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Chapter 28

Golden Auroras

Time seemed to slow to a standstill as the two men entered the clearing. They looked like hunters circling their prey as they arrived, movements drawn out and calculated as they creeped forward. Will gripped the knife tightly as Sir Charles glared over at him. His gaze was arrogant yet hungry as he took in the knife and Will's outstretched hand. Will was reminded suddenly of a certain artifact he took from the man's office, and how it was sitting right here in his backpack. He wondered if the man had noticed it'd gone missing, and if he'd try and get it back now—or if the knife alone consumed all his attention.

Will very much wanted to shudder in that moment. He was aware of Lyra shaking slightly next to him, too, staring not at Sir Charles but at the other man who rounded out the right flank.

"I've seen him before," Lyra whispered, "at my mother's house. I think he is—was—her boss or something. She didn't seem to like him much."

"So they're both bad?" Will whispered back, feeling even more unease trickle through him.

"Yes," Lyra answered. She didn't even need the alethiometer to determine that. It came out instantly as barely a breath. Not good, Will thought.

"Don't try and do anything rash now," Sir Charles was saying, to Mrs. Coulter but also to him as his snake eyes shifted over to his hand again. "We have help on the way and it won't end well for you."

"How did you find us?" Mrs. Coulter asked, her voice light as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. She smiled, even, like she was greeting an old friend. Will vaguely wondered how she could be completely and utterly unfazed.

"The College," Sir Charles drawled, "and then public cameras, and train records, and well-placed informants. You haven't been very careful, you know."

"Clearly not," she conceded, shrugging. It was remarkable to see her act this calm during such a terrifying moment that they'd been dreading for days. Will truly wondered how she did it, and if he could one day be as strong. "And Father MacPhail got involved how, exactly?"

"By my invitation," Sir Charles sneered back, again glancing toward Will and the knife.

He can find us anywhere, Will thought, feeling himself start to panic. I'm not safe anywhere.

After the two went back and forth a few more times and Will's heart rate continued to speed up, several things happened at once. First, Mrs. Coulter looked Will straight in the eye and called out, "take her!" Then, both Mrs. Coulter and her daemon sprung. The monkey darted for Sir Charles, barreling into him and then finding the man's daemon up his sleeve. The monkey took the daemon and squeezed down hard, causing the grown man to cry out and bend over. For her part, Mrs. Coulter rammed into the other man, catching him unawares and knocking him over. She clawed at his face and kicked him in the groin, eliciting a painful shout from the man as his lizard daemon squirmed and did her best to attack Mrs. Coulter despite its weakened state.

Will took those moments to do as Mrs. Coulter said. His hand moved as if on its own accord as he sliced through the plain air, his other arm grabbing Lyra and pulling her closer to him. A portal appeared, just like the one with the hornbeam trees and the ones he'd opened here just a few minutes ago as he practiced. He didn't know where it led, since he'd cut into the air with impulse, but it somehow didn't matter. The only thing he could think of was getting away.

"Let's go," he hissed to Lyra, taking hold of her and then passing through the threshold, aware of the growling and screaming still happening in his world as he left it behind.

"Wait!" Lyra called as they moved, looking back through the portal. Tears clung to her eyes. "We have to help her!"

"There's no time!" Will called, pushing her aside and then moving the knife up backwards, the scene before them fading away until it was nothing and they were left standing in a vast, barren field of grass in a strange, distant world.

"No!" Lyra charged into Will, knocking him down to the ground with so much force it shook him. He felt his ear mash painfully against a stone. "We have to go back, Will!" she insisted. Pan fluttered anxiously above them as a squawking hawk. "We can't leave her! Save her, Will! Please !"

Her voice was shrill and high-pitched and her eyes wide and quite mad-looking. Will had heard her like this once before, at the tower when Mrs. Coulter was almost attacked by the spectres. It was moving, to hear the passion that rang from her voice as she punched him and cried against him and almost tore through the thin fabric of his shirt. It made him think about the way he felt about his own mother. He wondered if he'd be this upset if it were her who was left behind. He wondered what he'd do, exactly, and how he'd handle someone else deciding what to do about her.

"Alright, alright!" he said, finally pushing her away with more force than probably necessary as he jumped back up to his feet. He couldn't leave Mrs. Coulter there, of course. It wasn't the right thing to do. She'd looked after them and had been so central a part of their process and mission that he didn't even know what to do without her, really. "Let me think about this. How do I go back? What do I do?"

"Focus your mind," Lyra said to him, a bit calmer now as she wiped away some tears that still fell down her cheek. "Think about the clearing and the grass and the people. If it's anything like the alethiometer, you need to let it know what you want."

Will calmed his mind, closing his eyes and envisioning the frightful scene they'd just escaped. He concentrated on Mrs. Coulter's thrashing arms and the golden monkey's tight squeeze and the two men shooting and flailing and struggling from the force of the two. He also allowed the feeling of his own world to swirl through his senses: the whisper of the breeze, the sound of the clock tower, the kiss of the sun hitting his forehead.

Once the scene was clearly set in his mind, his arm lashed out, finding the borders and boundaries to cross and to slice.

When he opened his eyes, he saw her. Mrs. Coulter was screaming as Father MacPhail had overpowered her, her voice a low yet high-pitched yowl. The man was crouching over her now as he held down her wrists firmly down to the ground. Her hair stood out at multiple places and dirt flecked her pale cheeks. She was basically an image of defeat. Meanwhile, Sir Charles was still grappling with the monkey, although the daemon's movements were growing weaker as his human struggled. It wouldn't be long until the monkey would lose his control.

Think fast! Will thought to himself, glancing all around them. Suddenly, he had an idea. At Lyra's protest, Will closed the window and then thought again about where Mrs. Coulter was. He saw her on the ground by a quarter-shaped rock and a patch of grass that was overtaken with seeds. He recreated that exact image in his mind as he took out the knife, held his breath, and then swiped.

He then opened his eyes to see exactly what he'd planned: Mrs. Coulter and Father MacPhail thrashing directly in front of them. Will barely had to reach his arm out to touch them.

Both Mrs. Coulter and Will were quick to act—much quicker than Father MacPhail. Will darted forward and body slammed the man to the ground, pleased with the giant thud and gasp of surprise that filled his ears. Will wasn't as tall as the man but was lithe and had the element of surprise. Mrs. Coulter jumped up and reached out for the monkey. With a sudden surge of strength at Mrs. Coulter being freed, the daemon drop-kicked the snake as hard and as far away as he could before racing back to her. With her daemon perched squarely on her shoulders, Mrs. Coulter grabbed Will by the collar of his shirt and quite roughly threw him back through the window over toward Lyra, stopping to glance back at Sir Charles. He was still on the ground but quickly recovering.

"Stop!" Father MacPhail shouted from off to the side of them, his voice crazed. "Stop this madness at once, Marisa!"

She stared down at the man coolly, with one foot through the portal and the other arched if she were priming to step on his hand. In the shimmering aura of the window, Will thought she almost looked like an angel. Her hair was wild now but glowed faintly from the light, and she had such a sparkle in her eye that Will couldn't help but feel a little bit unsettled.

What is she? he asked himself, not even remotely sure what he meant by it.

After a few more beats, Mrs. Coulter's face broke out into a wide grin.

"On second thought," she said sweetly, eyes swiveling to see Sir Charles getting up, "how about you join us, Father MacPhail? I have some questions for you as well."

And then, in an astonishing turn of events, Mrs. Coulter grabbed Father MacPhail by the shoulders, dragged him into the portal, nodded to Will, and then watched triumphantly as Will closed the portal to Sir Charles standing up and screaming over at them.