It took one week. With Anna Koskinen and the two witch daemons, there was little chance of getting lost again or having to fight against the wind. In fact, the only reason it was so prolonged was because the pilot had a need for frequent rests, and because Lee insisted on following the curve of the land rather than the shorter distance across the sea.

"I can keep us straight through the night while all rest," Anna Koskinen offered. "I would wake you if there is need. We could make the crossing quickly and I will make sure the winds stay in our favor."

"Thank you," said Lee Scoresby, "But if it's all the same to you, we'll anchor ourselves at night and stick to the land. I promised to get Lyra to her father safe and sound, and there's no need to take our chances when a little longer to travel will do the trick."

The witch had pouted all the while they settled themselves for the night, making sure they would not drift, for they did not dare ground the zeppelin in case it never rose again.

"I can pilot it when you need a rest," Lyra offered, momentarily forgetting that she was not in a hurry to get anywhere in her excitement at the prospect of flying a zeppelin.

"For a bit," Lee agreed, to her surprise and delight. And he did let her 'take control' while he leaned back and watched, ready to correct novice hands should the need arise (and it did, a time or two, but once a zeppelin is airborne and facing the right direction, the act of flying is actually quite boring) but when he felt the actual pull of sleep Hester would paw at him before he could tumble and then he would call for a break in the flight.

"I suppose it's a good time as any for a bit of a meal," was his explanation. He fooled exactly no one, particularly when a 'short' stop for a bite to eat ended in him falling asleep for a couple of hours, but no one called him on it. Not even Anna Koskinen, who Lee Scoresby had come to understand had zero personal boundaries and a deep curiosity in all of them, but even she was familiar with male pride (overly familiar, as it were) and did not feel the need to push.

Perhaps she was enjoying the journey too, and despite the way she pouted at the delays she did not truly feel a need to speed them on their way.

At any rate, the zeppelin could not be pushed too hard. By the seventh day, it flew low, like a dying balloon. It was low enough that Lyra whispered, "Shouldn't we rise…just a bit?", not wanting to dispute Lee's skill as a pilot so the others could hear but feeling it had to be said.

"Sure we should," Lee answered calmly, not offended in the slightest. "But we haven't the fuel for it. Enough to get us above the ground, and the witch's wind helps, but if we went up we'd be down again within an hour or so." And, because Lyra was ever curious, Lee pointed out the gages that told him so, along with a less satisfying, "When a pilot knows the ship, he knows what she can do. We've gotten to know each other these past days, haven't we?" He patted the side of the zeppelin. "She'll get us there, alright, as long as we don't push."

And that afternoon Lee finally did give it some lift. They were over the ocean, lower than he was comfortable, but high enough to not feel the spray of the icy water.

"If we need to lose some weight," Iorek said, "I will leap over the side and swim. I am at home in the water and the cold will not harm me."

To Lyra's shock, Lee answered with, "I might just take you up on that."

"And I will fly myself," Anna Koskinen said. "I can fly the child too, if necessary."

"I might take you up on that as well," Lee agreed. To that Lyra frowned.

"And how will you get out…if the zeppelin sinks?" she demanded.

"She won't sink," Lee answered, reaching over the pat the side of the ship again. "I'd never have tried the crossing if there wasn't enough left to get us there."

Nova Zembla was an island, of course, so crossing the ocean in some way or another was necessary, but there were ships that could give them passage if need be. Granted, they did not have much to offer to pay for that passage, but Lee would have found a way. Despite being certain of the zeppelin's capabilities, he was still nervous. The water below, this far north, was dotted with ice. The only one who could be assured survival in a crash was a polar bear.

In the end, Iorek did not have to take a swim. The distance to the island was not great, Anna Koskinen's wind sped them on, and it was not yet evening when they were over land again.

There was not much to be seen by way of civilization in Nova Zembla.

"There's a hotel," Anna Koskinen told them. "The observatory is up a mountain to its north. That is where Lord Asriel was working when I left him."

"What do you think?" Lee Scoresby asked. "Straight up the side of the mountain to the observatory, or stop at the hotel?"

It turned out not to matter (though Lyra immediately, and somewhat nervously, said 'hotel', not feeling ready to see her uncle turned father so suddenly). The zeppelin was not up to a climb up a mountain; it was barely up to the rise towards the hotel. In fact, they were forced to make a landing before even that was reached. It was a mountainous region, rocky, and colder than Lapland had been. They were both further north and higher up. Lee touched them down before gravity could crash them. There was still a bit of a thump at the landing.

"I think this is your best crash yet," Hester remarked, once everything had settled enough for her to sit up without danger of being thrown down. Again.

"If I'd've crashed us, you'd know we were crashed," Lee answered, indignant. Then, with rather more contriteness, "Everyone alright?"

"I didn't think the land would come up so fast," Lyra said, sounding more thrilled than rattled.

"I thought you could fly this thing," Anna Koskinen said, sounding more rattled and less than thrilled. It was the most annoyance Lee had ever heard her intone and he eyed her nervously. It did not do to annoy a witch. They had a reputation for a rather questionable idea of appropriate retaliation to perceived slights.

"I think he landed brilliantly," Lyra answered, Pan bristling into a hedgehog in their indignation.

"We are all uninjured," Iorek said. "One of your better landings, Lee Scoresby."

To that Lee grumbled something under his breath, glaring towards his old friend. Anyone who did not know Iorek would have thought the bear perfectly serious, and now Iorek gave Lee a wounded look for being glared at. Lee Scoresby did know Iorek, quite well, and recognized the amused glint in the bear's eye.

Getting to the hotel was a bit of a walk, particularly if they wanted to bring Lee's balloon, but with their end destination so close, Lee was reluctant to suggest another night in the wilderness.

"I suppose we could leave it all here…" he suggested, though he was uncomfortable with the idea of leaving something so important where anyone might find it. But even he had to admit that someone stumbling by chance upon the zeppelin or his balloon was unlikely; this was not a widely populated place.

"We will leave the zeppelin that is not ours, and I will pull the cart," Iorek said, his tone not leaving any room for argument, and that is more or less what they did.

If there was one good thing about the last few miles, it was that, after a week of taking it easy, Lee was able to walk himself instead of being forced to ride. Not that the others did not try anyway.

"It is mostly uphill, Lee Scoresby," Iorek pointed out.

"I'm ready to stretch my legs," Lee answered, and that was the absolute truth. For the first time in a long time, the ache that comes with stretching felt good rather than painful. He was not ready for a marathon, but a short hike would do him good.

"You will tell us when you tire," Iorek said, instead of insisting he not try.

"Of course," Lee Scoresby answered, trying and failing to look serious instead of delighted. Iorek looked down at Hester.

"I won't let him overdo it," Hester promised, and at that Iorek nodded. Lee was too happy to finally be feeling up to anything and getting to move under his own steam to even be annoyed by that exchange. He tried, for half a second, to look put out, before it turned into a grin, and in the next moment he gave a whoop, jumping in the air, just because he could.

Lyra grinned and danced around with him, sharing in his joy of movement, not even put out when Anna Koskinen did the same.

"I will tell Serafina Pekkala of your recovery, Lee Scoresby," said Kaisa, the daemon sounding pleased.

"Oh…are you leaving us?" Lyra asked. She could not have said herself why that troubled her. Pan and Hester seemed to like the bird, so she felt comfortable with him, but just as the witch had always both awed her and made her slightly nervous, so did the daemon, and she never felt particularly close to him. Perhaps it was that she felt safer knowing someone who cared was keeping watch. And he was a bit of a buffer between them and the other witch and daemon pair who had pushed their way into the party.

"Not yet," Kaisa answered, to her relief. "I feel the need to see this through."

"You will stay until we find my father?" Lyra asked.

"Until you are settled," the bird answered.

The fact that they were now so close to her father left Lyra feeling a jumble of unpleasant emotions. There was excitement and a sense of joy in there, because it was Lord Asriel, the uncle she had worshiped for years. But mostly it was trepidation and fear, like the welling up of homesickness without ever having a home, because now that she knew what having a family could be like, she was not ready to give that up, not even for her actual family.

She did have a plan. It might even be a good plan.

They went slowly, in part because, largely recovered or not, Lee Scoresby had a ways to go to recover lost strength, and in part because the majority of the party was dragging their feet. Hester did whisper a time or two to Iorek, who called a halt for a rest, insisting he needed it for pulling a heavily laden cart uphill over rocky terrain.

It said a lot that Lee Scoresby did not call him on that. But it also said a lot that Hester's whispering never led to Lee Scoresby having to give up the hike entirely to ride.

"Flying is…is everything," said Lee Scoresby, "But it feels good to stretch my legs."

They saw the hotel just when it was growing late enough that Lee had been considering calling a halt for the night after all; the wilderness was not a forgiving place to wander around in the cold and dark. He was reluctant, knowing they were close, but racing the sun rarely turns out well.

They saw it, and Lee still considered calling a halt. It was below them, what he judged to be at least another hour of walking, over rough terrain. There was a road leading to it, but they'd come up the wrong side for it.

"Is that a castle?" Lyra asked, eyes wide in delight.

"That's the hotel…I think," said Lee, who had never had a particular reason to visit it. It was grander than he'd expected in fact, thinking it would be more like a small village or outpost below the observatory, an out of the way place for out of the way travelers.

"That is the hotel," said Anna Koskinen, smiling as if remembering fond memories. "Much nicer than Lord Asriel's little place up the mountain."

"We could camp here…go to it in the morning," Lee suggested.

Iorek studied Lee closely.

"It's not that I can't go on, if that's what we want to do," Lee said quickly, guessing what the look was searching for. "Just…it will be dark before we reach it and…well. A grand place like that…it won't care for visitors who don't have much to offer in return."

"Nonsense," said Anna Koskinen. "We are a king, and the daughter of a lord, and a witch, and…"

Everyone looked at the witch while she considered Lee and Hester thoughtfully. The two were more amused by her grasping for a positive way to describe them than anything, but Lyra frowned indignantly.

"And our protector," she finished for Anna Koskinen.

"Yes," the witch decided, not seeming to notice the way the child still bristled at a perceived insult towards Lee. "And a find protector. There is no reason to not seek out their finest beds this very night."

"I will carry you, and we will reach the hotel in time," said Iorek.

"Now wait a minute," said Lee, "I never said I couldn't walk the rest of the way."

"You are able to walk," said Iorek, "But I can walk more quickly still, and we need speed if we are not to wander in the dark."

Lee opened his mouth to protest.

"He's right, Lee," Hester said, voice soft and low, just for him. "We can't let Lyra down for your pride."

It wasn't just pride, Lee wanted to protest, but he did look towards Lyra, who was looking back as if she thought anything he decided was exactly the best thing to do and she would follow him. He swallowed his first answer.

"Fine," he said, and then, because it had to be said, "Just for the speed, though. Not because I can't walk any further."

With a goal in sight, everyone moved more quickly. They went almost too quickly, in fact; Lyra skipped ahead, tripped over a loose rock, and would likely have rolled all the way down to the hotel had Pan not quickly planted himself as a hog and grabbed the back of her coat in his mouth.

"Why don't you come up here and keep me company?" Lee suggested after that, once his heart returned to its normal pattern and he felt capable of talking in a normal voice.

"I could keep you company," Anna Koskinen purred, flying up to his side on her bough.

"He don't want your kind of company," Lyra told her, with farm more annoyance than Lee felt safe for the child to direct at the witch. But Anna Koskinen just laughed.

"Oh, I know he has no interest in that," she said to the girl as Lyra scrambled up beside Lee on the cart, throwing an arm around him possessively while Pan leapt from a goat into a bird and fluttered down to her shoulder before settling as a ferret. "But we can still enjoy each other's company."

"I don't think it's a good idea…all of us burdening Iorek like this," Lee said more diplomatically, not wanting to expressly tell her that Lyra was quite right and he did not particularly want to cozy up next to her on the cart.

"I am not burdened," Iorek said back towards them, sounding highly offended.

"There en't room for all of us," Lyra said.

"I won't take up much," Anna Koskinen promised, and as if to prove it, she settled herself at Lee's other side, half curled around him. She smelt of mountain spices and felt warm and soft. Lee might even have found her comfortable there if he weren't worried she was reaching for something different than simple closeness. Lyra openly glared, albeit from his other side where the witch could not easily see.

"Say…" he suggested carefully, "It would be nice if one of us were able to run ahead and let them know we were coming…to have things ready. Perhaps a meal prepared…hot water for baths…that sort of thing."

"Me and Pan could run fast!" Lyra suggested.

Lee worked very hard to not express how very much that was not going to happen. Instead, he said, "Oh…but we might need you here…to…" his imagination failed him.

Lyra frowned, rebellious, until Hester whispered something to Pan, who in turn whispered to the girl. Her eyes widened. "Oh…yes, of course. I'll stay right here."

Lee eyed Hester, suspicious, but did not bother to ask what the hare had said. Hester likely wouldn't tell him anyway, and if she did, Lee would likely feel the need to protest. And it had gotten what he wanted; Lyra wasn't trying to break her neck running ahead of them.

"I could fly there in a twinkling," Anna Koskinen pointed out. Then, just when Lee was hopeful she'd actually do it, "Or Aake could fly there and inform them."

"Oh…perhaps that is not the best idea," Lee said quickly. "People can be funny about seeing a daemon without a human." Then, "You know, whoever did go down to inform them…that person would have first go at the food and hot water."

"That is a thought," Anna Koskinen said, and then she smiled, clapped her hands together, and said, "I shall bid them to prepare for our arrival."

And she flew, leaving so quickly Lee almost missed her warmth; he was cold on that side now. They watched her fly. No wonder she had chaffed at their slow plodding journey; in her element she could slide through the air like a dolphin through a wave. There was something of beauty there that called to the aeronaut. It was not that he suddenly liked her more or wished for her to return, and he most definitely wanted nothing more intimate with her, but he could appreciate that she did have a beauty all her own.

"Oh thank goodness," Lyra began to say, only for Lee to say more loudly,

"And are you going to keep us company then, Aake?" to the witch's daemon, who had not followed the witch. Lyra closed her mouth quickly with a snap.

They reached the hotel after sunset, but before the full dark overtook them. The first of the stars shone sharp over their heads, and the air burned with cold.

The entrance was easy enough to find as the road led directly to it. There was a man waiting. He rather stared at Iorek, and Lee half expected a protest. Bears did not always get easy welcomes in human dwellings. But the man did nothing of the kind.

"Do come inside," he said instead. "Your rooms are waiting."

Whatever Anna Koskinen has said to them seemed to have left an impression.

"I can't believe we're staying in a castle," Lyra said, jumping on her bed.

"And tomorrow, we can go up to Lord Asriel," Anna Koskinen said, smiling to herself in anticipation. She had her own room; they all had their own rooms, but for the moment they had gravitated together.

Lyra dropped onto the bed, Pan leaping into her arms and cuddling close. Lee sat down next to her.

"He'll be happy to see you safe and sound," Lee said, not sure what else he could say to soothe away the nerves that had clearly filled her at the thought of finally joining with her father.

Lyra said nothing, but she scooted closer to Lee.

"All will be well, Lyra Silvertongue," Iorek said. "And if all is not well, we shall make it well."

That night, only Anna Koskinen and Aake made use of the separate rooms. Lyra and Lee slept close, and Iorek did not care for a bed in any case and made himself a space on the floor next to them. Kaisa chose to roost in their room as well. Morning would come soon enough.