«Go on.»

«They've got this special kind of photogram where you can see Dust, and when you see a man, there's like all light coming to him, and there's none on a child. At least, not so much.»

«Did Mrs. Coulter show you a picture like that?»

Lyra hesitated, for this was not lying but something else, and she wasn't practiced at it.

«No,» she said after a moment. «I saw that one at Jordan College.»

«Who showed it to you?»

«He wasn't really showing it to me,» Lyra admitted. «I was just passing and I saw it. And then my friend Roger was taken by the Oblation Board. But—»

«Who showed you that picture?»

«My Uncle Asriel.»

«When?»

«When he was in Jordan College last time.»

«I see. And what else have you been learning about? Did I hear you mention the Oblation Board?»

«Yes. But I didn't hear about that from him, I heard it here.»

Which was exactly true, she thought.

He was looking at her narrowly. She gazed back with all the innocence she had. Finally he nodded.

«Then Mrs. Coulter must have decided you were ready to help her in that work. Interesting. Have you taken part yet?»

«No,» said Lyra. What was he talking about? Pantalaimon was cleverly in his most inexpressive shape, a moth, and couldn't betray her feelings; and she was sure she could keep her own face innocent.

«And has she told you what happens to the children?»

«No, she hasn't told me that. I only just know that it's about Dust, and they're like a kind of sacrifice.»

Again, that wasn't exactly a lie, she thought; she had never said that Mrs. Coulter herself had told her.

«Sacrifice is rather a dramatic way of putting it. What's done is for their good as well as ours. And of course they all come to Mrs. Coulter willingly. That's why she's so valuable. They must want to take part, and what child could resist her? And if she's going to use you as well to bring them in, so much the better. I'm very pleased.»

He smiled at her in the way Mrs. Coulter had: as if they were both in on a secret. She smiled politely back and he turned away to talk to someone else.

She and Pantalaimon could sense each other's horror. She wanted to go away by herself and talk to him; she wanted to leave the flat; she wanted to go back to Jordan College and her little shabby bedroom on Staircase Twelve; she wanted to find Lord Asriel—

And as if in answer to that last wish, she heard his name mentioned, and wandered closer to the group talking nearby with the pretext of helping herself to a canape from the plate on the table. A man in a bishop's purple was saying:

«…No, I don't think Lord Asriel will be troubling us for quite some time.»

«And where did you say he was being held?»

«In the fortress of Svalbard, I'm told. Guarded by panser-bj0rne—you know, armored bears. Formidable creatures! He won't escape from them if he lives to be a thousand. The fact is that I really think the way is clear, very nearly clear—»

«The last experiments have confirmed what I always believed—that Dust is an emanation from the dark principle itself, and—»

«Do I detect the Zoroastrian heresy?»

«What used to be a heresy—»

«And if we could isolate the dark principle—»

«Svalbard, did you say?»

«Armored bears—»

«The Oblation Board—»

«The children don't suffer, I'm sure of it—»

«Lord Asriel imprisoned—»

Lyra had heard enough. She turned away, and moving as quietly as the moth Pantalaimon, she went into her bedroom and closed the door. The noise of the party was muffled at once.

«Well?» she whispered, and he became a goldfinch on her shoulder.

«Are we going to run away?» he whispered back.

«'Course. If we do it now with all these people about, she might not notice for a while.»

«He will.»

Pantalaimon meant Mrs. Coulter's daemon. When Lyra thought of his lithe golden shape, she felt ill with fear.

«I'll fight him this time,» Pantalaimon said boldly. «I can change and he can't. I'll change so quickly he won't be able to keep hold. This time I'll win, you'll see.»

Lyra nodded distractedly. What should she wear? How could she get out without being seen?

«You'll have to go and spy,» she whispered. «As soon as it's clear, we'll have to run. Be a moth,» she added. «Remember, the second there's no one looking…»

She opened the door a crack and he crawled out, dark against the warm pink light in the corridor.

Meanwhile, she hastily flung on the warmest clothes she had and stuffed some more into one of the coal-silk bags from the fashionable shop they'd visited that very afternoon. Mrs. Coulter had given her money like sweets, and although she had spent it lavishly, there were still several sovereigns left, which she put in the pocket of the dark wolfskin coat before tiptoeing to the door.

Last of all she packed the alethiometer in its black velvet cloth. Had that abominable monkey found it? He must have done; he must have told her; oh, if she'd only hidden it better!

She tiptoed to the door. Her room opened into the end of the corridor nearest the hall, luckily, and most of the guests were in the two big rooms further along. There was the sound of voices talking loudly, laughter, the quiet flushing of a lavatory, the tinkle of glasses; and then a tiny moth voice at her ear said:

«Now! Quick!»

She slipped through the door and into the hall, and in less than three seconds she was opening the front door of the flat. A moment after that she was through and pulling it quietly shut, and with Pantalaimon a goldfinch again, she ran for the stairs and fled.

She walked quickly away from the river, because the embankment was wide and well lit. There was a tangle of narrow streets between there and the Royal Arctic Institute, which was the only place Lyra was sure of being able to find, and into that dark maze she hurried now.

If only she knew London as well as she knew Oxford! Then she would have known which streets to avoid; or where she could scrounge some food; or, best of all, which doors to knock on and find shelter. In that cold night, the dark alleys all around were alive with movement and secret life, and she knew none of it.

Pantalaimon became a wildcat and scanned the dark all around with his night-piercing eyes. Every so often he'd stop, bristling, and she would turn aside from the entrance she'd been about to go down. The night was full of noises: bursts of drunken laughter, two raucous voices raised in song, the clatter and whine of some badly oiled machine in a basement. Lyra walked delicately through it all, her senses magnified and mingled with Pantalaimon's, keeping to the shadows and the narrow alleys.

From time to time she had to cross a wider, well-lit street, where the tramcars hummed and sparked under their anbaric wires. There were rules for crossing London streets, but she took no notice, and when anyone shouted, she fled.

It was a fine thing to be free again. She knew that Pantalaimon, padding on wildcat paws beside her, felt the same joy as she did to be in the open air, even if it was murky London air laden with fumes and soot and clangorous with noise. Sometime soon they'd have to think over the meaning of what they'd heard in Mrs. Coulter's flat, but not yet. And sometime eventually they'd have to find a place to sleep.

At a crossroads near the corner of a big department store whose windows shone brilliantly over the wet pavement, there was a coffee stall: a little hut on wheels with a counter under the wooden flap that swung up like an awning. Yellow light glowed inside, and the fragrance of coffee drifted out. The white-coated owner was leaning on the counter talking to the two or three customers.

It was tempting. Lyra had been walking for an hour now, and it was cold and damp. With Pantalaimon a sparrow, she went up to the counter and reached up to gain the owner's attention.