Disclaimer: I do not own the His Dark Materials Series.

A/N: I am just on a roll with updates lately! Here is the next installment. I decided to write a piece from Madame Bisset's perspective, to help center her role here: a kind, older woman who took in a girl in political danger. She doesn't have the details and doesn't care to know the details–which might prove to both help and hurt her and her charge, as we will find out. :) Thanks for reading!

Luxurious Lies

52.

Secrets

They were back at the bar, together yet not quite together. He was standing and leaning against the wooden counter, glass of neat whisky in hand, and she was sitting squarely on the barstool beside him. They were at the far end of the bar where no one else was sitting.

"So," she was saying, blue eyes glimmering in the dim lighting. "Here we are again."

"Here we are again," he repeated, taking a swig of his whisky and shuffling his feet. His mountain lion daemon stirred behind him, lifting her head slightly at the movement.

"How many times has it been now?"

"Have you been counting?" he countered, holding up his hand and gesturing to the bartender for two more drinks.

"Like you've been counting the number of drinks you're pushing into me?"

Her language was dangerous, she knew. The golden monkey was hypersensitive to it, his ear twitching at that last remark as he sat a short distance away from the mountain lion. She was ignoring him, her head now resting on her paws. Her human, meanwhile, was focused intently on the golden monkey's human, his eyes following her every glance and blink.

"Someone's gotta keep track of ya," he replied easily, sharing a grin with her. They'd been playing this game the past few weeks now, sitting next to one another every so often when they both happened to be there. Mrs. Coulter tried to make it seem random, but she'd carefully been tracking when he came, how long he stayed, who he was with, and whatever else she needed in order to coordinate these little meetings. She told herself over and over again it was to get to the bottom of what he knew about the local scientists here in town and about the Magisterium, but as the golden monkey readily reminded her, that wasn't all that was going on.

She liked him. In spite of herself, she was drawn to him in a way she couldn't quite describe.

"Has anyone ever told you that you look quite like a detective?" she said after a few moments of silence, swiveling her stool so that she was facing him. The way the stool moved hiked her dress up a bit, revealing more of her upper thighs. And she knew that he noticed.

"Not that I can recall," he replied, leaning a little closer to her, "but I can guess why ya'd say that. The hat?"

"Yes!" A laugh escaping her lips, she reached forward to take it. Her fingers brushed the side of his face and the top of his head as she did so. "It's a detective's hat. Do I look like a detective now, too?"

Mrs. Coulter placed the hat on her head, holding onto the edges of it with her arms so that her body leaned even closer to him. She smiled at him, softly, and he smiled back, eyes raking over her hat, face, lips, chest, and everywhere else.

Are you sure about this? the golden monkey asked her, a final warning in the edge of his thoughts. There's no going back after this.

I'm sure, she thought back to him, allowing herself to feel just a tiny amount of the alcohol she'd consumed over the past hour. I am in control of this.

She wanted to think that she was, at any rate. Everything was working out as she had planned it, after all—they'd met here several times, established a little routine, made insignificant small talk that begged for more, and even experienced moments of connection. All of these were things that she could use to find out his intentions, to see what he knew, and to determine if and how he could help her.

At the same time, though, she couldn't help but recognize the recklessness involved here, and how it was perhaps that recklessness which encouraged her to keep at this more than whatever benefits it might present to her work.

"I don't think you need that hat for that," the man—whose name, Mrs. Coulter realized, she still didn't know—said softly. "I knew from the first day I saw ya in here that you were different."

"Is that right?" she pressed, lowering her arms now as she reached out for her drink.

"I told ya: you're someone important. You ain't like all them other idiots."

"Can't someone be…important and an idiot?" he offered, her voice a little higher pitched than she might have liked.

"Nah." He reached over to set her glass down on the bar, moving from leaning against the wood to standing perfectly straight now. He was taller than she might have guessed, being that she only ever saw him leaning against something. Over six feet tall. Impressive, really.

"What are you doing?" she asked sweetly, as if she were drunker than she actually was and oblivious to completely everything.

"I think it's time we had a proper chat," he said, voice lowered as he quickly scanned around them, "but not here."

It was serious now. The golden monkey looked at the mountain lion full in the face, searching her eyes and her body language. She was relaxed, but alert. In many ways, then, she and the man were watching out for something. They were thus getting closer to it, whatever it even was.

"Maybe I should remind you that I'm a married woman," Mrs. Coulter finally answered, some of her foolish act dropped as she straightened her shoulders and looked up at him as he towered quite a few inches above her.

"A married woman of the Church, right?" Gingerly, he moved his hands to retrieve his cap from her head, putting it back on his and lowering it. She was no longer able to see his eyes in full. "I don't know many women of the Church who can drown whisky like that."

"I'm sorry," Mrs. Coulter finally sighed, swiveling back around so that she was no longer facing him but facing the bar. "I can't go anywhere with you."

It was silent for a moment as everyone processed what had happened. Just as Mrs. Coulter and the monkey were keeping an eye on the man and his mountain lion, they were keeping their eyes on them, too, this entire time. The golden monkey had noticed. And it was that which urged him closer toward going with them.

We have to find out, he concluded, moving to a standing position himself. I think they can help us.

Mrs. Coulter's daemon was the wise one between them. She was cunning and sharp, to be sure, but he was extraordinarily cautious. No detail passed by him, and he had a knack of knowing exactly where to look. They didn't always agree on everything (Lyra as the main example), but they had a good system going here. One Mrs. Coulter figured she'd simply have to trust here in this moment.

"However," she said as the man began to move away, "that doesn't mean I can't follow you out."

A meaningful look passed between them now, all pretenses aside. She didn't hide the suspicion yet hope contained in hers, curiosity and expectancy. And he didn't hide the overall tiredness behind his, as well as his resolve toward…something.

"Have it your way, then," he simply sighed, tipping his hat to her once more before he and his daemon slowly edged out of the bar.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Madame Bisset made sure Lyra was soundly asleep before she moved from her bedroom back into the drawing room, taking a large stack of papers with her. It was the only time of day she could get work done, really, as Lyra kept her busy most of the day with her lessons, meals, bathing, and slow introduction to the town and ways of life here in Lavia. Madame Bisset's crow deamon quietly cawed in her ear as they made their way over to the sofa, slowly falling their way into it.

"Not as young as used to be," she laughed aloud, aware of the discomfort in her hips at the quick jolt of movement. Her daemon snorted his agreement, settling on the back of the sofa and closing his eyes.

The Gyptians wanted a full and thorough report on Lyra's wellbeing, to make sure she was safe and cared for and out of harm's way. Madame Bisset submitted one shortly after Lyra first arrived, but that one couldn't possible say much. It was harder to really determine how she was doing at first, since Lyra was so quiet and shy. Madame Bisset expected some shyness at first, naturally, and hadn't thought too much of it then, but the girl's insular nature only seemed to deepen these past several weeks.

Madame Bisset could only imagine how hard it was, to shift from place to place as suddenly as Lyra hard. Farder Coram had briefly filled her in on the poor girl's story, making it clear that she was not safe in Oxford at the moment due to the swirl of activity happening there. Jordan College had been her home for as long as she could remember, save a voyage North with the Gyptians and, after that, time with her mother across the North. Madame Bisset bristled at the mere thought of the girl's mother. She had no idea who she was, but from what the Gyptians had even only briefly described, she seemed like a despicable human being, having abandoned Lyra at birth. Madame Bisset could imagine no graver sins than that, and could only hope the Authority would have mercy on her vile soul that frankly deserved none of it.

Vaguely, Madame Bisset wondered if that was why Lyra got along so well with the new schoolteacher. She wondered if their interactions fulfilled some kind of need Lyra never had met as a child, with no young, maternal presence in her life. As she drafted out thoughts about Lyra's progress reading the alethiometer (excellent—far better than Madame Bisset had ever seen), she thought about how the few times they'd spent time with Mrs. Clemsen were the ones where Lyra seemed lighter, happier. The girl smiled more, leaning into the woman's touch and opening up to her. And, above all, she seemed slightly disappointed whenever it was time for them to part, as if she hadn't spent enough time with her.

Of course, it might have been Mrs. Clemsen's youth that made her far more approachable than Madame Bisset. The woman wasn't foolish enough to think that her old ways and struggles didn't have an impact on Lyra's acclimation here. It was hard, she imagined, whereas someone like Mrs. Clemsen made everything seem so easy, so natural. The woman had no children of her own, as she'd told her, but the work she did day in and day out with those school children was enough to give her a lot of things that Lyra needed. She had a soft touch, and was a pious and devout woman. Madame Bisset could respect that, as it didn't seem that people cared much about the Authority anymore or about living a fair and honest life.

"We should invite her over more," Madame Bisset murmured out loud, pausing as she finished one paragraph of her report about Lyra's social interactions in the town.

Lyra is still quite shy and reserved around me and some of the townsfolk, and has a hard time connecting to the other children. She's spent some time around the school, however, and I am working with the local school to help bring Lyra out of her shell.

That would do it. The Gyptians would have to be satisfied with that, or else come and take her back and take care of her themselves. They'd never do that, Madame Bisset knew, as tensions were rising between their work and those in power in Brytain, so it was up to her to keep Lyra as safe as she possibly could. She didn't care much for politics or for conflict, but when it came to keeping a child safe and nurturing a talent as rare and precious as reading the alethiometer, there wasn't anything Madame Bisset wouldn't do.