of a chargrined mother. If her eyes weren’t full of heavy rage, Lyra would almost believe it.
Lyra stands breathing heavily in her undershirt. She feels as tense as when Iofur prepared to fight Iorek. She balls her hands. You’re not fooling us anymore. She thinks, and to her shame feels tears pooling in her eyes. Never again. Never.
Mrs Coulter stares at her a moment longer, then she turns to Miss Dodson, and her face splits into a charming smile.
“Have those changes made and have a courier deliver the dress by nine sharp.” She takes the dress out of the woman’s hands and looks at it once more. Lyra uses this reprieve to slip out of the living room.
The bathroom has a lock, which Lyra turns before settling herself into one of the low chairs by the window. The sun has gone down now, and even as she eyes the brick wall through the window, Lyra knows there’s nowhere to run.
She stares at the golden doorknob, casting out every single one of her senses. Voices pass the door, then the lift rings, then silence.
The silence goes on for hours.
Footsteps. Just as Lyra has begun to wonder if she can sleep in the tub. Slow even footsteps. Then the sound of a key. The door handle turns and then Mrs Coulter is there. Her mouth is set in a hard line. The monkey isn’t with her. Lyra suppresses a shiver at that.
Lyra makes herself very small. “Are you gonna hurt us?” She says, and almost convinces herself she sees Mrs Coulter flinch. Instead, her mother sits on one of the low chairs by Lyra.
“There will be some men coming” She says, quietly, not looking at Lyra “From the magisterium.” She twists the gold ring on her finger, it catches the light, and Lyra relaxes slightly without meaning to. Wherever her mother's anger was, she's let it out, and only a shadow of displeasure remains. Perhaps they are both learning more of each other.
“They want to talk to you, about the Station and what happened with your - with Asriel. With the other world.”
Lyra considers Mrs Coulter curiously. She looks tense, tenser than Lyra’s ever seen her, even after she was nearly severed.
“Why are you lettin’ em come?”
At this Mrs Coulter looks at her in surprise. She frowns, and touches Lyra’s face. Lyra moves away before she can think better of it.
“I forget sometimes- it’s not a matter of letting them” Mrs Coulter sighs, her hand hovering for a moment before she lets it drop. Her manicured fingers dig into the upholstered sides of her chair “After your actions in the north- there’s powers at play that even I can’t hold in check. Much as I’d like to.”
Go on, Pan urges, once again hidden under the curl of her hair as a moth. Lyra stands, then sits on the side of Mrs Coulter’s chair, nearly in her lap, and leans into her. Her mother’s arms come around her, just as hesitantly as they did at night. But they settle in a possessive lock. Lyra fights the urge to close her eyes.
“What do you want me to do?”
Mrs Coulter hesitates so long that Lyra begins to wonder whether she heard her.
“I want you to tell them what really happened. Simple as that.” Mrs Coulter tucks her chin and looks down at her daughter “The gyptains kidnapped you, and took you north. You destroyed my life’s work because you were misinformed.”
“If they don’t believe me,” Lyra says slowly and notices that even though her mother’s face remains bland, her heart beats harder against Lyra’s face “What will they do?”
Mrs Coulter’s face goes slack for a moment, and her fingers dig into Lyra’s arms.
“That’s why we have to be clever. They may seperate us again- but not for long.” Mrs Coulter chokes these words out and Lyra feels a flutter of desolation despite herself. Being extraordinary takes application.
“Will they take me away from you? Forever?” Lyra asks, and knows instantly that the answer is yes. In the eyes of the magisterium she is not Marisa Coulter’s daughter, but Lord Asriel’s bastard. A warden of the Authority by every law outside of scholastic sanctuary.
“They wouldn’t dare” Her mother breathes. But they would, Lyra thinks, because I destroyed your project and worse, because my Father wants to unmake the world.
They sit in silence for a long minute.
“What happened to Lord Asriel’s window?”
If the question surprises her mother she doesn’t show it.
“It’s under quarantine” She answers flatly “But he got what he wanted from it anyway. He always had a knack for that.”
Roger dashes into the stage of her memory. She hears his laughter, sees his rapt expression as she made up stories about her famous uncle.
“I think I hate him more than you.” Lyra mumbles, and Mrs Coulter looks at her with something like pain.
“You know I think that’s the first honest thing you’ve said to me since the north” She scoffs “Asriel does seem to have that effect on the women in his life.”
*
Workmen come on the second day of Lyra's stay, and the next night Mrs Coulter puts her to bed in her old room. The wallpaper is different, and Lyra's eyes catch on a new abstract painting that hangs opposite the bed. A slab of black overhung with a wash of white. It reminds her of a freshly dug plot of earth under a thick foot of snow.
"This is our grave" She whispers to Pan once Mrs Coulter has kissed her cheek and turned out the light.
"Don't be morbid Lyra" Pan hisses back, and then hushes as they hear the rattle in the vent, knowing the golden monkey has settled to watch them for the night.
Pan licks her face in comfort and Lyra falls asleep and dreams of flying with a faceless witch on her cloud pine.
*
“So you never met a Serafina Pekkala, clan queen of the witches of Lake Enara?”
The men are vaguely familiar, Father MacPhail and the one with the cockroach daemon. Lyra sits in the study with them, even as her mother was politely banished to wait outside.
Lyra shifts. The finished dress that arrived in the morning was puritanical a-line cut. It has buttons on the front, and straight starched sleeves which stop her raising her arms.
“I met a witch” Lyra answers blandly “Never told me her name. Just told me that they was hurting kids. Witches all look kind of the same anyway don’t you think?”
It’s not gonna work. This thought has been ricocheting around in her head since she sat down. They are suspicious of her in a way that only her Uncle used to be. No matter how well she lies, or how soft Pan hops about their ankles as a rabbit, they know something fundamental about her. Lyra decides to show her hand. Or at least part of it.
“What’s gonna happen to me?”
“That is the cardinal’s decision.” Father MacPhail answers curtly.
Lyra eyes him.
“But he’s already decided” She says. “Mrs Coulter thinks you’re gonna take me away”
He looks up at that. He hates her, Lyra realises suddenly. He hates and loves Mrs Coulter. That they have in common. That Lyra can work with.
“Look” She says, making her eyes wide and twisting her hands in her lap “I know this is about dust. My father shouldn’t be allowed near it.”
The two men don’t react to this at all. What do they know about her? Is this all an elaborate test set up by her mother? Lyra doesn’t think so. The golden monkey wouldn’t be breathing quietly in the vent behind her head then. They’d just tell Mrs Coulter what Lyra said.
“How are you gonna stop him?”
The men blink blandly at her. So Lyra takes a gamble. She reaches for her glass of water, then knocks it off the table. She kneels to pick it up, and whispers up to a frowning MacPhail.
“Her monkey is spying on us in the vent.” His eyes don’t flick to the grate. Lyra is impressed despite herself.
“He showed me.” She continues in a low voice “He taught me how to cut into other worlds. And I’ll show you if you take me to his laboratory so you can follow him, and stop him.”
She sits back up. Father MacPhail clears his throat, but a spark of interest flickers in his eyes.
“Where are the gyptains taking the severed children?”
The rest of the interview is as nerve-rackingly dull as expected.
*
Mrs Coulter makes a show of taking her time to join them when the interview is finally done. She even holds an evening paper, folded open to the social pages, as if she’s been reading in the mild evening while her daughter is questioned.
It’s only once the lift doors close that she slumps, like a puppet who’s strings have been cut, leaning against the golden lift doors.
Lyra sinks into a low crouch at the opposite end of the hallway. The adrenaline of lying is wearing off and all she feels is tired.
They look at each other for a long time, then Mrs Coulter straightens up.
“Dinner in an hour”
*
They pass the next day in a strange sort of limbo.
Mrs Coulter is crafting and discarding plans faster than she thinks of them, Lyra can tell. She types up reels of letters that are sent out with the porter. She perfumes herself and makes calls that take her the whole morning. She spends hours poring over waterway maps of Brytain, making notes in a little book in a short hand that’s indecipherable to Lyra’s sneaking gaze.
The children, Lyra realises, clear as a bell in the afternoon. She’s looking for the severed children. They are her proof after all. Proof that her ideas were possible. Proof that she is still of use to the Magisterium.
The gyptains don’t turn up in her mother’s methodical search or Lyra’s fevered hopes. Lyra looks for them from the balcony at dinner, feeling Mrs Coulter’s eyes on her if she leans over the edge too much. Having returned what children they could, they’d be hiding in murky backwaters, cooking their stored food and throwing hushed parties. Lyra hopes Ma Costa is smiling somewhere. Hopes the severed children that remain to her distract her from Billy’s empty cot.
Lyra wakes that night to see not just the flash of golden fur, but Mrs Coulter herself slumped in a chair next to her bed. Her reading glasses have fallen off her nose, and her notebook lays discarded on the floor. Lyra ponders both a moment, then carefully picks them up and puts them on her bedside table.
The chair is back in its place in the morning.
*
They come for Lyra at the end of the week.
Mrs Coulter obviously believed she had more time, or had a more inflated sense of her own power, because Lyra sees her face when the stone-faced nuns escort her out. It’s set in a grimace eerily similar to her daemons.
“It won’t be long” Is all Mrs Coulter says however. “You’ll be back before you know it” Her voice breaks on the least word.
The nuns talk of a school they’re taking Lyra to. A school for wardens of the Magisterium in the countryside. They give her mother a card with the address stamped on it in tiny black print.
Lyra stands at the elevator hesitating, then makes a dash for it, and wraps her arms around her mother. Goodbye, she thinks fiercely. I hate you and I love you and goodbye. Feels a tear rappel down her cheek. She's not sure if it's real or not. Mrs Coulter is the only mother she's likely to ever get. And if her plan works, this will be the last they see of each other for a long time, if not forever. She breathes in her mother’s perfume and wonders if she'll miss it.
“I’ll get you back in no time” Mrs Coulter whispers fiercely “Just you wait- no time at all.”
Out of the corner of her eye she sees the golden monkey embracing a smaller monkey, earth coloured and face hidden in golden fur. She feels Pan’s shame at this form, and also the deep comfort of the calloused paws clutching his frame.
She wonders if it was like this when they took her away as a baby. Did Mrs Coulter’s eyes fill with tears like now? Did she fight? Or worse, was she glad like Lyra is now?
So Lyra doesn’t say anything, just lets herself be peeled away from her mother, and shepherded into the unknown.
*
Father MacPhail waits for Lyra at the air dock.
Lyra walks towards him, flanked on either side by Magisterium guards, and thinks yes, here is someone that will eat up my lies.
The city in another world had shimmered in the late afternoon. The smell of the sea was on the warm breeze. Lyra's still in the stiff blue dress Mrs Coulter put her in, but she's happy, happier than she's been since Roger died.
She's going to find her alethiometer.
And then she's going to find Lord Asriel, and kill him.