Before you read this, I need to state that do not own Lyra, Will or any of the other characters in this story. His Dark Materials, The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, The Amber Spyglass and all related characters, concepts, and commercial offspring are the property of Philip Pullman, Scholastic Books, Random House Inc, New Line Cinema and all other right-holders. This is not for profit and is not intended to infringe upon any commercial endeavours.

Serafina Pekkala was flying for her life. She had been asked to arbitrate in a dispute between two clans, an occurrence that seemed far too often these days. As soon as she had arrived at the designated meeting place, however, she realized that it was a trap. She had made an excuse and flown off but was immediately followed. Her daemon, Kaisa, was trying to help her by flying ahead to lead her out of trouble but every time she thought she was about to escape she found her way blocked again. She was starting to believe that she was being played with by her pursuers. She could still see some of them behind her and some to her left. She was quite sure that more were just out of sight to her right.

Her anger flared as she thought of the deception and that she had fallen for it. Her own clan was far away and even if she had been able to concentrate sufficiently to use a spell to alert them it would take too long for them to arrive. Her opponents may want to enjoy the thrill of the chase but they were not foolish enough to let their quarry escape. Her anger faded to be replaced by a small knot of fear in her stomach. What did they want with her? She couldn't think of any reason for either of the two clans in question to be at feud with her.

The pursuit from the left was closing in. Serafina flew on. She could try diving closer to the ground and hope to lose them in the forests but she was concerned about what fresh surprises awaited her near the ground. Climbing higher was no answer; she would just make herself easier to see.

Feeling that she was being driven towards her doom, Serafina flew on.

As despair was starting to touch Serafina Pekkala, Lyra and Will were enjoying one of their happiest afternoons. They simply wandered around Oxford delighting in each other's company. They passed the cinema they had visited on Lyra's first visit to Will's world but decided to leave a visit for another day. They didn't want any distractions from each other.

They spent some time buying some clothes for Lyra but she still refused to wear trousers. She was amazed to see so many other girls wearing them and so many girls with their hair cut short. At first she thought it had been done to them as some form of punishment and found Will's descriptions of some of the fashions of his world to be very strange.

At last they set off for Will's house. Lyra loved the ride on the double decker bus. She sat upstairs right at the front, clinging to the rail whenever they turned a tight corner, laughing with delight.

Will let them in through the front door and nearly tripped over the daemons as they raced inside. All of a sudden he felt very conscious of how small the house was. He knew that Lyra was living at Jordan College and he wondered what she would think of his home. Had he been concentrating a little more or if the daemons had not been capering about trying to impress each other, one of them might have noticed the car parked at the end of the street. Lyra saw it but, of course, it was as strange to her as all the other cars.

Lyra barely noticed the size of the house as she was too fascinated by the gadgets that Will took for granted. The television amazed her and would she normally have paid no attention to anything else except for the fact that Will was there with her.

They talked of everything apart from what they were going to do. They concentrated on the past, both on their adventures together and what had happened to them afterwards. Will considered showing her the knife but decided to leave it until the next day.

Will was woken up in the morning by Kirjava licking his face.

"Lyra's cooking breakfast. You might want to come and help before she burns the house down."

Will put on his dressing gown and found Lyra in the kitchen looking at a pan of badly burned sausages.

"You still have servants to do all your cooking then?"

She stuck her tongue out at him.

"I was trying to be helpful. Kirjava said it would easy and told me which pan to use but they didn't seem to be cooking so we turned the heat up."

Will looked at Kirjava who looked back at him a picture of innocence. He threw the carbonised sausages in the bin and started to heat up the grill.

After breakfast they sat back down at the table. Will put his blue rucksack on the table and Lyra grinned at the memory. Then her hand flew to her mouth.

"I didn't bring the alethiometer. I can't believe I haven't thought of it until now. I can't read it properly again yet but I can manage some simple questions."

Will nodded, pulled the subtle knife out of the rucksack and drew it for Lyra to see. She sat in her chair open mouthed.

"I broke it. When we parted I broke it straightaway. I can't think of how many times I wished since then that I hadn't but I did and it remained in pieces until I checked it two nights ago. It hasn't been repaired it's been reforged."

Lyra took it off him and carefully turned it round in her hands looking at the new pattern on the blade.

" The hard-edged blade with its woven patterns quivers and trembles; grasped with terrible sureness, it flashes into changing hues." She recited.

"What?" asked Will. He had never thought of Lyra as being the sort of person who went round quoting poetry.

"It's from Elene, an Anglo-Saxon poem. One of my teachers read it to us at school and it reminded me of this knife and those lines stuck in my memory." She smiled at Will. "Don't worry that's the only poetry that I know."

She looked at the blade and back at Will.

"It's starting again."

Will nodded and waited for her to continue.

"I'm still confused about a lot of the things that happened. I thought that the witches prophecy was about us releasing the ghosts from the land of the dead but Serafina Pekkala told me there was more than that."

"Yes," replied Will. "I discussed it with Mary as well. She says that when we fell in love it changed something, something fundamental in the worlds and the dust started flowing back in the direction it was meant to." He sighed, "I didn't really listen properly. It didn't seem important. I was thinking of how to build the republic of heaven. I fixed my mind on that because of my Father."

"It was my Father's idea too," said Lyra. She looked uncomfortable with something and then said what was on her mind. "Do you think Xaphania pushed us towards that idea because she knew we would want to carry out our Fathers dreams?"

"Maybe," replied Will. "Perhaps we were both aiming too high. Perhaps we were just meant to do what we could, you know, in a small way." He hesitated and then said. "Do you remember what Xaphania said about 'dealing with spectres'?"

"Yes, I have thought of that as well. She wasn't very clear. Will, I don't think we should use the knife. We have the machine I used to get here. I think we should discuss all this with Mary and then return to my world and find Serafina. I still trust both of them and the Master."

Will nodded again. But his teenage eyes flashed fiercely.

"I think we were both used last time. Things were set in motion and we were dragged along. I thought what we were did was right and I still do but, have you heard a saying about 'the ends justify the means'?"

"Yes. A lot of people were killed for 'the ends' we reached last time. I hope we aren't going to see that again."

Serafina Pekkala was near the end of her strength and at the edge of panic. A circle of flying witches surrounded her. She had tried to break out but they changed their circle to adapt. Arrows flew through the air but they were intended to scare her not to injure. The circle was drawn in slowly. Serafina tried to dive down under it but the witches knew that she would try that. She suddenly saw four witches rising up towards her from the ground.

She dived faster to try and get through them before they could react. She was tired and frightened otherwise she would have realized that the four witches were holding a net. She dived straight into it and was caught. Kaisa wheeled round not knowing what to do.

"Go! Kaisa. Get away!" Serafina cried. Kaisa turned and winged away.

Serafina was brought to the ground and then tied and blindfolded.

"Darkness is ready for you Serafina. We have prepared it for you," one of the witches gloated. She heard the chanting of a spell and then her consciousness fled.