AN: This is a longer chapter than I usually write, but it's also a faster-paced one, as well.

As Lyra and Edmund walked towards the operation room, Pantalaimon, currently in his pole cat form, hissing in a low, protective tone at the feet of his little mistress, and Ella flying a little ways in front of Edmund so as to make sure the coast was clear, they heard a little cry coming from a small locker-room sort of chamber at its side.

Creeping over and sliding the door open a crack, they saw a woman-obviously one of the nurses-standing with the back of her legs pressed against a long iron-coloured metal bench, looking up into the pipe-like rafters above her.

"Billy, come down, nothing bad is going to happen." she said calmly, sighing heavily as she glanced from whoever was hiding up there to the medium-sized wall-clock to her left.

Billy? Lyra was instantly alert; could it be the same Billy she was thinking of? The Gyptian child she'd played-and fought-with as a little girl, Billy Costa, Ma Costa's little boy?

"Yous gonna hurt Ratter, aint you?" a little frightened-very familiar-voice cried from the cold metallic rafters, shivering violently and making the pipes tremor a bit.

"No, of course not, dear," the nurse said with pretend sweetness. "It's just a little operation-just a tiny cut-that's all. It wont hurt."

"Liar," Edmund muttered under his breath, remembering all the cuttings he had witnessed himself; there was no doubt about it-it hurt. The shock was probably the worse part of it, but it hurt all the same.

Thankfully the nurse didn't hear him and kept on calling to an unconvinced Billy Costa, refusing to come down. "Don't you want to grow up? This is how you grow up; it'll help you-it'll protect you."

"You people don't touch my Ratter!" he sobbed, bawling loudly, clearly in hysterics by this point. "Stay away from me!"

"Just come on down-look, it's only me, not all those people, you don't have to be afraid." the nurse cooed in a gentle tone, trying to coax him.

"Theys all waitin' in the room for me, aint they?" No one could say Billy Costa wasn't a bright boy. "In the room with that awful fence-thing."

"Billy, if you come down, I promise we'll let you go home after you've helped us."

"Lies!" wailed Billy, unconvinced.

"Come on," Edmund took a step forward and crept behind the nurse, so that Billy Costa, looking down, would be able to see him even though she couldn't.

At first, Billy was afraid, not really knowing Edmund all that well, remembering even less than Lyra did about when they'd had a companion called 'Ed' who had played with them in the muddy brooks and river-beds near Jordan College when they were very small. Then, however, Lyra stepped out and stood beside Edmund so that Billy would know he was on their side, and it took all the poor stolen-away Gyptian boy had left in him not to cry out in relief.

Moving as swiftly as if she were a hawk instead of an owl, Ella flew downwards and pinned the nurse's dæmon, a small yellowish spaniel with lack-luster black eyes, to the ground. Pantalaimon at once became a gray wolf very like Susan's Maugrim and growled at the nurse and her trapped dæmon, baring his teeth as if to show he would take no nonsense from her. The nurse gasped weakly and ran forward to help her dæmon get free.

Without thinking about what he was doing, Edmund grabbed the woman's wrists and held onto them tightly while Lyra took Billy Costa's shaking hands in her own and helped him down from the rafters. It wasn't until the boy was safely on the ground with his darling Ratter on his shoulder, her white rat-tail flicking down onto his blades, relaxing itself, that a horrible thought occurred to Edmund and made him feel rather sick.

What he was doing, holding the nurse's wrists so that she could not help her own dæmon, was the very same thing his mother had done to both Susan and Lyra, his own beloved sisters. He was doing the very thing he hated Mrs. Coulter for doing. Worse, he was doing it because he was trying to do the right thing.

This nurse wasn't a very pretty woman, or a very appealing-faced one, for that matter. There was nothing friendly or familiar about her, just an over-all blankness, her skin the colour of under-cooked oatmeal, almost as if she was just barely human. Nothing whatsoever about her resembled Susan or Lyra in the least; but as Edmund spotted a few tears and a single bead of sweat running down her face while she struggled against his grip, his own face recoiled in horror, seeing both of his sisters looking out at him through those otherwise unresponsive, meaningless eyes.

For some reason, he thought he saw just a little bit more of Susan than of Lyra-perhaps because he felt personally responsible for what had happened to her after he'd accidentally tipped off their mother to her relationship with the dæmonless boy. He couldn't do this; he couldn't endure inflicting this kind of suffering on a person with the cold, the-end-justifies-the-means disregard his mother lived by. He wasn't his father, and he wasn't his mother, either. He wasn't Edmund Coulter, he was Edmund Belacqua.

"Ella," he whispered, slowly letting go of his grip on the woman's wrists, his voice shaking and his eyes misty. "Let him go."

The owl, her wings flapping wildly, fluttering with inward turmoil, started to let the dog-dæmon up.

Although, the way Edmund was feeling, he would have much rather let the nurse go completely free, as if it would atone for his sins and those of his parents, but he knew that they couldn't risk her warning the other staff members of his presence and impeding their plan, so they locked her in a closet instead.

"Roger said you was coming," Billy Costa told Lyra. "I'd as much as give up hope, but he always said to expect you."

Lyra felt her eyes fill up with tears at the mention of her late best friend, thinking about how dearly she'd loved him, how much she still loved him, and trying her hardest not to focus on the pain that rested like a bruise under her ribs beside her broken heart. She knew she couldn't keep going if she did-that she just had to keep on moving.

"Your mum's here, Billy," she replied after a pause. "A whole bunch of Gyptians are outside-come to rescue you."

Ratter squeaked and nuzzled her boy's neck. "Home at last!"

"Edmund," said Lyra, noticing the tight look still woven all over his far-too-pale-at-the-moment face. "what is it?"

He was still reflecting on how awful it was when one did things under pressure that they would never do under normal circumstances. To feel pity for a nurse who had helped many a child to their death from shock, assisting in innumerable cutting operations, was an odder feeling than a fallen-asleep limb that's been sat on and becomes all pins and needles, but he couldn't shake it off as easily as that. Because he kept thinking about Susan and Maugrim, and Lyra and Pantalaimon, suffering. Closing his eyes tightly, letting it go, he breathed in to steady himself.

"I'm fine," he said finally. "really."

"Well, come on then, let's go." Lyra said, grabbing Billy's arm and leading him to the door.

"Were you the only one they were about to cut, Billy?" Edmund double-checked now that his brain was back in working order.

He nodded grimly and patted Ratter on the head for reassurance that she was still there, safe and sound.

"All right," Edmund swung the door open, and the three of them ran out into the hallway.

Billy grabbed a wool coat off of a shinny brass hook on the wall at the hallway's end because he didn't have his own warm clothes with him at the moment, and Lyra loaned him an extra tight-knit woolen scarf she happened to have rolled up in her pocket. He didn't want to wear it-it was bright pink (the same reason Lyra didn't care for it, actually)-but Lyra convinced him it was better than being in the freezing cold with a bare neck, and he-somewhat sulkily-consented to put it on. Edmund loaned him his own hat, a dark blue cap; he figured the poor frightened Gyptian boy needed it more than he did. For gloves, Billy had no option but to stuff his hands into his pockets when they got red, there wasn't much they could do about that.

"I hope this works," Edmund said to himself as he reached for the alarm handle, remembering how he and his dæmon had once used it to help Peter and Lucy escape. But that had been relatively easy-it was only one boy and his sister, not a whole building's worth of running, screaming, bundled up, runny-nosed children pushing out the doors against the will of the staff.

"What about Lucy and Susan?" Lyra squinted down the hall, hoping to see them coming towards them, but saw no one.

"They'll run out during the fake fire-alarm, too." Edmund said; at least he hoped they would, otherwise it would mean something had gone terribly amiss with their plans.

"Five," Lyra started counting, eyeing the door behind her as the harsh northern wind blew viciously against it. "Four,"

"Three," Edmund counted, slowly putting more pressure on the handle. Soon the alarm would be thumping endlessly through most of Bolvangar and with its help they would either succeed-or fail.

"Two," said Lyra.

Edmund paused for a moment before finishing the count down and pulling the alarm all the way. He was secretly hoping for at least a glimpse of his sister and Lucy before the noise alerted all of the other children that it was time to make a run for it, but he didn't see them and couldn't go back on the plan now.

"One!"

The alarm blasted, blaring unbearably in everyone's ears, and, as many of the flustered nurses thought it was a fire drill for the children, they didn't think of stopping the running mob of bundled up escapees and their dæmons as they rushed to the door until it was a mite too late for them to do so without causing a ruckus.

The children didn't stop running as Lyra held the doors open and shouted above the alarm's endless siren sounds for them to keep going until they saw the Gyptians and an armoured bear.

As for Edmund, he motioned for Lyra to leave with the others, knowing they wouldn't make it three feet without her telling them which way to go, never mind all the way to Iorek, Peter, Lee Scoresby, and the Gyptians, but he stayed until the last child (it happened to be Bridget, the fairy-tale blond with the dæmon who was favoring the form of a squirrel at the time) was making her way out, waiting eagerly for Lucy and Susan. They still hadn't shown.

Bridget tripped and fell and six children directly in front of her, obviously of tender hearts though they couldn't have had much of an upbringing from the scrappy looks of them, turned around to help her back up off of her knees.

What had happened was that Susan had indeed been seen by her mother who had searched the building for her after she'd escaped the retiring room through the vents, but she hadn't been caught sight of before finding Lucy, and, thinking to save both their skins, she pulled her sister-in-law down several hallways until they came to-ironically enough-the operation room.

Likely, someone would have grabbed them and dragged them to Mrs. Coulter's feet, but there was a good deal of confusion; first because of Billy Costa who had pulled away before they could cut him from his dæmon and then ran off into another room; and then because of a very loud, and completely unexpected, fire drill. Already frazzled from Mrs. Coulter's sudden arrival, they did little more than run out of the room, grabbing their smocks and coats and warm hats as quickly as possible; only to be nearly run-over by a stampede of racing children.

So, somehow or other, it had led to Lucy and Susan being alone in the room with only their dæmons for company. Knowing they had a short time to get out, Susan quickly caught her breath and turned to leave, hoping her mother hadn't seen them come this way. To her surprise, however, Lucy wasn't right behind her-she stared intently and hatefully at the fencing and controls used for the cutting operation, remembering her own near separation from her dearest Reep. No, they would not get away with this. They would not do it to another helpless child who'd been stolen away from the only world they knew to have something like this happen to them. They wouldn't; she would make sure of it.

Pulling all the dials as high up as they would go, Lucy picked up the main controller and flung it into the middle of the wire fencing with all her might. For a moment nothing happened. Then, sparks-small at first but soon to become larger. Ever-growing explosions started; and Lucy felt Susan cease her hand; Maugrim let out a distressed bay as they made a break down the hallway. Reepicheep, in the form of a scampering little white mouse, twisting his tiny whiskered face into a firm, hard-pressed sort of look, actually managed to ride out of the exploding room on Maugrim's tail.

Drawing closer to the open front doors, they saw Edmund and Ella standing near the alarm, a cloud of deep relief passing across his stormy expression when he caught sight of them. Ella instantly flew over to Reepicheep and picked him up off of Maugrim's back (he had climbed up there from the tail), carrying him gently in her claws, trying to get him closer to the door so that he would get out and Lucy would have to follow hastily, not being able to be that far from him. The mouse squeaked once from surprise; but as he trusted Ella unboundedly, he did no more than simply that, and was soon out the door, his mistress right behind him, barely two tail-lengths away.

As she dashed out into the midst of the other children, Lucy glanced back over her shoulder at Edmund for a moment, and without knowing why, felt a light stream of tears prick at her eyes, freezing like little glass beads on the tips of her eyelashes.

Susan paused at the double doors, shivering. Maugrim stood just about as far away from her as he comfortably could, closer to Edmund and the fire alarm than to his mistress.

"Susan, go on!" Edmund exclaimed, wondering why she wasn't running out and helping Lucy and Lyra with the other children.

"Not without you." she said after a moment.

"I'll be fine," he insisted; Ella snapping her beak at Maugrim, urging him onwards. "I'm right behind you, honest, just go!"

"Mother's here, Edmund." Susan shivered again-but not because of the cold whipping from the open doors slapping mercilessly at her reddened cheeks this time.

His complexion momentarily grew somewhat chalky. "Why?"

"I don't know, but she's after us-or, at least me-she knows I'm here." Susan looked down, ashamed to have inadvertently given them away.

Maugrim, his fur standing up sharply at the nape of his neck, came closer to his human-and the door-ready to go, eager to go, but not yet willing to do so. He stared hard at Ella, almost as if he wanted her to ride out on his back, just to be sure of her safety-and of Edmund's.

But Edmund was hesitant and a wicked little hiss rang out-almost louder than the fire alarms.

Mrs. Coulter's golden monkey had appeared seemingly out of no where and had charged, not at Maugrim as might have been expected, but at Ella, who flapped her wings wildly to get away, securing herself by sinking her claws into Edmund's left shoulder the second she reached it, breathing heavily.

Watching her son, and seeing her daughter by the door with her wolf-dæmon, Mrs. Coulter's mind reeled. She had lost Susan, she had to admit defeat there; yet, Edmund, she was sure, had to be-deep down in his core-still very much her son, on her own side, the way he was supposed to be. It was true that she had all but abandoned him at Jordan College a while back. Be that as it may, it wasn't supposed to be for ever, he was Bolvangar's boy, he was hers.

A fire created from the sparks caused by Lucy's destroying of explosive machinery in the operation room, had found its way out into the hall further up. Edmund could see the orange and yellow flames like a faint flicker, but mostly smoke, and nurses fleeing this way and that.

A tall man grabbed onto Mrs. Coulter's shoulders, not roughly, only firmly to direct her to a side door they were getting out through. She shook his gesture off half-way, signaling for him to wait a second.

Her monkey had failed to grab onto Ella and she could see Maugrim's teeth sinking into the bottom of her daughter's dress, attempting to drag her half-way outside so that the fire wouldn't get to her when it reached that part of the hall.

A few members of the staff had noticed Edmund by the alarm and had said something along the lines of, "Don't fret, he's one of ours," or something of the sort.

"Come, Edmund!" Mrs. Coulter cried, her hand stretched out, calling to her son.

His head didn't move an inch, but his eyes shifted steadily; from his mother to his sister, from the double doors to the emergency exist, from Maugrim to the horrid golden monkey.

Whether he just knew exactly what his mother was thinking, or else had simply over-heard the staff, the words burst out of him, out of Edmund Belacqua. "I'm not yours!" He slammed his hand hard against the wall as he backed towards the double doors, closer to his sister now. "I'll never be yours!"

Somewhere in a far-off room, glass shattered and another horrible explosion rang out over the alarm. Edmund, his dæmon still safely on his shoulder, ran out the front doors towards the children.

There was something the matter, though, they had all stopped moving forward, it seemed. Several of them trembled uncontrollably from fear and cold, a few cried ice-tears, weeping all the more so from the pain of the hardened frost on their faces.

"What's happening?" Edmund asked anxiously.

Ella, who had flown above the crowd to get a better look, told him. "All the hunters and guards are there; most of them have ferocious-looking wolf-dæmons, and they've got weapons-swords and rifles-as well."

Pushing his way through the crowd of terrified, horror-stricken children, Edmund found his way to the front of the group, where both Lyra and Lucy stood, staring bolding back into the guard's stern faces, unmoved. Pan was in his bulkiest pole cat form, hissing as threateningly at the guard's dæmons as he dared, his face screwed up and beautiful in an ugly-warrior sort of way. Reepicheep stood his ground as a long, sleek black cat with eyes so bright and a muzzle so intensely glowering that he seemed almost like a miniature panther.

"Go back," snarled a hunter-one of the few men there who had a large fox instead of a wolf for a dæmon-in a broken-sounding English. "I command you!"

Lyra took a step forward. Billy, impressed, and having been standing just a little ways off, came and stood by her side; they clasped hands and glared adamantly at the guards, refusing to go back. They didn't bother to explain that the place was on fire, that there was no where to go back to, they just kept perfect, non-fearful eye-contact at all times.

Next, Edmund came and took Lucy's hand just as Billy had taken Lyra's. His gaze unwaveringly on the guards, he spat at them and hissed, "Go on, then!"

A wolf-dæmon growled; it wasn't a handsome wolf like Maugrim, it was a hideous, dark brownish-gray thing with wet yellow teeth and flashing wicked eyes of a reddish-orange.

Pantalaimon swallowed hard; Reepicheep let out a low roar, looking even more panther-like now, as though he were an enchanted cat of the beautiful race once worshiped in ancient Egypt in the time before fairy-tales.

Bella, coming out from the middle of the child-crowd, her dæmon in the shape of a young tiger now, hurled a snowball at one of the guard's heads.

Lyra spat at them, just as Edmund had done, nailing the one closest to her right above the cheek. "Go away!"

There came from behind a cry; the Gyptians were coming; Iorek was with them, Lee Scoresby and Peter ridding on his back atop his armour which shimmered with its rusty gleam in the dim, murky moonlight. Lee Scoresby had his own rifle and fired it threateningly at two of the guards who tried to get in his way. Arrows flew, and children were being ushered amidst all the madness and battling, to where the sleighs were.

A guard tried to grab Lucy when Edmund had let go of her hand to help a poor child some three years his junior escape from a nurse who had somehow gotten amongst the guards and was trying to haul the poor thing away.

"Better not touch me," Lucy warned the guard, taking a step back, Reepicheep yowling angrily.

Peter's sword sliced at his hip, injuring the guard and knocking him down onto his side.

"I warned him," said Lucy as Peter took her hand and tried to get her as far away from the heart of the battle as possible.

He ended up leaving her with Farder Coram, figuring no guards would attack him first, seeing as he was so old and somewhat crippled, and went to find Susan, worried because he couldn't see her.

The hunter with the fox-dæmon who had spoken before lunged cruelly at Farder Coram, knocking the old Gyptian man and Lucy both onto the ground. Farder Coram's dæmon landed protectively on top of Reepicheep, keeping him away from the fox's clacking teeth.

It looked as though the hunter intended to pierce Farder Coram right through with some sort of spear-like object, but then out of no where came a beautiful dark-haired woman who jammed the tip of an arrow into the hunter's stomach before he could harm them.

"Serafina!" Farder Coram gasped as the fairy queen nodded deeply and grabbed onto his hand, helping him up.

"I owed you." said Serafina Pekkala Le Fay with a small smile spreading across her face. "A life in exchange for a life, Farder Coram."

"The fairies!" someone-it turned out to be Lyra-screamed.

Lucy looked up and saw the sky nearly filled with flying non-human creatures riding upon their cloud-pine branches, coming to their aid, ready to fight.

They were the very same fairies Iorek had seen flying off to war when he, Peter, and Lyra had been traveling towards the little house in the snow valley before. They were flying-not to the aid of their enemies as they had feared-but to help them in their battle against Bolvangar. Behind them, stars streamed down like silver rain, landing on the ground, glowing in their brilliance, fighting the guards-keeping them away from the children and the Gyptians.

"Ramandu's daughter!" cried Lucy, looking over to the left where a beautiful woman in a midnight-coloured garment with her long golden hair held back in a sparkling silver hair-net that stopped neatly at her brow in a crown-like circlet stood holding a pearl-hilted sword made entirely of solid gold.

Meanwhile, Susan was making a run for a tall pine tree as quickly as her tired legs would carry her, escaping the pursuit of two enormous wolf-dæmons and their guards. She managed to swing herself up, but failed to get Maugrim up behind her so that he was trapped on the ground with the other wolves.

A cry of dismay escaped from her throat; it was pale-sounding and she quivered on her shaking, half-rotted branch.

One of the wolf-dæmons sank their horrid, foul-smelling candy-corn-coloured teeth into Maugrim's neck and a bay and adjourning whimper jumped out of his mouth.

Susan tried to swallow, but quickly found it too hard. Her skin, already blue with cold, went purple from lack of air through Maugrim's pain, and she felt her head spinning, the world swimming before her eyes.

That was how Peter found her; hurt, frightened, and on the edge of her endurance. He thought of charging towards the men and shoving Rhindon right into the wolf-dæmon's heart until it relaxed its jaw; however, he feared the guards stopping him or the dæmon sensing him somehow and snapping poor Maugrim's neck in half before he could rescue Susan.

A passing Gyptian-Caspian-thrust a bow and arrow into his hands, and Peter recoiled, fighting the urge to be sick. He knew he wasn't the best archer out there. For all his apparent raw talent with swords, he had very little of it when it came to shooting. He knew his aim wasn't good-that he might miss the target. He might hit the tree and miss the fighting wolves entirely. Worse, he might hit Maugrim by mistake, killing Susan instantly.

All the same, Peter knew he had to do this, and he had to get it right. His gloved fingers cramped around the bow; sweat encased his brows in ice that cut into him and made his upper eyelids smart.

"Come on," he murmured under his breath, talking to himself as he took his aim. "don't funk this."

Twang! The arrow flew; gaining more and more speed as it hurdled towards Maugrim and the other wolf-dæmon. There was dried blood on Maugrim's neck; and a vein pulsed madly as though cut into on Susan's. The arrow struck a wolf's fur; golden Dust poured out and the creature burst. Susan nearly fainted, falling down from the tree onto a snow bank, thinking for a moment that it was her Maugrim and that she was about to die, too.

It wasn't Maugrim, however, Maugrim stood up and shook crimson-stained snow off of his back, limping over to his mistress, and the other wolf's human was dead.

Peter took off running towards where he saw her fall and scooped her up into his arms the second he reached her. "Susan! Susan! Talk to me, Susan."

She moaned and opened her eyes. "Hullo,"

"Oh, thank god!" His whole body shaking with hysterics, he kissed her forehead.

She sat up in his lap in the snow and threw her arms around his neck. "Oh, Peter!"

Maugrim stared blankly at them for a moment, dazed, almost as if he didn't even know who they were for a split second before his mind cleared and it all came back to him-the woman was his human, the man his human's husband.

"I was so worried," said Peter, his voice trembling. "I should have never let you-"

"Shh..." She put her finger to his lips. "Don't."

"Are you sure you're alright?"

"Yes," She reassured him.

"Nothing broken?" Peter asked, holding her tighter still.

"I don't think so." Susan answered demurely.

He kissed her on the mouth and she kissed him back for a second, clinging to him as though she was trying to feel his heart-beat through his coat, as if he were as close to her as her own dæmon.

"Don't waste time kissing!" Maugrim rolled his eyes, giving Susan a firm nudge and Peter a light nip on the hand. "We're bloody in the middle of a battle!"

The battle for Bolvangar went on and on into the night; the fairies and stars fighting for the Gyptians while they got as many children as possible into their sleighs and onto their horses and reindeer and carried them off.

"Billy!" Ma Costa screamed when she saw her own son in the group she was helping. "Oh, my little boy, it's you!"

"Mother!" Billy Costa felt loving arms around him and hawk feathers against Ratter's side.

When he pulled away, he began searching for Lyra. He found her at last in a small huddle talking with Peter and Susan, Maugrim panting at their side, Pan an ermine a few inches away from the wolf's paws.

"Come on, Lyra!" Billy raced over to her and tugged at her hand. "Time to go home now-mosta the guards is dead and the stars wont let 'em win."

"I can't, Billy." she said, glancing over at Lee Scoresby-who, Billy realized, had been talking to them too-and then back at Susan. "I've got to go take the alethiometer to my father, the one he gave to the Master all those years ago, it might help him somehow."

"Your father?" He blinked at her, confused.

"Lord Asriel," Lyra explained quickly, recounting an abbreviated version of what Susan had just told her. "The Ruling powers...they're gonna kill him."

"The aeronaut's gonna take you?"

She nodded and, finding Lucy and Edmund suddenly at her side, grabbed onto her half-sister and half-brother's hands, giving them a light squeeze.

"God speed, Lyra," whispered Billy as she and Lucy hugged him goodbye. "God speed."

In her Zeppelin, Mrs. Coulter watched the cold gray dawn coming above the besieged, smoky, burned-brick ruins of what had once been her Bolvangar. The golden monkey stared, wide eyed and disgusted, and slipped his slinky arms around his lady's middle, crying into her fur-lined blouse.

"Should we chase them at once? So we don't have to track them down later?" one of her tall-framed menservants asked eagerly.

Lady Marisa patted her dæmon's back and shook her blonde head, pulling a soft coat of mink fur around them both. "Don't bother; I know where my children are going."

In the back of Lee Scoresby's air-ship, her back-and the backs of Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lyra-pressed against Iorek's warm pelt, Lucy yawned heavily, knowing she was about to fall asleep. Reepicheep was in his largest mouse form, already more than half-asleep in her lap. Peter and Edmund were already asleep, too, and Susan and Lyra were well on their way there. Maugrim's head was down on his paws, and Pan was a little ferret, curled up into a ball near Lyra's feet. Ella perched on a small crate of food supplies near the corner where Edmund slept with one fist curled and the other relaxed.

"We actually did it, Reep," murmured Lucy. "Now all that's left is to save Lord Asriel."

Reepicheep opened his eyes into little slits and fixed his slightly askew golden band with the red feather. "Do you think we're going back to Jordan College-after we rescue your father-I mean, Lord Asriel, from the ruling powers?"

"Of course, Reep, Peter's still a scholar, after all. But first we've got a bit to sort out," Another large yawn shook her, she shrugged it off in order to finish up her thought first. "Lyra thinks all we have to do is bring Lord Asriel the golden compass and then everything will be just fine, but we don't know that for sure, and the Ruling Powers aren't just going to let us go back to Jordan without a fight."

"But we'll win, wont we, Lucy?" Reepicheep said bravely.

"Of course," whispered Lucy as her eyelids closed and she curled up with her hands wrapped in Iorek's soft fur-far better than any muff she'd ever used.

AN: Please review.