p class="MsoNormal"With the bell of the dinner in the background, Lyra felt the aftershock of Braun hit her, sliding down to the floor, taking great heaving gulps of air . emIt's like I never escaped him. It's like for all the effort I've put into moving past it, I'm still back there, still his songbird/em. Her thoughts spiraled from there, on the floor of the diner. emWhat if You didn't?/em a voice that traitorously sounded like her White Queen persona whispered. emWhat if all of this is an illusion? His best one yet? What if the past 28 plus years are just an illusion?/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" /p
p class="MsoNormal"She could feel herself heading into the dark, quiet space she went to went Braun would hurt her, but with a last grip of sanity she flung a command out to Rubesem:/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" /p
p class="MsoNormal"emThe Baelfire Spell. Activate it./em strongNow./strong/p
p class="MsoNormal" /p
p class="MsoNormal"The last thing she saw before darkness claimed her was Rubes diving for the nearest table./p