AN: I'm not sure what I think of this chapter. It felt like it took me for ever and a day to write; it was like when I wasn't busy and finally had the time to work on it, my mind was all tired and in "wander mode" which didn't help me keep my focus at all. At one point I actually was so tired that, after staring at the screen for twenty-minutes or so, thinking, "Okay, am I starting to get writer's block or something? What's up with this?", I finally just broke down said to myself, "Okay, forget this, I'm going to watch a movie instead." And I did. As you can see, after the movie, I was a good little fanfic writer and returned to work, though. So finally I've gotten this chapter done and posted, and I hope it's good. (BTW: Is it just me or is the whole "Everybody bickers with Lord Asriel" thing starting to get a bit repeative? If so, I'll have to keep that in mind when I start work on the next chapter.)

Rising slowly and creeping out of the cell, signaling with a wave of his hand in the dim but greatly increased lighting for Trumpkin to come along, Edmund-Ella still on his shoulders, where she would make the least din with her broad, feathery wings-obediently followed his sister's husband down the prison hall. He wasn't sure if his brother-in-law had a real plan, or if he was just making it up as they went along, nor did he really care; he was both too excited to be free and too stunned at seeing Peter again after all this time to give into the rush of worry that formed a dense cloud somewhere in the back of his mind.

The smell of dead fish and seal guts was still potent, but as Edmund had had more time to adjust to it, it was Peter who's nose wrinkled the most and who frequently had to swallow back a choking cough when he inhaled too deeply.

"Come on," said Peter when it seemed safe to risk saying a few words provided that they were whispered. "This way."

Edmund shook his head and grabbed onto Peter's upper arm. "No, not that way." He motioned his head in the other direction. "I think that just leads to a sort of retiring room where the guards can smoke pipes and take their meals. I hear them going to and coming from that direction during breaks in their duty-time. I'm fairly certain of it."

"What's the other way?"

Edmund bit his lower lip, concentrating.

Honestly, he wasn't positive what was in that direction because he'd never been taken that way and he couldn't go by the sound of foot-falls and boots for everything. "I don't know." He glanced down at Trumpkin, wondering if the DLF knew, but then quickly remembered that the dwarf hadn't even known he was in Svalbard to begin with before he'd told him. Drat!

"Well," whispered Peter, taking care to keep talking under his breath at all times, "I guess we're going to have to find out-we can't stay here."

Trumpkin and Edmund nodded. Ella risked a quick wing-flap to emphasize her agreement.

They crept, at first, down a passageway that looked very dungeon-like and was lit only by a few slanted, dusty, slightly weather-beaten skylights. Then, after a while, they came to a corridor that had carpeting; thin, rough, not very nice carpeting, but still carpeting all the same as opposed to dirt or cement or even ice.

Coming up directly in front of them was a wide wooden staircase (most staircases in Svalbard had to be made wider than average, to accommodate the ice bears' great size).

Why couldn't the guard have had something useful in his doublet pocket? Peter thought wistfully. Like a miniature map or a schedule, or anything else that would give a general idea of the lay-out of Svalbard's capitol. All he found was some lint and a small black-and-white photogram of a hound puppy; nothing useful.

They took the stairs, having no other choice until they came to a branch. A thinner staircase with a thin railing of polished cherry-wood came up on one end. It appeared to be a new installment and Peter figured those stairs had probably been added specifically for the human guards, likely leading up to a look-out tower, also recently built. It was too narrow and light-weight for bears and it bore too much of a manicured, perfectly up-kept look to be very old.

In the other direction there was only one step up, wide enough for a train to pass through. That way was lit by giant-sized oil lamps hanging from the wall. The oil used must have been from whales, because there was a distinct odor of burning blubber and salt wafting into their faces. Edmund thought it was unpleasant but no worse than what he'd been used to smelling in his prison cell.

The carpet above where the single-step ended was rich and crimson with fractured-looking Christmas Rose patterns in orange and white running through it thinly. It was slightly frayed, having been trod on great deal, obviously passed over on a daily basis, but it was still grand. Clearly, this was where the prison parts of Svalbard's castle ended and the royal apartments and chambers began.

It wasn't a particularly nice situation to be lost in a castle so enormous that it housed courtiers belonging to a bear-king's court, however, there was something cheering about simply not being in a dungeon anymore in itself.

The three of them wandered along as if in a dream, blinking occasionally, drinking in what the oil lamps' lights would show them in-between a few troublesome flickers. Ella kept dead-silent, not even clanking her beak out of nervous habit.

A peril of laughter came from nearby, causing Peter to jump and look back at Edmund and Trumpkin. He knew it wasn't a human laugh, it was too dense and rich-sounding for that, but Trumpkin's serious, completely unmoved face assured him that it wasn't a dwarf-laugh either. It had to be ice bears.

There were two over-sized blocks of evergreen-wood that opened like French-doors, though they were much more massive and less delicate than French-doors found in a human-run palace would have been, on their right. Peter hastily pushed on these doors to get them open. Edmund and Trumpkin ran in and Peter scrambled to slam the doors shut behind them and himself.

Trumpkin panted, feeling for the left pocket in his breaches where he'd once kept a pipe; not because he expected one to still be there, just out of frustration and habit.

The walls were thick; no one, unless someone else was in the room (and that didn't appear to be the case), could hear them, so they could talk more openly now.

"That was close." Peter smiled weakly.

"I'll say," muttered Trumpkin.

"How did you get back?" Edmund asked his brother-in-law, remembering that the last time they'd seen each other, Peter had been walking through the Northern Lights into another world-his birth world.

"I fell into a fountain."

"No, seriously," said Edmund, thinking he was joking. Ella chuckled at the 'jest'.

"I am serious," Peter laughed, knowing how odd it sounded. "I got here by falling into a fountain. Then, I found myself trapped in a frozen water-trough." He sighed. "It's been a long day."

"So I see," agreed Edmund, chuckling along with his dæmon.

"How did you get yourself thrown into a prison in Svalbard to begin with?"

"I refused to sign a piece of paper."

"No, seriously." Peter's brows furrowed.

"I am serious."

"He's an alethiometrist," Ella said to no one in particular.

"Tell-tale," Edmund scoffed at his dæmon with mock-anger.

"Really, Ed?" Peter asked.

"Why is everyone so surprised by that?"

Peter shrugged his shoulders unknowingly. Then, "And what about Lucy? Where is she?"

Edmund told him about what had happened when the Ruling Powers arrived at their flat and took him prisoner, and how he had hidden Lucy from their sight using a trap-door.

"So, hopefully that's all right," finished Edmund, a bit lamely.

"Wait a minute." Peter's facial expression was suspicious for a second. "You were living together?"

"Nothing happened."

"Nothing whatsoever?"

"I wouldn't have," Edmund reminded him.

"You swear it?"

"I swear it, Pete."

Peter relaxed and Edmund saw from his face that he had never truly doubted him to begin with. "That's all right. I trust you, Ed." He lightly patted his brother-in-law's left arm. "Thanks for looking after her."

"That's what I'm here for." Edmund grinned. Realizing after the words were out how that sounded, he added, "Well, not literally here (in Svalbard) for…I actually, well, yeah, I guess it's sort of why I'm here-though it isn't. It kind of depends which way you want to look at it." He paused, his forehead crinkling, having puzzled himself with his own nervous chattering. "I know, it's confusing."

"Only the way you tell it," said Trumpkin dryly, still terse both from the stress of their current jailbreak and from tobacco withdrawal.

"Where are we?" Peter thought aloud, looking around the room.

"Considering every wall in here is covered with shelves storing small rectangular objects used to keep information in, I'm going to take a wild guess and say the library." Although Trumpkin spoke scornfully, there was a distinctive playfulness underlying his rough tone and both Peter and Edmund could tell he wasn't trying to be harsh.

Suddenly Edmund remembered how-jokingly-he had mentioned taking the book about Dust and Alethiometers from Svalbard because the Ruling Powers had confiscated the one Susan had gotten from Iorek back in Norroway.

He was in earnest about that now, since they found themselves right in the most likely spot for the book to be, and made a dash for the nearest shelf, looking for signs of a slip-volume.

"What are you doing?" Peter asked, fast-walking over to him.

Edmund told him.

"Why would they need to hide it in a secret compartment here, though?" Peter wondered aloud. "I mean, they must think it's perfectly safe in the panserbjørne court."

Edmund hadn't thought of that; he turned round and went over to where a glass-front, rose-wood shelf (the only one that wasn't lining the walls but, rather, was placed almost in the centre of the room) stood. If they weren't hiding the book, what better place to put it than behind clear glass where anyone who visited the library could see the tome held in captivity?

At first he saw only Ella's snow-coloured refection against the dark pane; but then, squinting, he could make out the different books. A great number of them didn't look real, those were more like props, almost as though the bear king was trying to make the library seem even more elaborate and full than it really was. Which would make sense. There hadn't always been a library in Svalbard (precious things held under lock and key had been kept elsewhere then); it was a recent addition, just like most of the more humanized parts of the castle were.

Some of the books behind the glass were real, though, including the one Edmund was looking for. It was dead in the centre-which looked horribly pompous-and if they feared heretics breaking in and taking it, well, it didn't show in the design of the case. Oh, it was locked all right, and Edmund couldn't lift it since he didn't have the key, but that wasn't exactly discouraging.

Much in the same way that the bear-guards' armour was all for show, the bookcase was as flimsy as it was intricately carved and elegant.

"Stand back," Edmund told Trumpkin and Peter, as Ella flew off his shoulder and landed on a small table next to a beautiful but inaccurately mapped-out globe inlaid with gold and diamonds.

Peter and the dwarf stood back and watched, slightly dumbfounded, as Edmund picked up the globe and smashed it into the bookcase shattering the glass instantly.

Wincing, Peter waited for the sound of an alarm, but none came. Right before the crash of breaking glass, he had been about to suggest that they try picking the lock with some sort of small, wire-thin object, if they could find one. Now he didn't need to. Not that it mattered; he supposed this way worked fine, too. No need to be picky.

Without worrying about the state of his hands which were already a bit scuffed up from the long days in prison anyway, Edmund reached in and grabbed the book, shaking a few tiny shards off of the engraved leather binding and onto the floor.

"Mind the glass splinters," said Ella, like a reminding voice in her master's mind. She repeated the order for Trumpkin and Peter when they appeared to be about to misstep, but it was a tad awkward because dæmons generally tend to address their own humans and other dæmons for the most part, and so speaking directly to two creatures who had no dæmons was an unnatural experience, however accustomed to it she was becoming.

"This is going too well," Trumpkin muttered as they crept out of the library, Edmund clutching the book he'd just pilfered, Ella flying ahead of them to double-check that the coast was clear.

"It's all right," the snowy-owl-dæmon told them; "nobody's coming."

This is going too smoothly, Edmund thought, now that Trumpkin had voiced what they were all thinking, beginning to feel anxious. Something had to go wrong.

Sooner or later, the guards or the food-cart pullers would have to realize he wasn't in his cell anymore.

That is, unless, by some lucky chance, they thought he had been taken out for questioning or torture or to be moved to another prison. But, then, wasn't simply being in Svalbard bad enough? What worse prison could they dream up for him? It was freezing here, the smell was awful, the food was ghastly, and nothing was up to par with health regulations.

They had to get out, and they had to get out now. Which way, though? That was the problem; none of them had any idea where they were going. In all likelihood, if Peter had not remembered the stable-like storage room he had originally come out of and eventually, once he'd managed to create something of a vague map of the way he had been traveling in the bear king's palace in his head, taken them back there, they probably would have either been hiding behind things for weeks or else gotten caught.

Another stroke of pure luck was that the corridor they took before making it outside to the path going to the storage room (which was, in many ways, more like a shed) turned out to circle around in a downward cork-shaped spiral of stairs and levels into one of the servants' pantries installed in light of there currently being more humans in the palace than Svalbard was used to providing for.

Peter and Trumpkin were able to stuff a fair share of food and provisions for their journey out of Svalbard into three large burlap sacks, and a fourth sack was found for Edmund to hide his book in.

But then there came the trouble over transportation. Edmund wanted to fix up an old sleigh with a broken rudder that was partially buried in the straw in the storage room and use it for getting out of the harsh area more quickly, but Peter pointed out that they didn't have any animals at their disposal to pull it.

"I hate to say it," Edmund sighed, fighting back a cough, "but it seems like we'll have to walk out."

Two pairs of eyes-three, if his dæmon's wide owl eyes looking incredulous counted-stared back at him blankly. Trumpkin's mouth was slightly agape.

The very notion was laughable. How could they walk out of Svalbard? Someone would see them; it was too vast and open and white for anyone to go unnoticed for any extended period of time. And, even more important, where would they go if they-against all odds-did get out?

"What the devil are you doing talking in this filthy hell-hole?" a harsh voice demanded.

Ella jumped and let out a squawk of terror, sensing a dæmon sneaking up behind her. She flapped her wings and flew up into the rafters both to get further away from the other dæmon and to catch a proper glimpse of it.

When she saw it was Stelmaria and that the man who had spoken to them was none other than Lord Asriel, she let out a hiss that sounded like a tea-kettle boiling over. Edmund felt his whole body tense up and clenched his fists.

"You! What are you doing here?" he demanded, his owl-dæmon swooping down from the rafters now.

"It could simply be that I'm getting a bit soft from these long-winded adventures and the cold in general," said Lord Asriel, a light eyebrow arching itself questioningly, "but everyone reacting like that when I enter a room is beginning to strike a nerve."

"I suppose you trying to kill my sister didn't strike any of my nerves," Edmund practically spat, folding his arms across his chest. "Or that your lying to Lucy all that time didn't upset me."

"First of all," said Asriel, scoff-laughing as if he couldn't believe they were back on that subject again, "I didn't try to kill your sister."

"Oh? Is that so?" He rolled his eyes, making it clear that he was being sarcastic. "Perhaps I misunderstood."

"And Lucy is none of your business," Lord Asriel went on. "She's my daughter, I'll tell-or not tell-her whatever I want. I will not be told off by some smart-mouthed little boy."

"I'm not a little boy," said Edmund, taking a bold step forward. "Can you not guess why I'm here in Svalbard?"

"Heresy? Ruling Powers getting too big for their breeches again?"

"Yes, that, and also because I'm an alethiometrist."

"Really." Lord Asriel's tone, dare anyone believe it, actually sounded somewhat impressed.

"Oh, and Lucy is my business," Edmund added smartly, "just so we're clear. Mine and Peter's. We've done more looking after her than you ever had time to do."

"If you both want her so badly, don't flatter the child by thinking I'd stand in your way." Lord Asriel glanced over at the sack currently at the alethiometrist's feet, and Edmund wondered if he suspected that the book was hidden in there. "She made it perfectly clear the last time I saw her that she doesn't see me as her father. If she's more Pevensie's father's child than mine," –here he stopped and looked at Peter for a moment; "then, well, what concern is it to me? You must know that I have important work to do-with the Ruling Powers giving endless trouble, I don't have time to kiss away a little girl's hurt feelings. Lyra understands that."

"Lyra understands nothing," Peter interjected softly, sounding a bit sad. "She admires you still, and you've done precious little to earn that."

"And Lucy is not a child," added Edmund.

"Worse than a child is an irksome young woman." Lord Asriel patted Stelmaria's flanks. "Speaking of which, Pevensie, whatever happened to that wife of yours? I haven't seen her around here."

"Hang it all! She isn't with you, then?"

"No."

"Lyra?"

"Not with you, Pevensie?"

"Of course not…it's only me, Ed, and Ed's old manservant dwarf, Trumpkin."

"Well they must have come up someplace different then."

"Yes, yes," said Edmund hurriedly. "We've established that."

"Good." Lord Asriel took off the rifle he was wearing slung over his left shoulder and checked to make sure it had bullets. "Let's go."

"Go?"

"Well if you'd rather rot in Svalbard, Coulter…"

"Don't call me that."

"What do you expect me to call you then?"

"Alethiometrist."

"Why?"

"Because," said Edmund, bending down and lifting up the sack; "I'm not a Coulter, and you can't blasted well call me by my first name since we're not on those terms. My friends can call me Edmund; we're not friends. And what I am is hardly a secret anymore."

"Fine. Take this, Alethiometrist. You'll need it." He thrust something into his hands.

Edmund examined it. "A pistol?"

"You didn't think you could just stroll out of here without any weapons to defend yourself, I hope."

Ella few over to Stelmaria and scratched her on the nose with her bird-claw. The snow-leopard winced and tried to snap her teeth at the owl.

"Control your dæmon, Alethiometrist." Lord Asriel frowned at him.

"Bad owl," Edmund said off-handedly with no enthusiasm as he checked the pistol for bullets and Asriel handed another pistol to Peter and a bow and three arrows to Trumpkin. "No, don't do that, Ella." He shrugged his shoulders. "Well, I tried."

"You must be exhausted," sneered Lord Asriel.

"I am," said Edmund coolly.

"Dwarf, take care of those arrows," warned Lord Asriel. "Those three were the only ones I could find. If you use them you better bloody well hit the mark and kill something, otherwise it will have been a dreadfully waste."

"The DLF happens to be a famous bowman," Edmund said without looking up from his pistol as he adjusted something on it, hoping he wouldn't accidentally set it off as it had been a good while since he'd last handled one.

"Then why was he ironing your socks?"

"The archery competitions were called off on account of everyone went looking for your brain," Edmund came up with.

"Ed!" scolded Peter, trying-in vain-not to laugh at that. "You're not five."

"For the record," Trumpkin felt he had to say, gruffly, "I never ironed his socks. Or anybody's socks. I don't iron...at all."

"Let's stop this chatter," Peter grunted, getting fed up. "And can someone please, for the love of God, tell me how to take the safety off of this thing?" He looked back down at the pistol in his hand. He hated guns; he was useless with them. Where was a good sword like Rhindon when he needed it?

"Let's get this over with." Lord Asriel snatched Peter's pistol, took off the safety, and then thrust it back at him so hard it was more like shoving it at his stomach.

"Gee, thanks," groaned Peter, grimacing.

"Where are we going?" Ella asked Stelmaria flat out.

"Probably back to the cabin I was staying in the last time I was in this world. We just can't stay for too long," answered Lord Asriel. "They might come looking for us there if we did that."

"You can't possibly think poor Thorold is still there?" said Edmund incredulously. The moment he said it, however, he felt certain both that Lord Asriel did think that and also that Thorold and his pincher dæmon really were still waiting for his return. Unbelievable.

There was nothing else for it, they all took deep breaths and, weapons close at hand, walked out of the storage room and onto the snowy tundra.

AN: Please review and tell me if you liked the chapter.