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 awoke. She was quite disorientated. She had no idea of how long she had been lying there. She remained silent, not wanting to start the whispers again.

Suddenly she felt that there was someone else in the room with her.

"Who is there?" she dared to ask.

"So you still retain some of your abilities," said a woman. "Interesting. I had thought that being left here for so long would have drained you almost completely. Still, no matter. How are you feeling, sister? Does the air in here bother you? We have become used to it now."

"Where are we?" Serafina asked.

The other woman laughed.

"No. I don't think I will tell you that. Darkness surrounds you. Not just the lack of light but the absence of dust as well. We are in an old research centre of the Church. They abandoned it after the confusion of The Battle of course and we have found it useful. As an interesting side affect it also deprives you of any contact with the natural world and I suspect that is what is causing you the most pain."

"Why are you doing this to me?" Serafina's mind was scrambling to make some sense of her situation and to find out as much as she could.

"No Serafina. That is not how this is supposed to be," the woman laughed again. "I am going to ask the questions. If you are sensible and make the right decisions I may answer some of your queries later, but I don't think that is very likely."

"May I have some water?" asked Serafina.

"No of course not. Now, I mentioned The Battle just then. Do you remember the battle? Were you even there?"

"Which battle?" asked Serafina.

"Do not make me angry Serafina Pekkala. The Battle. The battle where so many of our sisters died. The battle Ruta Skadi, in her arrogance, commanded us to join. The battle where we were used as cannon fodder." The woman's voice was rising in pitch until she was nearly screaming. She stopped and returned to her normal voice.

"We think you were involved in the decision to spill so much of our precious blood. Are we right sister?"

"Not directly," replied Serafina. "I and my clan were assisting Lyra, the girl of the prophecy."

"The prophecy!" spat the other witch. "It was no prophecy. It was our eavesdropping on the conversations of the rebel angels and their plans and we managed to convince ourselves that we were the bearers of a fantastic secret. Can you imagine the rewards we could have reaped if we had gone to The Authority and told him about this secret?"

"No!" cried Serafina. "We did what had to be done. You know what The Authority and his regent did to witches. The clans agreed to go to war."

"Perhaps, but we were not given the whole story," countered the witch. "We had no idea of the weapons we would face. Still, that brings me to the main point of all this. Those weapons."

The witch paused.

"When Ruta Skadi told us of the army Lord Asriel had assembled she also described the weaponry he had. In the battle we saw it being used and the weapons that were being used against us. We were using torches and arrows against machines the like of which we had never seen. When the fighting ceased and we could pause to think there were some of us who decided that we would not be put in such a position again. We took some of the weapons left abandoned and smuggled them back over Lord Asriel's bridge before the angels could close it."

Serafina trembled. This was totally alien to everything she had believed in. Witches simply should not do what these witches had done.

"It soon became clear that the power of the Church is broken, at least for the time being. We needed somewhere to hide our new power. We found this place and found some new toys to play with, that the Church had left behind." The witch laughed. "The church can be very," she paused searching for a word, "inventive."

Serafina said nothing, dreading what was to come.

"Now we know that not all witches will agree with what we have done, so we have come up with this idea of inviting traitors such as yourself to inspect our facilities. You will then be free to decide whether you want to join us or not."

"My clan knew who I was coming to meet with. They will not rest until you have been dealt with," Serafina decided her position couldn't get any worse so she decided to attempt threats.

"Your clan is weak," retaliated the witch. "They cannot find you here, but assuming you do not decide to join with us we will let them know where we are. Then when they come, we will annihilate them with our new arsenal, demonstrating to the other clans where their best interests lie. I will leave you to think it over for a short time, then I will attempt to persuade you with some of the equipment the Church left for us and then, when you still refuse we will kill you."
Lyra went down the stairs from her room. Pan scampered next to her.

"This isn't a good idea," he said. "He will feel embarrassed because he doesn't have anything to give you."

"It doesn't matter," she replied. "It's nothing much anyway."

"You haven't taken enough time to rest either. The Master will probably just send you back," Pan, scolded her.

"I'm fine," she replied. "Stop fussing. You want to help Serafina don't you? Well be quiet then."

"We won't be much help if we crash the craft because you have fallen asleep," he grumbled, but she ignored him.

Will returned to the college after a few hours looking around Lyra's Oxford to find Lyra waiting for him in the quadrangle, by the Intention Craft.

"Feeling better?" he asked.

She nodded.

"I'm fine. Pantalaimon keeps fussing. He thinks it would be better if you and Kirjava flew the craft."

Pan nearly choked with indignation.

"I've spoken to the Master and he has found some maps that should help us. I'm bringing the alethiometer so that when we get near to the village we can try to pinpoint exactly where she is."

She hesitated and then went on.

"I know I should have asked before doing this, but I asked the alethiometer about your Mum, just to make sure she's ok. I thought you would want to know and I was doing really well with the alethiometer. Your Mum's fine. She's still with Mary and they're both safe, but that's all I know. I'm sorry Will. I know I should have asked you first, I wasn't being nosey."

"Lyra," Will interrupted. "It's OK. I trust you. I don't have any secrets from you. Thanks for finding out how they are. You knew I was worrying didn't you?"

Lyra got up and held out a small package to Will.

"Pan thinks that this is silly, but I don't care. When I told the girls at school about you and me and how we had to separate they didn't understand about the different worlds so they gave me this to send to you."

Will took the package and found it contained a small box. Inside was a signet ring. He smiled and put it on the ring finger of his right hand. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a box of his own which he handed to Lyra. She opened it and took out a ring with a small sapphire.

"I'm sorry it isn't nicer." Apologized Will. "I didn't have any of your money so I had to bargain with a jeweller and get him to swap my watch for a ring. He hadn't seen a digital watch before but he still drove a hard bargain."

Lyra stopped him with a kiss and slipped the ring onto her own right hand ring finger. They looked at each other in silent agreement that this was the right thing to do.

"We should set off as soon as possible," said Lyra.

"But what about the Master?" said Will. "We should see him first, before we go."

"Let's go now Will," she said, "I really want to get started. I'm not sure how long it will take us in the craft. I have never travelled that far in distance before, only between worlds."

"Only between worlds!" Will echoed. Lyra grinned at him. Will looked at her and decided against asking her any more questions.

Night had come and almost gone before they arrived. They had managed by taking turns at flying and by stopping several times to rest. Finding the village in the dark had been difficult but they managed. There was an old mansion just to the north of the village and they suspected that Serafina was probably being held there.

There was no sign of life either in the village or at the house but they decided to be careful and as soon as they had taken a quick look they flew off to find a hiding place for the craft. It was at this point that Lyra raised a point that had been troubling her as they were travelling.

"If we do get Serafina out how are we going to get away? We can't all fit in the machine."

"When we get out she may be able to fly herself," he said. "If the other witches are here, and I'm sure they are even if we haven't seen them yet, we should be able to find a cloud pine branch."

Lyra smiled to herself when he said "when". He was clearly in no doubt that they would succeed and that boosted her confidence.

"If she can't fly for any reason," Will continued, "we will have to make sure we get her out without anyone noticing. Then you can get her away a short distance and come back for me."

Lyra started to protest, but he held up his hands to stop her.

"If necessary I will use the knife to escape. You can't use the knife so it makes sense for you to get Serafina away. If we do get completely separated we will meet back at Jordan College."

"Yes. You're right. Your plans are always the best ones," she agreed. "So how are we going to find her?"

"The most likely place for her to be is somewhere in that manor house. We need to get in there first," he said.

"Pan and I can help," said Kirjava. "If you cut a neat hole in the glass of one of the windows we can slip in and look round for you. Let's go now before it gets much lighter."

They crept towards the manor house. The village was completely deserted and Will worried about what had happened to the inhabitants.

"When do you think the rest of Serafina's clan will arrive?" asked Lyra.

"I hope we can get Serafina out before that," said Will. "The Master was right, I don't trust that witch Saeunn Leira. One moment she wanted us to go with her and the next she had walked away. I . I didn't like her," he finished lamely.

Lyra looked at him.

No secrets, thought Will.

"When I was alone in the room with her, I think she was trying to put a spell on me to make me fall in love with her."

Lyra smiled at him but Will was left with a feeling that Saeunn Leira would be well advised to keep out of Lyra's way. Lyra hid her sense of triumph that Will had remained loyal to her.

They reached the gardens of the house without seeing anyone, hoping that no one had seen them. They found a small gate in the large brick wall that surrounded the house and gardens. Pan slipped underneath it to make sure the coast was clear and then they all went in. Carefully they went up to the side of the house and found a sash window looking into a sitting room.

Will used the subtle knife to cut a hole just big enough for the daemons to get in. The edges were so neat that it was hard to tell that there was a hole at all. He cut it next to the catch and when the daemons returned to say there was no one around he opened the window and he and Lyra climbed inside.