Disclaimer: I do not own the His Dark Materials Series.

A/N: FINALLY caught all the way up now! Thank you for your patience. :)

Chapter 29

Golden Auroras

Will stared as the man choked and coughed from his place on the cool grass, clutching at his chest as his daemon dug her claws into his shoulders. He looked out of breath and nauseated, as if he'd been on a great roller coaster and was now hobbling off after spinning around for twenty minutes straight. Will felt bad for him, almost, as he seemed very shaken. That couldn't be a good feeling.

"Get up," Mrs. Coulter spat to him. Her face, still flecked with dirt, was hard as she glowered over at him. Her lip twitched as she moved a heeled boot to press down on the man's arm. He groaned as she smiled, her eyes still locked intensely on him as she pressed down and he scrambled to get out of her way.

She seems to be enjoying this, Will observed, something unsettling stirring through him. That's not...natural. What is she doing? Why did she bring him here?

Will remembered hearing a certain expression in school that seemed fitting here: keep your friends close and your enemies closer. It made sense, in a way, since it helped to keep tabs of what enemies were doing. It was easier to anticipate their next move if you knew what it was, to be sure. But it still felt strange, for Mrs. Coulter to bring this man here and not Sir Charles, as Will still didn't know who he even was or what he'd done and why Mrs. Coulter seemed to take pleasure in tormenting him like this.

"Perhaps some introductions are in order," Mrs. Coulter said then, her eyes flickering toward Will. Will gulped as her eyes met his, and he felt himself scoot closer to Lyra, who was watching the scene passively with the smallest hint of a frown on her face.

"Will," Mrs. Coulter continued, "this is Father Hugh MacPhail. He serves as Father President of the Consistorial Court of Discipline in the Magisterium in our world. I worked with him conducting my research. And it appears now he's taken it as his charge to hunt me down."

"Don't flatter yourself," Father MacPhail hissed at her, moving up into a slouch. He spit out what looked like blood as he wiped his mouth and then looked down at his swollen hand, his daemon moving toward the center of his lap.

"So you're not here to seek me?" Mrs. Coulter asked, voice so light as if she were asking him how many lumps of sugar in his tea.

"Not only you," he grunted, and at that he turned to look over at Lyra, as if it were the first time he fully noticed her.

The atmosphere in the room changed then in an instant. Mrs. Coulter leaned forward and extended her hand to move his face back to her. The man resisted, trying to wiggle away from her grip, but her mouth twisted and she squeezed down harder, causing the man to groan.

"You will not look at her," Mrs. Coulter growled. "You will not address her. You will not even breathe near her. If you do I will cut out your eyeballs with that knife and feed it your daemon. Do you understand me?"

"What's going on?" Will finally whispered to Lyra, his voice low enough that neither of the adults could hear him. They were standing so close that their shoulders were brushing and they could feel one another tensing at the scene occuring before them.

"I dunno," Lyra said, her brow furrowing as Pan let out a frustrated sigh in his ermine form. "There's something going on that I just don't know. The alethiometer never told me Father MacPhail was looking for me…"

"Will she hurt him?" he asked then, watching as the golden monkey plucked the lizard from the man's lap and bore his teeth at her. He had understood why they had acted violent before, as they were quite literally being attacked and threatened. But now, when they outnumbered him and he wasn't even posing a threat? Why did Mrs. Coulter need to act like this? And it was disturbing, to see the woman who had so kindly cradled him as he bled from the knife and who had patiently done up his bandages now so ruthlessly hurt the man in front of them. Will didn't know what to think.

"Yes," said Lyra. Her eyes narrowed. "She will. Without even feeling bad about it."

"Do you think she, that she'll… kill him?"

"Probably not." Lyra's voice sounded sad then, like she was admitting a truth she was most displeased with. "She's not stupid. She knows he's worth more alive, and apparently with us."

"But worth what ? What does she want to know from him?"

"I said what did the Cardinal tell you to do?"

The children were snapped back over to Mrs. Coulter as a loud slap filled the air. She'd assaulted the man's cheek and was crouching right in front of him, with the golden monkey crouched similarly right at her side. They were mirrors of malice as they towered over the cringing man. Father Macphail's breathing sped up as he gazed down toward the ground.

"To find you," he replied, "and to go with Boreal, who had seen you. I've already told you that."

"What else?" Mrs. Coulter's voice was doing a very strange thing. It was a breathy, high-pitched sort of hiss that sounded quite animalistic. It scared Will, and apparently scared Lyra as he felt her hand brush against his arm.

"Nothing concerning you," he gruffed, and Will had to look away as Mrs. Coulter struck him again.

After a few more minutes, Mrs. Coulter pulled some rope from her bag and tied the man up and left him against a giant stone, with the monkey still overpowering the lizard daemon. She then came over to Will and Lyra, who were watching her quite apprehensively.

"I'm so sorry you had to see that," she said to them, her face troubled as she settled down beside them on the grass. The world they'd cut into seemed to be empty. They were sitting in a large, grass clearing that extended as far as the eye could see. The sky was a sort of dark blue-gray that showed a constellation of planets on its horizon, which filtered light through to them now. There were no bugs or birds or anything that they could hear, which didn't mean they didn't exist but that made them feel so entirely alone.

"Thank you for saving me, Will." Moving his gaze from the sky back to Mrs. Coulter, Will saw her smile grimly over at him. She looked tired but grateful. "It means so much that you came back. I just wanted you to get Lyra away, but I'm glad you were able to help me, too."

Will simply nodded, avoiding her eyes. It was the right thing to do, and he doesn't regret it, but he couldn't stop thinking about that man and the suffering he was going through, and how it was Will's fault.

"What are you gonna do with Father MacPhail?" Lyra asked her then.

"See what he knows," Mrs. Coulter said, moving to brush a piece of hair from Lyra's face. But Lyra flinched away, shuffling closer to Will and glaring over at her mother with a strange sort of defiant disapproval.

"Lyra," Mrs. Coulter said then, and her eyes suddenly pooled. Will was struck with the feeling her gaze omitted. It expressed such warmth and sorrow that it overwhelmed him. "I'm only doing what I have to. You don't know these people like I do. They're highly dangerous, Lyra. And they...seem to want to find you."

"But why?" Pan changed into a small panther as Lyra leaned forward, her eyes wide as she searched Mrs. Coulter's. "I don't understand. The alethiometer isn't telling me anything, and I ask it about things I should worry about. But it hasn't said anything at all. Can't you tell me?"

"I don't know what it is," her mother murmured back. It was clear that Mrs. Coulter was frustrated, not at Lyra but in general as she let out a puff of air and then looked back at Father MacPhail. "I'm trying my best, darling. But I don't know. And I can't protect you if I don't know what I'm protecting you from."

What a mess they were in. Will stood up and walked away from the both of them and further into the empty clearing. He was jealous sometimes that both Lyra and Mrs. Coulter had daemons to talk to during times like this. It must be nice to have a friend who sensed your every sentiment and could feel exactly what you felt and understand the things you just couldn't find the words to say. Lyra had said to Will once that he did have a daemon but that it was simply inside of him. He didn't know how true that was, but sometimes he thought about it and wished, for even just a brief moment, his daemon could show itself and help him figure out what to do.

Because at the moment, he didn't know what to do. He was on the run as a fugitive with two people who were also fugitives of sorts, it seemed. Will wanted above all to find his father, to bring him home and solve all of his problems. That was a childish thing to think, and not something Will was proud of. But he couldn't help it. And now with this knife, if he only knew where his father was, he could go to him, and bring him home, and then finally face the police…

He heard footsteps behind him and expected to see Mrs. Coulter but instead found Lyra.

"You okay?" she asked him, eying him cautiously.

"Yeah," he said, looking off into the distance at what looked like a cloud starting to form around one of the planets.

"It's all pretty messed up, isn't it?" She came to his side now and followed his gaze, head tilted to the side.

He couldn't quite figure Lyra out. When they'd first met, she'd been ballistic, saying she knew he was a murderer and ranting on and on about her mother. And then they'd traveled, and they learned more about each other and survived finding the knife together and it seemed like they were actually friends. But he still couldn't figure her out. She hated her mother, yet she loved her mother; she wanted to learn more about Dust, and Dust seemed to be ruining everything in the world around them. It was infuriating sometimes, thinking about all the contradictions. But it was comforting, to know she seemed just as lost as he was.

"What are we gonna do, Lyra?" he finally asked her, looking away from the horizon to face her. "Can you ask the alethiometer?"

"I can," she said, turning to him, too, "but last time it told me to ask you what you wanted to do, and to do it. Because what you've got to do, it's important."

What is it I've got to do? Will again felt completely and utterly lost. All these people seemed to know about him and said he had something important to do and that everything connected to them. But how could that be, when he himself didn't have the slightest clue of what he was supposed to do?

"It says it's about your father, and that you...you've read some letters."

Surprise flitted through Will then. He hadn't known Lyra had been asking the alethiometer questions about him. It distressed him, in a way, and he momentarily wondered what else she might have asked and what it is she knew, but then he grew distracted thinking back to the letters. They were in his pack, actually, but he didn't need to reference them to remember what they said and what his father was looking for.

"He was looking for a window," he whispered aloud, for Lyra's sake but also his own. "A window that crossed between worlds, and like the ones I can make with the knife…"

They stopped talking then as they heard other footsteps approach. It was Mrs. Coulter, watching them with a sort of curious expression as she stopped just a few feet away.

"Will?" she called out. "I was wondering if you could help me with something?"

"With what?" he called back instinctively, although he did pause to wonder what she wanted and, really, if he wanted to help her.

"We have a few things we need to do," she said. "First, we have to go back and warn Dr. Malone. I don't think they knew where she is, but I don't want her to get worried or to get into trouble. Then, we need to think of a place we can go and hide again. And figure out what to do with our friend tied up over there."

"Alright," Will sighed, exchanging a nod with Lyra and then heading back toward the rock. He didn't entirely trust Mrs. Coulter in this moment and given her behavior. But she was all he had, he supposed, along with Lyra. And it was going to have to be enough until he could find his father and figure everything out.