"Have you packed your thermals? I hear it gets very cold in the far North."

"Yes, Mum."

"And your hat and gloves?"

Hermione simply rolled her eyes at the suggestion she'd forget those.

"And enough clean socks and knickers to be going on with?"

"Mum!" Hermione blushed hotly. "I've packed everything. Stop fussing!"

Catherine eased down on her restless pestering and tried to run a brush through Hermione's hair, but it was getting so thick now that the teeth kept getting stuck.

"Perhaps I should give this a little trim before you go," Catherine offered, snatching up a pair of hair shears from the vanity table. "Maybe just an inch from the bottom..."

Hermione turned and took her mother's wrist gently in her hand. She looked kindly into Catherine's fraught expression.

"I know what you're doing, Mother," Hermione whispered softly. "But you need to stop worrying. Everything's going to be fine, I promise. You have to trust me. I'm going off to do something really big and important. I'll make you proud."

"Oh, my little baby!" Catherine suddenly shrieked, snatching her arms around Hermione's dainty shoulders and nearly breaking them with her incessant pressure. "I'm going to miss you so much! You will be careful, won't you?"

"No, Mum," Hermione replied incredulously. "I'm going to call every Tartar all the swear words I can think of, tell the Magisterium that God is a woman, then, just in case that's not enough, I'll stick my head right into the jaws of the meanest, most vicious panserbjorne I meet! That's been my plan all along!"

"Don't be flippant, my girl!" Catherine berated. "I'm still your mother, and I can still stop you going on this little adventure, you know."

Hermione looked grimly at her mother. "No, Mum ... you really cant."

Behind them, Papageno whimpered in shame. It wasn't like Hermione to be so brazen, he wondered what was happening to her these days.

"Mum, look," Hermione started, her tone gentler. "I have to do this. I don't know where I'm going, or how I'm going to get there, or what will happen on the way. All I know is that it feels right. More right than anything else I've ever known. And, when I'm done, I'll come back and tell you all about it. We'll sit in front of the fire, and drink hot chocolatyl, and you can make some of those Welsh Cakes I like so much, and I can tell you about all the exciting things that happened on my journey, and we'll laugh and cry and forget that you were ever cross at me at all."

Catherine dabbed at her eyes. "That sounds ... lovely. Yes, we'll do that. But, Hermione, just promise me you wont do anything reckless."

"Like what?"

"Oh, I don't know," Catherine mused. "Go looking for trolls, or something. I hear there are all kinds of monsters out there."

"Mother!" Hermione giggled. "This isn't a faery tale, you know. There's no such things as trolls. It's the night-ghasts and fire-drakes you need to worry about. They feed on the flesh of females who get lost on the ice ..."

"Hermione Granger!" her mother rebuked hotly, but there was humour behind her moist brown eyes.

An hour later and Hermione answered a knock at the door. Lyra and Pan were there, and a hackney-carriage was waiting behind them ready to deliver them to Abingdon train station. After a heart-achingly emotional parting with her parents, Hermione gave her mother one last kiss, hugged her father as closely as she could manage, then followed her new Mistress into the carriage. And away they went.

"So, how are you feeling?" Lyra asked as they rumbled along.

"I'll be alright," Hermione snivelled, as Pap became a meek little kitten and shyly licked her cheeks, to hide the tracks of her salty tears. "Where are we going first?"

"To the aërodock at Jordan," Lyra clarified. "I've booked us two seats on the six o'clock zeppelin to London. I hope you aren't afraid of heights."

As it was, Hermione was very afraid of heights, but not so much as to make her reconsider her decision at this, the very first challenge. Besides, she had always wanted to ride in a zeppelin, but she thought it was very inconsiderate that they had to fly quite so high.

She put her little tremble of fear into her back pocket for now. "Why are we going to London? That's East, not North."

"Quite right you are," Lyra smirked. "But we have to find a way to get to the far North. It's not as easy as jumping on a boat and hoping for the best. The North is highly contested territory these days. Apart from studying the scientific phenomena, there is all sorts of interest in new substances that have been discovered up there, which are being investigated for use as fuel in atomcraft vehicles, and in terrible weapons too. Then there are the vast reservoirs of oil hidden deep under the ice. So, the North is in a state of almost perpetual, but secret, warfare ... and highly restricted to outsiders as a result. Getting there wont be easy."

"But, you do think we can?"

Lyra's eyes twinkled. "There is always a way, Hermione. You just have to know where to look."

The London zeppelin was full for this flight. Ten other people were waiting patiently to board, but as Lyra was more famous and important than any of them, she and Hermione were allowed to get on first. The first thing that settled Hermione's sickening gout of nerves was the spaciousness of the gondola. There was a good three feet distance between her head and the ceiling, which offset the claustrophobia she'd been expecting to feel.

Second, was the comfiness of the seats. They were plush red leather, with mahogany arm rests and bouncy purple cushions. Hermione chose seats right in the front row, which Lyra heartily agreed with, as it allowed her to stretch out her long legs during the flight. They stowed their luggage into the assigned racks, Pap became a little mouse and perched on his paws so he could gaze out of the window, while Pantalaimon simply curled up beneath Lyra's knees and had a little nap.

And then they were airborne. Lyra gamely tried to distract Hermione from her Acrophobia by indulging in hushed talk about the other passengers. And what talk it was! Hermione was intoxicated by it. Talk about London, and the embassies and emissaries, who brought news of trade, and far off war, and high politics, a dangerous game some key players of which were sat around them right now.

Then there was talk about banquets and soirées, and the intrigues between Whitehall and Westminster, and the spies the King had in both. Hermione was almost as fascinated by all that as she was the changing landscape below, which was becoming less and less green. More grey and concrete now, but with that long snake of blue, that was the River Thames, cutting a runnel right through the middle of it all.

They landed in Vauxhall Gardens, and from there it was a short boat ride across and down the Thames to the Embankment, where Lyra had a flat in the top floor of a converted townhouse. It afforded a good view of the river, which was brown right now, so maybe it wasn't quite so good, but Hermione drank it in anyway. The view that was, not the river.

"We'll just get settled, maybe have a quick bath, then head out for some dinner," Lyra suggested.

Hermione looked up in wide eyed surprise. "We're not going to have a bath ... together?"

Lyra hooted out a deep laugh. "Oh no, honey, I meant a bath each! You're so funny! I think you're going to be quite the most fascinating and entertaining travelling companion."

Hermione blushed at that. Then Lyra showed her into a bedroom, where the bed was big enough to get lost in and there was enough closet space to house a small family. After unpacking, which didn't take long, as it turned out Hermione had forgotten to pack extra socks and knickers, Lyra ran a hot bath for her with rose-pink bubbles and fragrant soap. Hermione shyly refused Lyra's offer to help wash her mass of hair, as it seemed too early in their relationship for such things, and so the task fell to Papageno, who carried it out efficiently enough, but perhaps wasn't as gentle and courteous as Lyra's female touch might have been.

Then they headed out for dinner at a restaurant in Covent Garden. The curtains here were scarlet and gold, and there were charming pictures on the walls, and every table had its own anbaric lamp with lilac frills on the shade. They ate from plates of Dutch Porcelain, which was prettily patterned in white and blue, and Hermione was treated to exotic pumpkin and pineapple juice - which she instantly decided was her new favourite thing - while Lyra sipped on red wines with complicated flavours, and tried to educate Hermione on how to tell the difference between a 'good wine' and 'pickling vinegar with a foreign name and a fancy label'.

By the time they had finished dessert, Hermione was beginning to get sleepy. They returned to the flat, where Hermione permitted Lyra to help brush her hair before bed. She sat stoically in front of a large vanity mirror, which had pretty lights all round the edge, and a carving in the frame that had been so worn with age so as to make it virtually unreadable. In any case, Lyra was convinced it was in a language nobody knew how to speak any more.

"Erised stra - something something - oyt ube - something something - wohsi," Lyra tried to read, as Hermione masked a wince when Lyra tugged on her hair a little too roughly. "Oh, sorry, honey. You may have the thickest hair I've ever seen!"

"It's okay," Hermione replied grimly. "A brush hasn't yet been invented that can get through that bush on my head!"

Lyra laughed heartily. "Okay. I'll be more gentle, I promise."

"Thank you, Miss," Hermione grinned. "So, what language is that on the mirror?"

"I have no idea," Lyra replied. "And I've had at least a dozen linguists and dialect scholars, even cryptologists and code-breakers, take a look at it. Whatever it is, nobody around here speaks it anymore."

"Then what does it mean?"

"As we don't know, it could mean anything you like," Lyra grinned. "It could be a clue to seeing your heart's desire, for all we know."

Hermione frowned at that. "It's still just a mirror, though, isn't it?"

"Who knows," Lyra answered. "That might be a sort of spell around the top. The world is full of mysteries like that, Hermione."

"Or it could just be a dedication," Hermione pointed out logically. "To my darling, Erised, you look just as pretty now as the day I met you. I bought you a mirror so you can see for yourself. Happy Birthday, love Wohsi."

Lyra rumbled with unrestrained mirth until she was forced to wipe tears from her eyes. "Yes, I think you're probably right! I've never thought of it that way. You really are the cleverest girl of your age."

Hermione flushed crimson again. "Thank you, Mistress."

"I'll have you calling me Lyra before this trip is over," Lyra huffed. "That's my new mission in life. But, my first one, is to get you nice and refreshed for the morning. We have a busy day ahead."

"Why? What will we be doing?" asked Hermione, as she allowed Lyra to guide her over to that huge bed and tuck her in.

"Well, we have to go to the Royal Arctic Institute, just to get the latest news from Trollesund," Lyra explained. "That's where we will be going first. Then we have to find someone willing to take us, and find out how much it will cost to bribe them for the pleasure, and how much more it will cost to keep their mouths shut about it. Then we might need to get someone to forge us some authentic travel documents, and then invent a convincing story about why we're going North in the first place. I think you should do that, as my imagination is shot to pieces these days.

"Talking about shot, I need to find us some guns, too. Failing that, some people to use them for us. Once all that's done, we just have to wait for Malcolm to get here, then we can go off."

Hermione blinked at all the information. If she hadn't been eager for sleep before, she certainly was now. For they really did have a long day ahead of them.