"I remember it well. I remember the colour of the walls – dark red – as I settled down for dinner. I remember looking at the roast beef, carrots, peas, gravy… and realising how alone I felt. I thought you were in your room, and you always had extraordinary stories to tell, plus I hadn't seen you for a while. So I beckoned a scholar and asked them to go and fetch you. After he left the room, I remember staring down at my dinner, making a face and taking off my napkin, standing up as I did so. I was wondering what was to become of you. Quick, bright, passionate Lyra – as you were, at 15 – and still are –" he rolled his eyes – "So I went to the window, and watched the children play, watched the sun quietly bathe us in sunshine, watched scholars hurry across the grounds, watched people hanging round the fountains, chatting, flirting, smiling, laughing. You hadn't done any of those things for a while. A while? I hadn't seen you smile or laugh for almost three years.

"I was so overcome, I had to sit down. A feeling welled in me – I don't know what – and I knew something awful had happened. At that moment the scholar came back in, and hurriedly begged me to come and follow him. I did so, asking him what was wrong, but he just panted as he mounted the stairs, forcing me to follow in silence, agonizingly heaving myself towards your bedroom.

"However, the scholar lead me past your bedroom, and towards the bathroom at the end. He pushed the door open, and I stepped inside. What I saw – it wrenched at my heart. Pantalaimon was quietly crying – whimpering – pushing himself against the bath with all his might. And you were unconscious, on the floor. Your clothes were dyed crimson, your eyes were shut, you were soaked in blood, and, when I knelt beside you, I found the scissors.

"You were incredibly lucky. To this day, I think something – or someone – cheated death, especially for you. When your cuts were bandaged, you were washed and laid on a bed, you looked almost normal – asleep – but when you woke up…"

The room was deathly quiet.

"When you woke up, you weren't happy. You wanted to be dead." The former master took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. "Lyra," he said, in a strange voice, looking up at her, "I contacted the best hypnotiser I could find, and he put you into a deep sleep that made you forget everything. It was a deeply protected and feared remedy, and was never used again, because it went wrong. It made you forget every emotion, instead of making you forget the past few years of your life. It was a hard decision, Lyra, and I regret it now. But you learnt your emotions again, fully. You're not as passionate, though."

At this point he allowed a small smile to penetrate his face, and he raised his head to look at her.

"However, there was one catch. You could never – never ever come into contact with anything in your past life again."

The master looked ashamed, and he lowered his head again. "I made the wrong choice, Lyra. I sent you to live in London. You knew your name, you knew your education. But you forgot the alethiometer, and everything that happened away from Jordan. I don't think you'll fully remember what happened to you, Lyra, until there comes a time… when you should.

"And now, I want you to have the freedom to remember. To try and help, you have a visitor. Then I'm going to take you on a tour around the places you visited when you were young. Just around Oxford. And I have some slides for you to look at, of a place called Svalbard, a painting of a place called Citagazze, some portraits of various people – and creatures –"

Lyra's heart leapt. A visitor? Pan, who she had momentarily forgotten about, jumped up into her arms, and they both burst out,

"Who? A visitor? Someone I knew?"

The master looked at her, and smiled, but he still seemed sad.

"Not Will, Lyra."

She had known it, really, but her heart still dropped. For no reason, she suddenly felt like crying. She buried her face in her daemon's fur.

"It's OK, Lyra. The visitor… he knows the most about you. From his father."

Lyra looked up and nodded, and the master observed her for a second. He smiled faintly, and sighed.

"Yes. Get me a maid, I need help getting up."

As Will descended the stone steps, his fingers slipped down the smooth wooden banister and his whole body felt heavy. The thick red carpet muted his loud footsteps, and Kirjava's behind him as she gracefully padded down.

He reached the bottom, and walked forward to the doors, about to open them. But as he did, he started to feel dizzy.

Closing his eyes, he saw yellow, yellow like butter or ripe lemons, and gold, deep, shining gold, blobs of light, like he had just been staring at the sun, backed by simple black. And when he opened his eyes, they disappeared.

But something made Will close his eyes again, and he tried to focus on the strange shapes. They seemed to become bigger before him, and then slowly, the blackness surrounding the shapes started to dissolve, and even though his eyes were closed, he was seeing the small area he was in. But it was from a different angle. He was looking at himself.

Unnerved by the strange picture, he hurriedly opened his eyes. His view rightened.

But he was curious. Was it a dream? A vision? He glanced at his daemon, who looked back at him with questioning eyes. But her eyes held something else. A thought crossed his mind – maybe it was about Lyra.

Hurriedly he shut his eyes. It took a moment to adjust to the strange view, and then he noticed something. The figure of Will was standing exactly where he was actually stood, his eyes shut, and there was a gorgeously-coloured cat sitting primly on the floor next to him.

The blobs were gold, and they were changing shape. They were splitting, then splitting again, and then again, over and over. And each time one split, once of the two glided over to Will, who had his eyes tightly shut, and clustered around man and daemon. After a matter of minutes he and Kirjava were barely recognizable, the cluster was so big. Dust. It was Dust. Both had seen this stuff before.

Will watched, and he was entranced. The golden sparkles attracted his full attention, until suddenly, the Will he was watching moved, and his daemon stood up.

His arm twitched, and he lunged forward. Hundreds of tiny sparkles wafted away, ignored him, and came back to cling back onto him.

I willed myself to do that. That means I can go in there, watching myself. Is that right? Will asked Kirjava silently. Yes. Go in.

The Will in front of him opened his eyes, and smiled satisfactorily. The feeling was strange. Will couldn't actually feel the air rushing past his arms, or his arms against his sides. But he could control them.

He took a moment to steady himself, and then willed to walk forward. The Will extended an arm and pushed the door open. Will didn't look inside; he was looking at the bit of the door he had touched. It was plagued by Dust.

The painting was straight in front of him when he and Kirjava walked in. Neither heard the doors close behind them, they didn't feel themselves slip back into their own bodies, they didn't see the white walls the painting was mounted upon, he didn't smell the fresh, sharp scent of fresh paint, or the slight aroma of saw dust. He just registered the figure in front of him, the figure he hadn't seen for countless years. The figure wrapped in a white sheet, stained by dirty marks of red, green, blue, yellow, brown, black, orange and countless other colours. She looked like she had just glanced at the painter. Her dark crimson lips were open slightly, revealing blackness, her eyes held a strange expression. Her dark blonde hair was straggly and wavy, parted neatly in the middle. One arm was cradling a beautiful bronze daemon, the other was in a strange position. It was by her side, and was barely seen, but the shape of her fingers was recognizable. The first two fingers after her little finger were laid down, and the other three were hanging limply. Her daemon was curled protectively in her arms, his arm resting on her arm, his eyes wide open. Light shone from the window which the two were facing.

"Sir! Ah, sir! You have come to see the painting, I see!"

Will didn't register the small man in a dark blue suit standing next to him, but the man ignored this fact.

"It is a very interesting piece. Perhaps the strangest, deepest part of this painting is the finger adjustment at the back. It's very shadowed, and barely recognizable. But can you see how the largest finger and wedding ring finger – it's on the left, you see – are folded down, and the two are hanging rather loosely? Well, the sign basically means 'I Love You' and it is very widely used today. But the strange thing is, here, is that sign language wasn't used in those days. At all. In fact, I'm not quite sure it was invented. I've heard – " at this point he lowered his voice, even though the small gallery was empty, "That apparently, the painting was put through the same… well… an informal name would be Emotion Detector, I suppose, but anyway… well, it was put on the same ED as the Mona Lisa! I'm not sure what the results were. Bear in mind this was just a rumour, but… I heard that a large part was regret, some was anger, some was hate, and almost half was loss. There were others, obviously. But they're the ones I remember. Isn't she just beautiful? I love this painting, it's remarkable. The artist really captured everything needed in the painting. It's beautiful."

He finished, out of breath, and stared like a happy puppy at Will.

"It's almost…" he carried on, trying to avert Will's interest, "As if she's hiding something, and that the sign she's using is for someone very, very special... someone she knows will see this painting."