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Next day Will and Lyra went out by theer to be alone with each other They looked dazed, as if some happy accident had robbed them of their wits; they moved slowly; their eyes were not focused on what they looked at

They spent all day on the wide hills, and in the heat of the afternoon, they visited their gold-and-silver grove They talked, they bathed, they ate, they kissed, they lay in a trance of happinesswords whose sound was as confused as their sense, and they felt they werethey shared thelittle, and because the air was hot they thought they’d walk down to the sea, where therethe river until they caht under the

They lay down in the soft sand at the foot of the dunes, and then they heard the first bird calling

They both turned their heads at once, because it was a bird that sounded like no creature that belonged to the world they were in Fro, and then another answered it frohted, Will and Lyra juers, but all they couldshapes that fle and then darted up again, all the ti in rich, liquid bell tones an endlessly varied song

And then, with a flutter of wings that threw up a little fountain of sand in front of him, the first bird landed a few yards away

Lyra said, "Pan?"

He was formed like a dove, but his color was dark and hard to tell in the ht; at any rate, he showed up clearly on the white sand The other bird still circled overhead, still singing, and then she flen to join him: another dove, but pearl white, and with a crest of dark red feathers

And Will knehat it was to see his daehten and release in a way he never forgot Sixty years and o by, and as an old ht and fresh as ever: Lyra’s fingers putting the fruit between his lips under the gold-and-silver trees; her war torn fro breast as they entered the world of the dead; and the sweet rightfulness of her coe of the moonlit dunes

Lyra made to move toward them, but Pantalaimon spoke

"Lyra," he said, "Serafina Pekkala cas She’s gone back to guide the gyptians here Farder Cora, and Lord Faa, and they’ll be here"

"Pan," she said, distressed, "oh, Pan, you’re not happy - what is it? What is it?"

Then he changed, and flowed over the sand to her as a snohite ered, too - Will felt it happen, like a little grip at his heart - and became a cat

Before she ave me a name I had no need of one before She called me Kirjava But listen, listen to us now"

"Yes, you must listen," said Pantalaimon "This is hard to explain"

Between the Serafina had told the with the revelation about the children’s own natures: about hoithout intending it, they had become like witches in their power to separate and yet still be one being

"But that’s not all," Kirjava said

And Pantalaiive us, but we have to tell you e found out"

Lyra was bewildered When had Pan ever needed forgiving? She looked at Will, and saw his puzzlement as clear as her own

"Tell us," he said "Don’t be afraid"

"It’s about Dust," said the cat dae hi away, all the Dust there was, down into the abyss that you saw So down there, but - "

"Will, it was that golden light!" Lyra said "The light that all flowed into the abyss and vanished And that was Dust? Was it really?"

"Yes But there’sout all the time," Pantalaimon went on "And it ot to stay in the world and not vanish, because otherwise everything good will fade away and die"

"But where’s the rest leaving from?" said Lyra

Both daemons looked at Will, and at the knife

"Every tiain Will felt that little thrill: She’sbetween the worlds, us or the old Guild men, anyone, the knife cut into the emptiness outside The same emptiness there is down in the abyss We never knew No one knew, because the edge was too fine to see But it was quite big enough for Dust to leak out of If they closed it up again at once, there wasn’t time for much to leak out, but there were thousands that they never closed up So all this tiness"

The understanding was beginning to dawn on Will and Lyra They fought it, they pushed it away, but it was just like the gray light that seeps into the sky and extinguishes the stars: it crept past every barrier they could put up and under every blind and around the edges of every curtain they could draw against it

"Every opening," Lyra said in a whisper

"Every single one - they le one," said Pantalai like Lyra

"Oh, no," said Lyra "No, it can’t be true - "

"And so we must leave our world to stay in Lyra’s," said Kirjava, "or Pan and Lyra must leave theirs and come to stay in ours There’s no other choice"

Then the full bleak daylight struck in

And Lyra cried aloud Pantalaihtened every s to the passionate wail that Lyra uttered now The dae their reaction, understood why: they didn’t know the rest of the truth; they didn’t knohat Will and Lyra theer and grief, striding up and doith clenched fists and turning her tear-strea for an answer Will jumped up and seized her shoulders, and felt her tense and tre

"Listen," he said, "Lyra, listen: what didher head this way and that, "he said - you knohat he said - you were there, Will, you listened, too!"

He thought she would die of her grief there and then She flung herself into his ar passionately to his shoulders, pressing her nails into his back and her face into his neck, and all he could hear was, "No - no - no - "

"Listen," he said again, "Lyra, let’s try and reht be a loophole"

He disengaged her arhtened, flowed up onto her lap, and the cat daemon tentatively came close to Will They hadn’t touched yet, but now he put out a hand to her, and she ers and then stepped delicately onto his lap

"He said - " Lyra began, gulping, "he said that people could spend a little ti affected They could And we have, haven’t we? Apart froo into the world of the dead, we’re still healthy, aren’t we?"

"They can spend a little ti time," Will said "My father had been away fro when I found him Ten years, that’s all"

"But what about Lord Boreal? Sir Charles? He was healthy enough, wasn’t he?"

"Yes, but reo back to his oorld whenever he liked and get healthy again That’s where you saw him first, after all, in your world He must have found some secretthat no one else knew about"

"Well, we could do that!"

"We could, except that"

"All the s must be closed," said Pantalaimon "All of them"

"But how do you know?" deel told us," said Kirjava "We s as well It’s true, Lyra"

"She?" said Lyra passionately, suspicious

"It was a feel," said Kirjava

"I’ve never heard of one of theh another possibility "Suppose they closed all the other s," he said, "and we just h as quickly as we could and closed it up immediately - that would be safe, surely? If we didn’t leave o out?"

"Yes!"

"We’d make it where no one could ever find it," he went on, "and only us tould know"

"Oh, it would work! I’o from one to the other, and stay healthy - "

But the dae, "No, no"

And Pantalaimon said, "The Specters She told us about the Specters, too"

"The Specters?" said Will "We saw the the battle, for the first time What about them?"

"Well, we found out where they co: they’re like the children of the abyss Every time we open a ith the knife, it makes a Specter It’s like a little bit of the abyss that floats out and enters the world That’s why the Citt&uazze world was so full of them, because of all the s they left open there"

"And they grow by feeding on Dust," said Pantalaimon "And on daerown-up daeer as they do"

Will felt a dull horror at his heart, and Kirjava pressed herself against his breast, feeling it, too, and trying to comfort him

"So every tile time, I’ve made another Specter come to life?"

He reed the knife again, saying, "What you don’t knohat the knife does on its own Your intentions ood The knife has intentions, too"

Lyra’s eyes atching hiuish

"Oh, we can’t, Will!" she said "We can’t do that to people - not let other Specters out, not noe’ve seen what they do!"

"All right," he said, getting to his feet, holding his daemon close to his breast "Then we’ll have to - one of us will have to - I’ll cooing to say, and she saw hiun to know; and she thought of hisof her, too To abandon her and live with Lyra, even for the few years they’d have together - could he do that? Hewith Lyra, but she kneouldn’t be able to live with hi up beside hiirl clung together desperately "I’ll do it, Will! We’ll coet ill,tiood doctors in your world - Dr Malone would know! Oh, let’s do that!"

He was shaking his head, and she saw the brilliance of tears on his cheeks

"D’you think I could bear that, Lyra?" he said "D’you think I could live happily watching you get sick and ill and fade away and then die, while I was getting stronger andIt’d pass in a flash We’d be in our twenties It’s not that far ahead Think of that, Lyra, you and s ant to do - and then it all comes to an end Do you think I could bear to live on after you died? Oh, Lyra, I’d follow you down to the world of the dead without thinking twice about it, just like you followed Roger; and that would be two lives gone for nothing, my life wasted like yours No, we should spend our whole lifeti, busy lives, and if we can’t spend theether, we we’ll have to spend the her lip, she watched hiuish

He stopped and turned, and went on: "D’you re he said, my father? He said we have to build the Republic of Heaven where we are He said that for us there isn’t any elsewhere That’s what he ht he just meant Lord Asriel and his neorld, but he meant us, he meant you and me We have to live in our oorlds"

"I’ to ask the alethiometer," Lyra said "That’ll know! I don’t knohy I didn’t think of it before"

She sat doiping her cheeks with the pal for the rucksack with the other She carried it everywhere; when Will thought of her in later years, it was often with that little bag over her shoulder She tucked the hair behind her ears in the swift movement he loved and took out the black velvet bundle

"Can you see?" he said, for although the ht, the symbols around the face were very sot it off by heart Hush now"

She crossed her legs, pulling the skirt over theht ht, reflected off the white sand, lit up her face with a radiance that seemed to draw out solittered, and her expression was so serious and absorbed that Will could have fallen in love with her again if love didn’t already possess every fiber of his being

Lyra took a deep breath and began to turn the wheels But after only a few moments, she stopped and turned the instru place," she said briefly, and tried again

Will, watching, saw her beloved face clearly And because he knew it so well, and he’d studied her expression in happiness and despair and hope and sorrow, he could tell that son of the clear concentration she used to sink into so quickly Instead, an unhappy bewilderradually over her: she bit her lower lip, she blinked more and more, and her eyes moved slowly fro swiftly and certainly

"I don’t know," she said, shaking her head, "I don’t knohat’s happening I know it so well, but I can’t seem to see what itbreath and turned the instrue and aard in her hands Pantalaimon, mouse-formed, crept into her lap and rested his black paws on the crystal, peering at one symbol after another Lyra turned one wheel, turned another, turned the whole thing around, and then looked up at Will, stricken

"Oh, Will," she cried, "I can’t do it! It’s left me!"

"Hush," he said, "don’t fret It’s still there inside you, all that knowledge Just be calm and let yourself find it Don’t force it Just sort of float down to touch it"

She gulped and nodded and angrily brushed her wrist across her eyes, and took several deep breaths; but he could see she was too tense, and he put his hands on her shoulders and then felt her treain Once azed at the symbols, once more she turned the wheels, but those invisible ladders ofdohich she’d stepped with such ease and confidence weren’t there She just didn’t knohat any of the sy to Will and said desperately:

"It’s no good - I can tell - it’s gone forever - it just cas I had to do, for rescuing Roger, and then for us two, and now that it’s over, now that everything’s finished, it’s just left one, Will! I’ve lost it! It’ll never come back!"

She sobbed with desperate abandon All he could do was hold her He didn’t kno to coht

Then both the daemons bristled and looked up Will and Lyra sensed it, too, and followed their eyes to the sky A light was s

"It’s the angel ," said Pantalaiuessed correctly As the boy and the girl and the two daes wider and glided down to the sand Will, for all the time he’d spent in the coeness of this encounter He and Lyra held each other’s hands tightly as the angel ca on her She was unclothed, but that el wear anyway? Lyra thought It was i, but her expression was austere and compassionate, and both Will and Lyra felt as if she knew them to their hearts