Title: Lovechild
Disclaimer: I own nothing, but the words. This fantastically well thought out world and all its magic and characters belong to Philip Pullman.
Summary: There's one adventure left in everyone…
Chapter One
Lord Gabriel's arrival
Elizabeth Gabriel, more commonly known as Lizzie, perched atop the old roof tiles of Victoria House and peered onto the road down below. Across the way she caught sight of the dancers in the great hall of Jordan College and she longed to be able to cross the void and spy though the windows. Her mama had gone across to show her face at the occasion and to greet her once benefactor and still great friend Dame Hannah Relf. This was Lyra's true reason for attending the ball, though she would never tell the ageing Master that much. The scholars at Jordan had always been very attached to Lyra Silvertongue, but now she was so much more refined and able to hold a conversation with prominent scholars from all about the world dazzling them with her charm she was regularly required to show her face at the college who now funded her research. Lyra allowed the learned men to think she still returned for their sake, but long had she tired of attending.
Lizzie, as usual, had been left behind, but purely for the sake that Lyra wished to spare the young girl the agony of having to dress herself up and behave for the evening. Where Lyra had once terrorised the riverbanks and alleyways of Oxford, her daughter Lizzie now kept up the family tradition and had fallen into her mother's once way of life like a fish takes to water. Though they had not always lived in Oxford of course.
Lizzie's father was a powerful man known to all as Lord Gabriel. Lyra had loved him once, falling for him when she was just nineteen years old and he twenty-four. He was a scholar at Jordan College at the time and a more venerable man one could never meet, for Isaac Gabriel seemed to command power over everyone and everything he came across. Tall and strong, Lord Gabriel was a beautiful man, as well as clever and powerful. His shorn fair hair and permanent stubble made him seem unkept, but in so rugged a manner that ladies across the country fell head over heels in love with the man. His dæmon was in the form of a graceful yet ferociously powerful tiger known as Shira. Lyra had admitted to Pan once that she had fallen under Lord Gabriel's spell much as she had once awed and respected her own father Lord Asriel and perhaps that was how he had easily wooed her.
They married straight away and within a year of their union Lizzie was born. For the briefest of time they were happy together, the three of them. However, it was never just the three of them. Always the memory of Lyra's one true love kept her from finding true happiness with Isaac and this agony tore the pair apart when their daughter was only two years old. They would never publicly admit their marriage had failed, but Lyra took Lizzie to live at Victoria House in Oxford and Lord Gabriel took to exploring, every rich and courageous man's dream. Every so often he would return to England and seek out his fast-growing feisty daughter, but being so close to her mother, the woman he still loved with a fiery passion, was too hard and often his visits were short.
Lizzie missed him, but would often conjure up tales for her urchin friends about her powerful and heroic father. She could never know how she resembled her mother and how history was repeating itself.
The girl perched now on the slate tiles beneath her window while dæmon Brinlion, more commonly known as Brin, fluttered to and from the gutter in the form of a wren urging her to follow him down. Usually it was Lizzie who coaxed her more cautious dæmon on when he faltered, but tonight the tables had turned and she couldn't understand why. She felt unsure, as though by creeping towards the edge of the roof she would be starting a chain reaction she wouldn't be able to stop.
"Ah!" the girl cried out in pain. "Brin not so far!" The link between girl and dæmon was strong and though he had only just hopped up the gutter by an inch or so Lizzie felt the tearing at her heart so profoundly he quickly hopped back.
"Well come on then."
"All right, I'm coming. Just stay there." With the ease of one having scampered about the roofs her whole life, Lizzie eased herself down to the gutter, which lurched uncomfortably under her weight.
"Watch it," Brin warned her.
"Well move along then." In order to counter Lizzie's weight – light though she was – Brin transformed into a tiny field mouse and scampered up the length of the gutter with Lizzie crawling along in his wake.
"What are we waiting for Brin?" the girl asked once her dæmon had come to a halt a little way up. She soon caught up to him and allowed him to climb up her arm and perch on her shoulder.
"I'm not sure, I just…shhh, what's that!" Automatically the dæmon leapt into the air and transformed into a pigeon owl. He used his expert night vision to spot the anbaric-powered carriage making its way down the street towards the house. Once it pulled up outside Brin flew back to Lizzie's shoulder and perched there once more.
"Who d'you reckon it is?" the girl asked in an undertone.
"Someone who's come late for the dinner at the college no doubt," Brin replied. As he did so a finely dressed leg appeared from the door being held open by the driver. Lizzie and Brin peered closer, until quite suddenly they both pulled back jerkily.
"Oh no!" the girl's dæmon cried out sounding panicked.
"It's father! What's he doing here?"
"I'm not sure, but we should get back in Lizzie before he sees us. He'll wring your neck if he catches us up here."
"Hush Brin, they'll never look up," Lizzie countered fondly, before she peered over the gutter once more at the man she had so marvelled in over her eight years. Lizzie was convinced that no one else's father was as magnificent or powerful as her own and all her life she had felt misplaced pride and arrogance in his position and his strength. She used stories of his power and his wealth to get her way with the urchins she called friends and threatened to unleash his anger on those who scorned her. And yet, though she admired and idolised the man, a part of her feared him also. Many a time she had felt the back of his hand when she stepped out of line, which she so often did and many a time had his powerful dæmon Shira taught Brin a lesson for his part in their crimes. Lord Gabriel was not a man to be trifled with, by anyone.
But Lizzie was wrong. Moments after she had uttered her self-assured words the tiger dæmon that was Shira glanced upwards. Lizzie had not the time to pull away before her father turned to look up quite suddenly and for a moment both man and girl held each other's gaze, unmoving. Brin started trembling, mouse-formed, in the nape of Lizzie's neck until finally Lord Gabriel narrowed his eyes far down below and continued on into the house.
"Hurry Lizzie, get inside!" The girl wasted not a moment and slithered up the loose tiles to reach the window. Brin had already flown in, a wren once more and was hopping anxiously about when Lizzie dropped onto the bare floorboards with a thud. Her room was a state; books lay scattered about the place lying on top of and beneath piles of clothes. In one corner lay a heap of old rope and other objects Lizzie had recently won in a contest with the Gyptian kids and right there poking out from under her unmade blanket lay a half-drunk stolen bottle of stolen whiskey that had made the Lizzie's mouth burn after she and her servant friend Tommy had tasted their loot.
Alarmingly there came the sound of heavy and determined footsteps on the stairs.
"He'd never," Lizzie cried out indignantly, for her father rarely ventured up to his daughter's third floor bedroom for fear of what he might find. It seemed though, that tonight was an exception. "Brin, the bottle!"
While her dæmon, now in the form of a wildcat raised up on his hind legs and pushed the bottle under the blankets Lizzie assessed her appearance in the grubby mirror on top of her disused vanity table. Her face and hands still bore the injuries her fight with some Claybed kids had wrought and her bright blonde curls were sticking on end. A smudge of roof dirt ran from her jaw to her chin and her clothes were a state. The girl prioritised and threw on a long grey woollen cardigan to conceal the worst of her clothes and then rubbed furiously at the dirty mark on her face. When it had come clean enough she used the spit on her hands to smooth her hair back and stuck it up with a clip. Her hands she rubbed on her skirt and hoped against hope her father didn't request to see them. It was his custom to inspect the girl, but the last few times he had given her a reprieve. Then again, the last few times she hadn't been caught clambering over the roofs and had also allowed her mother to give her a bath and make her look presentable.
Just as the heavy knock came at the door Brin darted back to Lizzie and jumped into the folds of her jumper in the form of a fluffy-tailed gerbil. Though he trembled, the girl's voice betrayed none of their fear and she spoke confidently,
"Come in."
Slowly the door opened and in walked Shira first, her head held high and a slight growl emanating from deep within her throat. In her wake Lord Gabriel followed and after scanning the untidy room with a look of severe disapproval his gaze finally fell on the dishevelled little girl. His disapprove was still evident.
"I don't know what amazes me more," the tall man finally spoke in his deep and powerful voice. "Your inability to follow orders and stay off that death-trap of a roof or the state of this bedroom." Lizzie gulped, but didn't say anything in her defence. Her father glanced her up and down and then nodded. "You've grown again."
"Over an inch since Christmas mama says," the girl replied quickly.
"Still as thin as a rake, don't you ever eat your supper child?" Fervently the man's daughter nodded.
"I just run about lots see."
"I see," Lord Gabriel spoke softly, before he eventually held out a hand in the direction of the scrawny youngster. Lizzie thought for a moment before she edged slowly towards her father. Once she had reached his side the tall man reached out and took up one of his daughter's grubby hands. Her nails, as usual were in a poor state, though what came as a surprise were the grazes on her scarred knuckles.
"Who have you been fighting?" he demanded, gripping at the girl's hand rather harder than she had expected. Lizzie winced and on cue Brin jumped from her jumper to the floor in the form of a wildcat, hissing at Shira in defence. The large tiger merely growled though and reached out to cuff Lizzie's dæmon, who rolled across the floorboards and into the bed.
"Answer the question girl or so help me…"
"It was them Claybed kids," Leshia quickly offered up. "They was talking about chucking us in the River, them and their mates, so we fought 'em, Brin and me. Nearly didn't win and all, but we got away before they could get us."
Lord Gabriel's eyes met his defiant daughter's and after a few moments he let go of her hand, which she clutched to her chest protectively. The tall man stared at the girl a little longer before he lifted his hand once more, only this time he reached out to touch a fading graze below her eye.
"You don't do a very good job in looking after yourself do you?" he spoke softly. Leshia shrugged and felt relieved the worst of it was over. She hadn't caught a smack for being on the roofs and she hadn't caught a telling off for getting into a fight either. After staring a little longer into the little girl's enormous dark eyes, replicas of his own, Isaac Gabriel straightened up and ambled across the room to the unmade bed. After considering the less favourable alternatives – the chair covered in dirty clothes and the stool in the corner bearing the weight of a clay-covered rope – he sat down, painfully close to the concealed bottle of whiskey. Had Lizzie escaped her father's displeasure thus far, she was sure she wouldn't escape it a third time when he found the drink. Shira trotted over to the tall man and lay down on the floor by his feet, sitting erect like the Great Sphinx of Egypt. Lizzie paused a moment before she moved to stand before her father, with Brin winding through her legs, keeping his wildcat form.
"I understand your mother is across the road at the college?" Lord Gabriel asked, exuding importance and power. Lizzie nodded quickly.
"She went to that dance, but she said she wouldn't be long."
"Tell me my child, does she not frown at the state you keep yourself in?" The little girl wrinkled her brow, before she quickly shook her head.
"Don't think so. She tells me they used to be the same, her and Pan." As though to demonstrate this point Brin transformed into a Pine Marten the spitting image of Pantelaimon, Lizzie's mother's dæmon. The slightest of smiles crossed Lord Gabriel's handsome face before he reached down and stroked Shira between her ears, to which the great tiger responded with a low growl. Brin jumped at Lizzie's legs and easily flowed up to her awaiting arms. Shira frightened him as much as Lord Gabriel frightened his daughter when anger crossed his fine features.
"Well allow me to say that it concerns me greatly to return and find you beaten and bruised. You're an eight year old girl, you ought not be fighting anyone, let alone gangs of street urchins."
"But they was…"
"Come now, you're fast, I've seen you run from me swift enough when you thought I hadn't spotted you getting yourself into mischief." Lizzie's cheeks glowed a little and Brin turned into a snow-white ermine in her arms. "Why not run from them if they were trying to throw you in the river?"
"It's not that easy see," the girl complained loosely. "They was challenging us to a fight and we wasn't about to back down from 'em. They'd think we was a coward!"
"Would you not rather be considered a coward and still keep all your teeth?" Lizzie's brow lowered petulantly.
"No," she grumbled. "Papa I thought you'd understand. You're awfully brave, we're just trying to be like you." For a moment there was silence, before a dangerous smile grew on Lord Gabriel's face.
"That's the last thing you want my girl," he sighed. "To be like me."
"Oh but I do papa! All them Claybed kids and the Townies and them Gyptians too, they all know about how brave and courageous and strong you are and how's we're going to be just like you. Most of 'em don't dare cross us."
A look of great significance passed between the man and his dæmon, before he climbed to his feet once more. His hands he used to push himself off the comfortable mattress, and Lizzie's eyes widened when she saw how close his left fell to the bottle.
"If you want to be like me," he spoke softly, yet firmly. "You can start by sorting this room out. I could never live in a mess like this. Before you can discipline yourself, you must organise your environment. Secondly, if I were an eight-year-old girl I would think very carefully before stealing a bottle of whiskey." Lizzie's lips parted and her eyes darted to the hidden location of the bottle. Brin quickly transformed into a gerbil and jumped once more into the folds of her jumper trembling. The girl though didn't even flinch when her father lifted his hand to the back of her neck and held it tightly. He leaned in when he spoke again, "And if I had been foolish enough to go through with a no doubt hair-brained plan to acquire said bottle of whiskey, I would start thinking very quickly how best I might return this bottle unnoticed before bed."
He was giving her a way out, a way to make it right and Lizzie felt relief flooding through her. Quickly she nodded while Brin jumped to the floor and turned into a wildcat once more.
"Yes sir."
Lord Gabriel paused for a moment, holding his daughter's gaze for a little while longer to impart upon her his displeasure before he leaned down and kissed the top of her dirty curls. Despite the state of her he breathed in her scent and felt a calm wash over him. Though Lord Isaac Gabriel was as stern and Laconic a man you could find, he felt most at peace when his child was at his side unharmed and healthy, where he could protect her. Lizzie was a deceitful and naughty urchin to be sure, but she was his deceitful and naughty urchin, which set her a damn-sight higher than those brats she terrorised the streets with.
On the floor Shira had risen to her feet and walked over to where Brin was lowering himself towards the ground. The majestic tiger nudged her head into the smaller dæmon in affection, knocking him to the ground, before she made for the door.
"We will wait for your mother in the drawing room," Lord Gabriel told his daughter once he had straightened up and started following in Shira's wake.
"Um, the drawing room?" Lizzie called after him with a wrinkled frown on her face; that was exactly where she had stolen the whiskey from.
"Yes," her father replied sternly. "Why do you ask?"
Lizzie's eyes darted to the bed again and then she looked down at her hands.
"Well…um…"
"I see," her father uttered darkly. "Very well, we shall wait in the parlour. As for you young lady, when I see you in the morning I expect you to have bathed and dressed presentably."
"Yes father."
With nothing further to say Lord Gabriel shut the door leaving Lizzie's chest rising and falling rapidly. Brin transformed into a stoat and flowed up into Lizzie's arms, pressing himself against her heart to offer her comfort.
"How'd he know Brin? And why didn't he smack me? Not even once after all them things he caught us doing!"
"He was hiding something," Brin replied softly. "I think he wants to talk to your mother first."
"I wonder what it is." Lizzie though had no time to ponder her father's uncharacteristically mild behaviour and instead scooped up the stolen bottle of alcohol and wrapped it inside her cardigan. Light-footedly she hurried down the stairs with Brin trailing behind, still in the form of a stoat. They reached the first floor drawing room within moments and after casting the parlour across the landing a cautious glance they hurried inside. Within moments they had found the cabinet where they had taken it from and restored it to its rightful place. Feeling satisfied they hurried out in time to hear the front door opening and hurried footsteps rushing in.
"Where is he Phelps? In the drawing room?"
"Mama?" Lizzie whispered to her dæmon and quickly they hurried up a flight of stairs. The girl considered going up to her room and thanking the stars for the reprieve she had already received this night, but her stubborn curiosity won over and once she had reached the second floor landing she dropped down onto her front and peered over onto the stairs below. Brin, who had been all set on darting upstairs felt the tug of Lizzie's waiting behind and both girl and dæmon uttered a soft cry of pain, which soon had Brin returning to the girl once more.
"What are you doing?" he whispered impatiently.
"Shush and listen," she calmed him and wrapped her dæmon in her arms.
"You're going to get us in trouble. I know it…"
"The parlour?" Lyra Silvertongue was exclaiming far down below. "Very well." Lizzie ducked back a little when first she saw Pantelaimon, her mother's Pine Marten dæmon hurrying up the stairs followed by her beautiful mother herself. Dressed in a deep blue ball gown Lyra seemed lovely and for a moment her daughter wanted to jump to her feet and run down and hug and kiss her mother, but her curiosity won over and she leaned further over to hear.
"Isaac!" the girl heard her mother exclaim, though she couldn't work out if she sounded surprised or upset to see her father. The remains of their greeting became muffled by the ajar door and after considering it for a moment Lizzie crawled over to the stairs and started making her way down them silently. Within no time she'd reached the first floor landing once more, with Brin turning into a bat hanging upside down from her arm to better eavesdrop on her parents' conversation.
"Would you care to join me in the drawing room?" Lizzie's mother was offering and without stopping to think twice the girl out on the landing darted across to the drawing room door and crept inside. Brin became a tiny butterfly and landed on her shoulder.
"We shouldn't be doing this," he whispered to her hoarsely.
"Hush! I want to know why he's here and you can be damn sure he en't going to tell us the whole truth."
"We're going to get caught and then we'll be in for it. We already escaped once tonight Lizzie, why do you have to go asking for trouble? I think you forget on purpose that when your father smacks you I hurt too."
"Shhh, they're coming!" Quickly the girl darted into the dark nook hidden away behind the very cabinet she had stolen from. The way the curtains fell made it an ideal hiding place and many a time before she had stolen conversations by hiding in this very spot. It was her mother's beautifully decorated feet that walked in first followed by a loping Pan. His keen eyes scanned the room and instinctively Lizzie pulled back into the wall as far as she could go. Pan had an awfully good way of knowing when she and Brin were lurking about. He quickly settled down though in Lyra's lap once she had taken one of the cosy armchairs. Lord Gabriel took the seat beside her with Shira resting on the floor at his side, her eyes never leaving Pan. The way in which her father looked at her mother betrayed none of the longing Lizzie didn't know he felt and indeed, he seemed to treat her with the same cool indifference he reserved for everyone.
Lizzie often suspected it was her father's brusque and Spartan manner that had led to her mama taking her away to Oxford, though she would never say anything of it to either of them.
"Does Lizzie know you're here?" Lyra asked, her large expressive eyes meeting her once husband's.
"Yes," he replied after a pause. "I went up to see her when I arrived." For a moment Lyra visibly flinched and Pan swished his tale sharply.
"You went up? As in to her room?" Her father's back was turned to her so Lizzie couldn't see him nod his head once ever so slightly, nor could she see the severe look on his handsome face. "You didn't…"
"I didn't touch the girl," Lord Gabriel countered before Lyra could voice her concerns. For a moment Lyra seemed to visibly relax and a courteous smile pulled onto her face. "Though I had reason to. When I arrived the child was clambering about the rooftops. Then when I come to find her I discover her recovering from a fight. Fighting Lyra, with gangs of street urchins at eight years old!"
"Isaac I know…"
"And what's more. The insolent child was hiding a stolen bottle of whiskey amidst her sheets." Lizzie flinched, her mother hadn't known about that one. Lyra though took this news very well; indeed, she didn't even react to it. "She's running absolutely wild. I will not have a child of mine acting so out of turn." Though his voice was calm Lizzie could not see the dangerous expression on her father's face. Her mother though, could, and opted to tread very carefully when she next spoke.
"She is treading in my footsteps," the young woman finally spoke, her voice heavy with emotion and memories.
"I cannot believe you were once as she is now."
"Oh I was worse Isaac. I had not a mother's love and affection to tame me. You would have found me quite unbearable and yet you loved me once I am sure of it, just as sure as I am that you love your daughter with a passion you hide away."
Now it was Shira's tail that flicked and a low growl escaped the dæmon.
"Have I ever said or done anything to contradict the fact that I love my daughter?" Lord Gabriel asked and quite suddenly he seemed out of sorts. Lyra's brow furrowed slightly; it was not Isaac's way to speak to plainly about love. "Of course I love her and feel great affection for her. In that child I see many favourable attributes as well as those that displease me. She is brave and cunning and very bright, but puts these talents to such poor use I wish I could shake some sense into the girl."
Lyra's expression softened at these words, but before she could speak the door opened and in walked Phelps, the stolid Butler whom Lizzie appreciated for holding his tongue whenever he caught her misbehaving. His colleague Langham was far more inclined to blow the whistle on the girl whenever he caught her with so much as a toe out of line. None though, were so formidable as John Parish, Lord Gabriel's manservant. There existed between man and a girl a mutual hatred so passionate that she would go out of her way to ruin his day and he out of his to catch her doing so in order to report it to his master and see the girl punished.
Phelps had brought in a bottle of Tokay with two glasses, which he decantered for the Lady and Lord before going on his way. Lizzie waited while her parents took a sip of the golden drink and wondered at how it might taste. Would it burn her throat just as the whiskey had done?
"You must give me more warning of your arrival Isaac, I would not have attended the college had I known you were coming."
"I arrived in Oxford unexpectedly myself," Lord Gabriel offered as an apology. "I was not expecting any sort of a welcome, rather an opportunity to meet with my daughter and discuss a matter of great importance with you."
"Oh?"
"I am soon to return to the north Lyra and I have come to ask your permission to take our daughter with me." Lizzie had to pinch herself to stop herself from gasping loudly, but out in the drawing room her mother showed no such control and seemed visibly shocked. In her arms Pan rose to his feet and bristled slightly.
"Why do you want to take them to the north?" he asked protectively.
"I feel it time for the girl to see the world outside of Oxford. I hear she resists any attempts to educate her here at home, so I wish to take on the task myself."
"You wish to teach Lizzie?" Lyra managed in surprise, managing to hide her indignance at the way her former husband had described her attempts to educate their daughter. Lizzie was like her mother in almost every way and this included managing to escape any real attempts to educate her in favour of gallivanting about Oxford with her chums.
"I feel the longer she stays here in Oxford the more trouble she is likely to find herself in."
"Do not insult me Isaac," Lyra complained fiercely. "You question my power to care for our daughter?" Pan was on the floor now arching his back and growling at Shira, who remained lying down, though a growl did escape her.
"I am not removing her from your care Lyra, don't exaggerate what I have suggested. You may of course come with your daughter. Your studies may be carried out on a ship and I feel you would jump at the chance to see your friends the King of the Bears and the Witch queen would you not?"
Lyra panted for a moment, as though she had been struck. What a suggestion her former lover was proposing. To go to the North! But her little daughter…could she take that child up to the North? And then there was the matter that Lord Gabriel hadn't revealed the true reason for his wanting to take Lizzie north with him, both Pan and Lyra were certain of that much.
"I'm not sure Isaac, I'd have to think about it."
"Of course, I was not proposing to whisk her away this very night." The pair fell silent and eyed one another with evident mistrust. "But you must allow me access to our daughter Lyra, you must. She is as much mine as yours and perhaps I have allowed you too much freedom where her upbringing is concerned. I ought to have insisted on being a far greater part of her life and…it is a source of deep regret for me that I have not seen her growing into the hot-headed young madam that she is now."
Lyra watched the powerful man opposite her with a feeling of intense dislike and yet with an equally strong feeling of admiration. She had always dreamed Lizzie's father would take enough of an interest in the girl to become a proper part of her life, for she knew how much Lizzie craved his attention, but never in her wildest dreams had this involvement seen him taking her away.
Lyra resented his implying their daughter belonged to him as much as she did to her. That girl was Lyra's treasure, her dear darling little girl whom she had reared to be as she once was. The pleasure she took in hearing about Lizzie's adventures, so similar to her own, was nearly enough to make up for the heartaches she had suffered over her short life. How dare he suggest he was as great a part of that child, that replica-Lyra as she herself was? Even Brin was in awe of Pantelaimon and would often imitate the dæmon. He would often revert to the form of the pine marten or an ermine, much as Pan had once done, and sometimes it seemed to the elderly scholars over at Jordan College that time had reversed itself and young Lyra was bounding about the place once more.
How many times had Lord Gabriel tucked himself up beside the little girl in bed and sang her a nursery rhyme to whisk her off to sleep while his dæmon nuzzled and comforted the girl's? How many times had he diligently sat at the child's side when she was ill and nursed her back to health? How many times had he kissed a grazed knee or seen to her black eye and made it all better when she'd found herself in a scrape? How many times had she come running to him in the dead of night, damp from a cold sweat and terrified of the nightmare that had racked her dreams and had he let her into bed with him and rocked her close to scare the nightmares away? No! He had done none of those things, which is why Lizzie was Lyra's little girl, her precious one, and not his! Not by half!
Presently Lyra finished the Tokay in her glass and waited for Isaac to do the same. They were finished for the evening, he knew that. Before he could quite allow Lyra to guide him towards the regular guest suite he inhabited on the second floor he spoke once more, only softly and sounding humbled,
"You're looking radiant Lyra." Lizzie's mother froze. She was halfway out of her seat already. Slowly she straightened herself out and tucked her hair behind her ears awkwardly.
"Thank you Isaac."
"I sometimes…" But Lord Gabriel had said enough and he fell silent. Just what he had nearly revealed would stay his secret a while longer and without another word to one another the pair moved from the room leaving it in darkness. After the door had shut and their footsteps had moved up the stairs Lizzie rolled out from the nook she had hidden in and lifted Brin in stoat form close to her breast.
"The north Brin! Father's going to take us to the north!"
"Don't get your hopes up. Your mama didn't look so happy about it."
"Oh he'll persuade her easily. You've heard how she talks about King Iorek and the witch queen. Oh think of it Brin, us in the North."
"Yes well if you don't get to bed soon we won't be going anywhere. They're on their way to check on us."
Lizzie darted from the drawing room and craned her neck to hear her parents slow footsteps moving beyond the second floor. Without thinking she threw herself into the waiting room beside the small dining room where a dumbwaiter stood ready to lift and drop through every floor of the house. Lizzie was still a small child, indeed she had taken her mother's stature and not her father's and was expected to stay skinny and tiny, and easily she squeezed into the compartment with Brin taking a gerbil form to make more room. She pulled on the rope as quickly and quietly as she could and sure enough started to rise quickly enough.
"We'll never make it, they'll see we're not in bed…"
"Hush Brin, just trust me. They were walking so slowly, I'll bet you anything they've got talking again."
Grace was smiling on them that night and as they reached the third floor girl and dæmon scampered over to the door and peered out onto the landing. It was empty and hushed voices on the stairs below indicated her parents had started talking again. She couldn't quite see them, which was a great relief, because it meant they would never spot her. The girl didn't wait to find out and darted across the landing. Within moments she had thrown herself into bed, switched off her bedside light and pulled the blankets over herself. Brin curled round her neck in an ermine form while down below the girl's parents talked for several more minutes.
Finally their conversation ceased and light footsteps on the stairs preceded their arrival in her room. Lord Gabriel hung back at the door while Lyra sat down beside Lizzie's seemingly sleeping form and with immense love and care the young mother smoothed down her little girl's hair and kissed her sleeping eyelids. Pan stroked Brin's warm fur and for a moment they were both overcome with love. Lyra didn't know how she could cope without her precious child. She would travel to the ends of the earth…to the world of the dead once more to save her. It was a different sort of love though to that heart shattering love she had felt for Will and to the pure lust for his power and his beauty that she had once felt for Lord Gabriel, it was a love she could not do without now she had found it. When Lizzie wasn't at Lyra's side the woman feared for her child. Lizzie was a part of Lyra. She had carried her in her womb, given birth to her, fed her from her own milk and raised her with everything she was; she was an extension of what it was to be Lyra and she knew Pan felt the same about Brin though their connection was not so clearly defined.
Where Pan was part of Lyra in an obvious way; he was her and she was him, Lizzie was a part of Lyra in another, but no less important, way. The moment Lyra became a mother her longing for Will, her first and only true love, became bearable. She suddenly realised that she could wait to be with him again if she could just keep on being a mother to Lizzie. If Lizzie were taken from her, or worse, perished…well…she would never cope.
As though sensing the young mother's emotions Lord Gabriel strode across the room taking care to keep his footfalls light and silent. He hovered for a moment before he crouched down at Lyra's side. He looked first at his daughter and thought her to be a beautiful creature when she slept; all mischief and defiance went out of her and left this sleeping baby in its place. Automatically he reached past Lyra and placed his hand on Lizzie's chest, directly over where her strong heart was beating.
To Lyra it was as though he had touched Pantelaimon and she inhaled sharply. To touch another's dæmon was the worst sort of act a person could do, but to touch another's sleeping child could evoke similar feelings and shock…but then again, the little girl was also his sleeping child. Pan felt Lyra's pain and emotion and reared up, coming close to Lord Gabriel's hand until he saw the discomfort he was causing the woman and dæmon and withdrew it.
"I would never take her from you Lyra," he uttered softly before he rose to his feet and cast the little girl an unreadable expression. He had felt her heart beating fast…she was not asleep. He would let Lyra think she was though, if that is what Lizzie was trying to have her parents think. Without another word Lord Gabriel strode from the room and made his way down to his guest quarters leaving Lyra shaking slightly.
"You'll wake them up," Pan warned her and flowed into her arms.
"You're right," Lyra whispered and quickly she leant down and kissed Lizzie's warm cheek once more. "Goodnight my precious darling, I hope good dreams find you tonight."
With this the woman rose to her feet and carried Pan out with her. Her room lay across the hall from her daughter's – she would not have had it any other way – and soon she had shut the door behind herself. Only after she heard it close did Lizzie's eyes spring open and she sat up.
"I'm confused Brin," she whispered to her dæmon, still curled up at her throat.
"Me too. Your father's up to something and you're mother's afraid. I don't like it."
"When he touched me, I could feel her sitting next to me, she went all stiff as a board, like she wanted to jump at him."
"Pan was the same."
"Why would they act like that Brin? I mean he is my father en't he? You'd think he'd be allowed to touch me without mama getting all scared like that."
"Best not think about it now. Go to sleep, I'm tired." Obediently Lizzie settled down and wasn't surprised by the heaviness in her eyelids. If Brin was tired then so was she, even if her wild imaginings were tricking her into thinking she was wide-awake. Before too long they were drifting off, but before sleep fully claimed her a big smile pulled onto Lizzie's face and she uttered to her dæmon,
"I can't wait to meet an armoured bear!"