"Pan!" Lyra's voice was breathlessly excited. "It was a mer-woman!"

Pan flowed off her shoulder and sat as a mouse on the page so he could be closer to the words.

"Look, it says here that they have funny eyes so that they see in water even if it's dark," said Pan, his whiskers only an inch from the page. "And that they know magic…No wonder the Church thinks they're heretics."

Lyra looked concerned. "Pan, if we help her, we'll get in trouble, won't we?"

Pan considered. "We might, but I don't see how the Church, or the Consistorial Board or any of them would find out."

"Yeah," Lyra said. "But I dunno…"

Pan had gone back to studying the words next to the illustration of the mer-woman. "Lyra, maybe we should help her anyway. It says here they know dark magics, and they remember bad things done to them for ever. She'll know if we don't help her."

"Yeah, s'pose she gets angry with us," Lyra said, her eyes widening. "That could be just awful. But how are we supposed to see her again?"

Pantalaimon turned into a cat again and nosed the page until it turned. Settling back down, he read for a moment.

"Oh, look, Pan!" Lyra picked him and set him in her lap.

"How to call one of the Mer-folk," she read. "Cast a white stone into the water by the light of the full moon." She grinned, looking at Pan, who had jumped up on the table. "That's easy enough, but sounds like we're in for an adventure, all right. When's the next full moon?"

Pan tilted his head, looking at her. "Two days from now, I think."

"Right," Lyra said. She closed the book, wrinkling her nose at the dust cloud that resulted. Getting up, she carefully put the book back into its proper place. "Guess we've just got to wait 'til then. C'mon, Pan-let's go get Roger."

Lyra and Roger played in the streets with some of the College children, seeing who could steal an apple from an old man's fruit stall. Whenever he dozed off in the sun, one of the kids would sneak out, using some nearby crates as cover until they could reach up a grubby hand and snatch something. It was great fun, and it was even better when he woke with Pinky's hand perilously close to his nose. He shouted his rage, but the motley group had already disappeared down an alleyway, laughing and biting into their stolen treasures.

Strangely enough, Lyra didn't tell Roger about her plan to summon the mer-woman. She almost did, several times, but something always stopped her. Roger'd be too yellow anyway, she reasoned. It was really because she wanted it to be all her own, so that she could have a fantastic story to impress the town kids with later.

The next night, Lyra only pretended to go to bed. When the moon rose, round and regal in the sky, Lyra got up and pulled on her clothes before opening the door. She tiptoed down the stairs and stepped out a side door into the moonlight.