St. Sophia's was a grand old building right in the centre of Oxford. It wasn't as beautiful as Jordan, but then again, to Lyra nothing except one thing could be. That one thing was Will. Whenever she thought of Will her heart ached with the memory of her long lost love. Just after she had arrived back at Jordan after her adventures she had wondered whether an hour of her day could go by without her thinking of that wonderful boy from another universe. This had proven to be true.

It could come any time of the day, in class, at lunchtime, the moment she woke up, anytime. All it took was a little thing, like seeing a cat like Kirjava in the street, and she would feel a pain in her chest, like when she left Pantalaimon on the shore of the world of the dead.

Now, as Lyra and her daemon were strolling slowly through the city to the Botanic Garden, Lyra felt a pang of pain and knew that Pantalaimon was feeling it too. It was midsummer's day, the day that Lyra and Will sat on the same bench, but in separate universes. Pantalaimon seemed smaller today, and Lyra was feeling down. With a heavy heart, she dragged the key to the garden from her coat pocket and put it into the key hole of the gate to the Botanic Garden. The gate clanged open and Lyra walked through, the first tear carving a river down her face.

The Botanic Garden was in full bloom. The flowers were bright, vibrant colours - red, blue, purple, orange, colours and tones of every colour. The lawn was perfectly mown, not an unequal blade in sight. And in the background of all this, the lulling, gentle notes of a bubbling brook.

But Lyra couldn't feel happy. How would Will feel if he was here? It had been four years since they had last met. He could have changed a lot, or even got a girlfriend. The bench sat next to the path and Lyra sat down. A shiver ran down her back, the same as every year. With her limited knowledge of Alethiometry, Lyra had found that the shivers meant that Will was sitting in the same place at the same time, just a different universe. Lyra sat there, with Pantalaimon on her shoulder, thinking about Will and how he was now and what he was like. Will would be seventeen now, not a child anymore. Pantalaimon was letting out little cries of regret, reflecting on Lyra's fragile emotional state. Then the two of them burst into sobs. Pantalaimon nuzzled her chest and Lyra dug her face deep into his fur. The two of them sat like that for a few minutes until they calmed down a little.

"Oh, Will. I miss you so much," Lyra whimpered.

"Lyra." Pantalaimon whispered. "Now I have to tell you what happened to me and Kirjava when we were away. The time is right."

"Tell me, Pan, what is it?" Lyra said in barely more than a whisper.

"Me and Kirjava travelled between the worlds, we saw such beautiful things. But only one thing was important. One night, under a meteor shower, an angel fell from the sky. He was injured but nothing could be done for him. He said that he was a friend, and how honoured he was to meet us. But he told us a terrible thing: Metatron had a secret weapon. It was an angel who had found a way of possessing a human body. This angel, Kiridar, is immensely powerful. She has the wings of an angel and the strength of twenty men. She can also be slightly hypnotic when she wills it. Kiridar was to step up and spearhead the campaign against the Republic.

"But the angel told us not to tell you until every window was closed, because you would try to stop Kiridar, and that is too big a task even for you."

And Pantalaimon finished.

Lyra felt his words almost as a physical blow. So all of their efforts had been for nothing. All the people who had died, Lee, Mrs Coulter, Lord Asriel, Chevalier Tialys, Lady Salmakia, had been killed for nothing. But there was one good thing. If Kiridar was going to start the war again there was a chance that Will would get involved too.

Will was very shaken after Kirjava explained what Pantalaimon had just told Lyra. He knew that Kiridar could put everything he and Mary and his mother had built. For the last few years, Mary had been preaching the ideals that created more Dust -kindness, care, love - to the world. She had got a lot of fame and money for her work, but she refused to use the money for herself, instead donating to all sorts of charities - environmental, children's, cancer, poverty - in order to make more Dust.

Will's mother had also vastly improved, with a lot of help from charities and the government. Now she was nearer to a normal mother, the one Will had always dreamed of. She would cook the dinner, clean the house, help Will with his homework, the things a mother should do.

The trouble that Mary and himself thought they would be in was simply forgotten. Nothing had ever come of it, even though Will had killed someone and Mary had faked her identity.

Now that Kiridar was continuing what Metatron began, his world would be plunged into chaos.

He and Kirjava hurried off to find Mary and tell her what had occurred.

Far away, in a universe completely devoid of life, the Clouded Mountain was preparing for war. Kiridar stood, relishing her glorious body of flesh, surveying her Kingdom. Hundreds of millions of angels were rallying to this point from all over Creation. But her soldiers were just a fraction of the men and women assembling all over Creation to recapture the glory and power of the Christian Church, the Magisterium and the endless other organisations who represented the Clouded Mountain.

With a smug smile Kiridar turned away from her forces and flew away deep into the night.