Hermione looked away shyly. It seemed indecent to watch, even though she was deeply curious to see what happened.

For she had never seen the dæmons of two strangers embrace before.

But that's just what those of Alice Lonsdale and Malcolm Polstead, two close friends of Lyra's, were doing. Clearly, they weren't strangers at all. Hermione peeked at their dæmons intently as they met - hers a dog, his a cat - as they started rolling around together and clawing playfully at each other, undoubted intimacy between them. Hermione watched as though intruding on the forbidden, as if she'd just stumbled upon the humans, themselves, locked in a passionate clinch.

It felt very much the same.

"This is Hermione Granger, my new apprentice," Lyra was saying, which jerked Hermione back to her senses.

She bowed politely as Alice and Malcolm turned their eyes to study her, their dæmons pausing in their revelry to sniff curiously at Papageno when he ventured bravely from behind Hermione's legs. Or, at least, when his head did. Satisfied, they went back to their indecent cavorting like nobody's business, causing Hermione to blush at the sight of them.

"And which school do you attend, dear?" asked Alice.

"Jericho Prep," Hermione mumbled, wringing her hands nervously.

"The girls' side, of course," Alice frowned. She turned to Lyra. "I've always said Jordan should have an under college and invite girls to attend. It would stop all this non-mixing nonsense."

"Perhaps now isn't the time to debate the gender inequality in our elite education system," Malcolm proffered. He had the look of a scholar, but the air of a man who knew his way around in the world, and the build of someone who could handle himself in a struggle. Hermione was a little bit afraid of him.

"No, it isn't," Lyra agreed. "We have a problem. A very unique problem."

"An Oakley Street problem, you said," Malcolm frowned. "How can this little girl have any need of us?"

The way he said 'us' made Hermione think there were secret, hidden sides to everyone in the room. As though each had two faces, one which they showed to the world, and one which walked down this Oakley Street, wherever that might be. Faces they could flip to at will. The notion made Hermione tremble in her patent-leather flats.

"The alethiometer has given us some curious information," Lyra began. "It seems Miss Granger here is destined to fall in love."

"Congratulations, dear," Alice teased, as Hermione blushed brilliantly. "Who's the lucky fella?"

"According to the alethiometer, a boy with someone out to kill him. A boy in another world."

Malcolm and Lyra exchanged dark, highly charged looks. Hermione felt it sweep over her like a searing heat.

"Oh, no, Lyra, don't even ask -"

"Too late," Lyra quirked. "I already have!"

"No matter, the answer is still no."

"I'm not asking for your permission," Lyra stabbed. "Just for your help. Or, failing that, a bit of practical advice. We're going either way."

"Going?" asked Hermione. "Going where?"

"To the North," Lyra replied simply. "The walls between the worlds are the thinnest up there, under the Northern Lights. Mal, here, knows all about that, after helping Oakley Street build a portal between the worlds ... and then not telling me about it."

Malcolm turned away guiltily, just as Alice's dæmon whacked his own across the ear.

"Ow! That was uncalled for!" he complained, rubbing his own ear in protest.

"Malcolm Polstead! What have you been doing?" Alice demanded.

"Did you think I wouldn't find out?" Lyra interjected quickly, her anger rising quicker still. "I am the Head of Experimental Theology at Jordan, for crying out loud!"

"Who told you? Don't answer that. It was Charlotte Dubois, wasn't it? She always was one of your disciples."

"You leave Charlotte out of this!" Lyra hissed. "It doesn't matter who told me. I'd have found out eventually. It only matters that you didn't tell me."

"It was a secret project," Malcolm returned evenly. "And it was most important to keep it secret from you."

"Me? Why?"

"How can you even ask that?" Malcolm cried out passionately. "Can you honestly tell me that, if you'd known what we were doing, you wouldn't have run straight through to find ... him?"

There was an acidity to his tone that took Hermione by surprise. She swallowed a dozen questions she might have asked about this, as Lyra began talking again.

"Is this the time? Really?" Lyra asked in a bored tone.

"There's never been a time ..."

"No, and we've been over that many, many times," Lyra retorted. "Just tell me why, Mal? I closed those windows for good ... and for good reason."

Malcolm rounded on her. "And you think the Magisterium would just accept that? There are a thousand other worlds out there, Lyra. Worlds to dominate and indoctrinate. Do you think, once they knew they existed, that they would be content to just leave them be? To leave them to their heresy?"

Hermione shivered in the slipstream of Lyra's silence. The suggestion was, frankly, terrifying.

"So ... they opened the way to other worlds?" asked Lyra, quietly.

Malcolm nodded angrily. "In Geneva, and in Rome. They found the thesis of your father's work. It wasn't hard to recreate the effects in a controlled environment ... and no shortage of heretics and blasphemers to sacrifice in the name of The Almighty's good work."

Alice scoffed at that, and ground her thick nails into the kitchen table. Malcolm moved to stare out of the window, to master his surging rage by looking out across to the ruins of Godstow Priory on the other side of the canal. Even Lyra looked distressed, something Hermione had never expected to see in the exalted scholar.

"What is Oakley Street?" Hermione asked innocently, in an attempt to break the thick tension that had descended over the room.

"A group of like-minded souls, who work together to protect the freedoms that the Magisterium would wish to deny us all," Alice answered brusquely. "If you are to become connected to Lyra here, expect to become a target of the Magisterium too, just as she is. And expect Oakley Street to do all we can to protect you in return."

Alice smiled kindly at Hermione, who returned it somewhat faintly. This scheme to cross worlds had all seemed like a grand adventure ever since Lyra had proposed it, but Hermione felt the first prickle of anxiety cross her neck as she realised that this connection was fraught with danger. Lyra Belacqua/Silvertongue was a famed enemy of the powerful Church bodies, and that came with consequences, with risks both real and immediate. Hermione felt a spike of doubt for a moment, realising that throwing herself under their attention to help a stranger might not have been the cleverest decision she'd ever made.

But then Lyra's famous ferocity sparked something in her young apprentice

"So what do you intend to do, Lyra?" Malcolm asked eventually. "Risk your neck just to help some alien child?"

Lyra rounded fiercely on her old friend. "I intend to do what I've always done ... to help the innocent and the weak against threats bigger and more powerful than them, threats they might not even know they are facing."

"It's admirable, but foolhardy. You'll never succeed," Malcolm replied, dismissively.

"People didn't think I'd succeed when I went off to save the Gyptian kids and Roger from Bolvangar!" Lyra cried in her passion. "They didn't think I'd succeed in freeing everyone from the World of the Dead, from putting an end to Destiny itself. But I did both of those things, and I did it with hardly any help and with everyone doubting me. I proved people wrong then and I'll prove you wrong now! An innocent life needs my help, that's why the Alethiometer told me about him. He's important in a big way, and Dust has now called on me again, as I always knew it would. Only this time I just have to deliver the help rather than provide it myself, but I will see what else I can do when I am there.

"This time ... I'm not the important one ... this little girl is. She's special and I'm going to help her find out just how far that goes."

Lyra glared down in respectful force at Hermione, who blushed under the intensity of the stare. It filled her with a sense of importance and worth that made her puff out her chest and stand next to her new Mistress in a show of solidarity.

"I don't know how important I am, but this quest is definitely important ... I need to help this boy in another world," Hermione pronounced, stoutly. "The other stuff about me and him is secondary, really. He needs me, so I have to go to him and see what I have to do."

"And how do you intend to get there?" Malcolm asked, more of Lyra than Hermione.

"Head to Trollesund first, and from there contact the witches of the Northern Clans," Lyra explained. "I'm counting on Serafina Pekkala for her counsel. Someone who cares for us has to be willing to help."

Malcolm visibly bristled at the snipe, but held his tongue admirably.

Hermione, at this point, felt the need to interject. "You're going to so much trouble, Miss Lyra. Is there no easier way?"

Lyra smiled down at her. "Crossing the worlds is never easy. But an innocent boy's life is in the balance. And besides, the alethiometer left me in no doubt that this was important. If it wasn't, we wouldn't even be here. But there is something about this boy, and you, and your future. The fates, it would seem, are not done with me quite yet."

Malcolm sighed near the window. "Okay, Lyra. I'll help you. What do you need?"

"Your company and guidance?" Lyra asked hopefully. "Where we are going, I get the feeling it will be dangerous. I'd rather not go alone, and there are fewer people I'd trust to have my back than you, Mal."

"One day, Lyra Silvertongue, I'll refuse you something," Malcolm quirked, smiling weakly as he surrendered.

Lyra grinned at him. "No you wont. You've been my slave since I was six months old, it's too late to change now!"

"Me and the rest of the world!" Malcolm chuckled. "Well, most of it. There is still the Magisterium to consider. They will be suspicious once you try and move North. We will need help ... there's no way we'll be able to avoid the Magisterium forces all the way from Trollesund to Ice Station Zebra on our own."

"Oh we wont be," Lyra quipped confidently. "I plan to to pay a visit to the panserbjorne. I have some pull with their king. Or, at least, I used to have ..."

"There is another visit we ought to pay first," Malcolm pointed out reasonably. Then, when Lyra cocked a confused look at him, he nodded down at Hermione. "Miss Granger's parents? I'm pretty sure they may need some convincing before we whisk her off to meet the Armoured Bears, Witches and who knows what else. They may stop her going altogether."

"I'm not worried, Dr Polstead," said Hermione briskly. "My mum always said I had witch-oil in my soul. If I'm going to meet some witches, maybe they'll make me into one. It will be like going home. Maybe there's a school out there somewhere, in one of these worlds, where they can teach me all about how to do magic and things like they do. I think I'd like that and it would be ever so exciting, wouldn't it?"

Malcolm frowned, unconvinced by Hermione's assuredness. He turned to Lyra. "Can I have a word with you? In private?"

Lyra scrunched up her eyes, as was her way, but followed Malcolm out of the kitchen of The Trout and into the beer garden overlooking the canal. He was pensive a moment, seemingly absorbed in his own thoughts, as he watched a brightly-coloured gyptian narrow-boat float past on its way to the horse-fair at Jericho. Lyra watched it too, smiling inwardly at a flash of warm memories from her childhood that flooded into her brain.

Then Malcolm spoke. "Lyra, you shouldn't do this. It's incredibly reckless."

"I knew you'd try and talk me out of it," Lyra huffed crossly. "I don't know why I came here. But I am doing it. The alethiometer says I must, and I've already made a commitment to young Hermione."

"Then break it," Malcolm retorted. "She'll get over it. She's young enough to fix her broken heart."

"Like I was, you mean?" Lyra asked incredulously. "You claim to love me, Mal, but sometimes I wonder if you truly know what real, heartfelt, soul deep love actually is."

Malcolm clenched his jaw at the rebuke. "All I'm saying, is that you know the risks, the dangers. To take them yourself is one thing, but to draw this girl into them ... that's another thing entirely."

"Mal, she drew me in," Lyra exclaimed. "And now she has, I have to see it through with her."

"You know that the Magisterium watches you religiously, excuse the pun," Malcolm reminded her. "You try and leave for the North and they'll be dogging you every step of the way. You'll need more than just the bears to save you from them."

"I've outsmarted them before, I'll do it again. I practically do it for sport at this point," Lyra fired back firmly.

"Lyra - you're not taking this seriously!" Mal exclaimed. "You're playing with people's lives here. This isn't a game or one of your whims."

"What are you now ... my dæmon?" Lyra scythed. "Look, Mal, either come with us or don't. The decision is yours. But don't pester me if you decide to come. I have to help this girl to do something important in another world ... to save an innocent life and who knows what else along the way. Do you really think that I don't know how serious all that is? The stakes couldn't be higher. But all of my 'games' - as you call them - have come with the same gamble.

"My personal war with the Magisterium didn't end, Mal ... it may never end. Being in my life means accepting that for all that it carries, and I've given you plenty of opportunity to walk away from me over the years. If you don't want to support me now, then maybe it's time we finally parted ways. But if you choose to help me again, you have to stop lecturing me about my staying true to who I am.

"The choice is yours, I give you a week to make it. After that, Hermione and I will leave for the North ... with or without your help."