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

A/N: Chapter 30 already! I've really enjoyed writing this story, and I'm so excited for season 2 of the show to play out as I think it'll for sure give me some great ideas as I continue with this, which I started way before we even had season 2 trailers. :)

Chapter 30

Golden Auroras

Father MacPhail grunted as Mrs. Coulter pushed him forward through yet another portal. He was blindfolded this time, though, by one of Mrs. Coulter's dark nylon stockings wrapped craftily around his head so that his vision was blurred and essentially non-existent. His arms were also bound behind his back as if he were a common criminal.

"Is this really necessary?" he asked her as she came over to his right side and placed her hand on his shoulder as she guided him forward, making him move quickly and stumble. He couldn't see her, but he could smell her lavish perfume as well as hear her scoffing at him. Eulalia was tucked under the monkey's arms, also without sight. It felt more and more ridiculous with each passing moment.

"Seeing as you and Boreal just ambushed us: yes. I find this entirely necessary."

"Marisa."

Father MacPhail was finding this new arrangement difficult to stomach. He'd known Mrs. Coulter for several years now. He'd taken an early interest in her work and her career for the ways in which she pushed boundaries. He was never certain about her, but he had watched carefully as she rose to prominence, staggered from her affair, and then completely rebuilt herself up from the ashes. Then he watched her now doing whatever it was she thought she was doing and he felt sick over it. This woman who had pledged her ambitions to the Magisterium and had offered her talents for the greater good now threw it all away entirely as she muddled through this circus with the girl. She burnt every bridge she ever built and seemed to have no problem at all with doing so.

Whatever happened after this, Father MacPhail would never forgive her. And he'd make it so that no one else in the Church ever would, either. That was a promise and a threat he'd tell her if she gave him the chance.

"Dr. Malone," he heard her call out then. There was some shuffling as Mrs. Coulter and the children moved forward, and then he heard a fourth person approach. The daemons were loitering somewhere nearby.

"Good God!" he heard a woman's voice exclaim. She sounded middle-aged or so, and British yet somehow not in the way he recognized from his own world. "What's going on here?"

"It's too complicated to explain," Mrs. Coulter whispered, "and we haven't got much time. We need to get you out of here. Will, if you would?"

Whispering then filled the air—so faint that Father MacPhail couldn't quite make it out. He supposed they were plotting their next moves and didn't want him to hear.

Which means they must plan on keeping us alive, Eulalia offered from her place somewhere to the right of him.

Lucky us, he growled in their minds, feeling anything but as he waited for whatever it was Mrs. Coulter was going to do to him.

He couldn't tell her what she wanted to hear, even if he wanted to. As Mrs. Coulter was somehow aware, there was a great prophecy that swirled around Lyra. The witches knew of it, as well as the Church. They didn't know all the details, but they knew she'd be the fall of everything. And as such, she needed to be captured where she'd be questioned, tested, locked up—whatever it took. There was much they didn't know and were still finding out slowly with Fra Pavel's careful reading of the alethiometer. Father MacPhail himself didn't have the answers; he was only the messenger and thus the wrong captive. If he could only help her see that, and see any sense at all, then maybe he'd be able to get out of here and back to his own world where he belonged.

"Right, Father MacPhail will come this way with me," Mrs. Coulter said brightly a few minutes later. "You lot stay here and don't come up. Come along now, Father."

After a winded trip up the stairs and into another room, he heard Mrs. Coulter turn the lock before coming over and tearing off the nylon stocking from his face. Bright sunlight blinded him then, making it hard to see anything except a filtered glare of Mrs. Coulter's imposing figure.

"You listen to me now," she hissed at him. Danger flickered in the blue depths of her eyes, he was starting to see as his vision evened out. "Tell me everything the Magisterium knows about Lyra."

"And why would I do that?" he sniffed. He heard Eulalia whimper in the monkey's grasp but did nothing about it. "We find ourselves on opposite sides now, it seems. Are you even with us anymore? What was it you used to say—you're either with me or against me?"

"What do you know?" she repeated hotly, ignoring what he was saying. But looking over at the golden monkey, Father MacPhail saw his tail twitch and thus knew that he'd hit a nerve.

"Just look at yourself now, Marisa," he decided to try. "What are you doing here? You're in over your head. Maybe I can help you if you just stop this madness."

It was then that she made her first move—or, rather, the monkey did. Father MacPhail felt a sharp pain in his right arm then as the woman's daemon squeezed down on Eulalia. He refused to react, but it hurt, and his daemon wiggled helplessly in the monkey's arms.

"Have you any idea how much pain I can cause you?" the woman asked gently, stepping closer. She was smiling and her tone was pleasant. She seemed to be enjoying this.

"No doubt I do." Father MacPhail was taken back almost a year ago when they'd caught an Oakley Street spy meddling into the Oblation Board's business. He was with some other officials and Mrs. Coulter as they interrogated him. All the woman had was one empty wine glass. She had made the informant cry so pitifully with the one, undamaged glass that the man cracked and told her everything. She was not one to underestimate.

"Then why resist?" she asked, tilting her head as if considering a painting on display. "You know this can't end well for you. Just tell me. It'll be easy."

"Because I don't know any more about Lyra and the prophecy than you do," he finally spat out. The room grew quieter somehow, if that were even possible. "I know you heard about it. The Cardinal told me. But I only just found out about it myself a few weeks ago, and there hasn't been any new leads since."

"You're lying." Her voice was angry, but Father McPhail could tell she believed him. Her lip trembled slightly as she continued to scorch him with the intensity of her gaze. Her eyes were flecked with hesitation, too, as well as a nestled sense of fear. She'd captured him for nothing, perhaps, and was wasting her much precious time.

"I'm not and you know it."

"Shall we break a few limbs just to be sure?" She was serious. He could see it in her eyes, and hear it in her voice. And he didn't want to go there.

"I can help you, Marisa," he decided to say next. It was something he'd been thinking about since getting involved with Boreal, and upon hearing the Cardinal's ideas about how to best approach the situation of the portal (which was basically not to). He didn't like the way things were going with current leadership, and although Marisa could hardly be considered an ally, she at least understood these matters differently. "We can help each other."

"How?" Her voice lost all of its false sweetness as she considered him carefully. Even the golden monkey looked closely at him.

"Untie me and I'll tell you."

"Don't insult my intelligence."

"Fine," Father MacPhail sighed. He'd take what he could get, he supposed. "I have an audience with the Cardinal, and you have an audience with the girl."

"And?"

"We both have something the other wants."

"I hardly care about the Cardinal," she laughed then, in a cold, bitter way.

"No, but perhaps you'd be interested in knowing that he wants to shut down the portals between worlds, pretending they don't exist and nothing has changed and that there's nothing to worry about."

Her eyebrows raised at that. "And you don't want them shut?"

"I don't know what I want." He really didn't. He hated the idea of crossing between worlds and interacting with people from different faiths and different contexts who didn't even have daemons. Yet, at the same time, he couldn't ignore they existed, like the Cardinal wanted to do. Like he even wanted to do when he first found the portal. But he was more sensible than that, and here he stood in one such other world. It was real in the way his daemon and his very own soul was real, and it felt wrong to try and ignorantly shun them away. They needed proper investigation and, eventually, conquest. Just as their kind had always done. "But it's bad for you if he wants them closed. He'd willingly trap you here forever and not blink twice."

"So what do we do then?" Mrs. Coulter asked after a short pause. She was no longer smiling yet was not quite frowning. Father MacPhail took it as a good sign.

"Send me back," he answered. "The Cardinal wants the girl, and he can't shut down the portals if we don't have her—if we need further access in order to retrieve her."

"So a stalemate?" Mrs. Coulter laughed again. This time it felt more genuine. "Just go back to our impasse from before?"

"Precisely. It'll give us both time to figure out what to do for our respective plans."

"Fair enough," said the woman as she snapped her finger and the golden monkey both dropped Eulalia and then swirly cut the ties from Father MacPhail's arms. It was a relief to feel the tension leave his wrists, although his ankles were still tied together. "I'll send you back, and you'll no doubt tell them every single thing you saw here. But also tell them this." She came closer and bent down slightly so they were at eye level. "They will never get Lyra. I'll die first before I allow that to happen. So plot all you want, but you'll never win. It's futile to fight me."