“How d’you know?”
“Because his dæmon told me.”
Lyra scoffed. “When?” she said. “You were outside all the time!”
“So was she.”
“No, she—” Lyra stopped. After she’d seen the little green serpent at the window, her attention had been focused entirely on Dr. Lanselius himself. Then she realised what this meant, and her jaw dropped.
“So they—”
“Like us. He’s done it too.”
“But she said— I mean, what Serafina told you before we found each other again—I thought it was only witches that had ever done it! Witches and us. I thought we were the only ones.”
Pan knew full well that we included Will.
“Well,” he said, “we weren’t. And I’ll tell you something else.”
“Wait. He didn’t tell me he’d done it, but she showed you.”
“Yes. So—”
“Maybe we should have done the same. Not told them.”
“Yes, just let them see. But the other thing—”
“God, Pan, we’ve been so stupid! It’s a good thing we can trust him! What other thing?”
“He’s Serafina’s lover.”
“What?” She twisted round to look at his face.
He looked defiantly back. “That’s right,” he said. “They’re lovers.”
“But he’s— I mean— Did she tell you?”
Lyra meant the serpent-dæmon, not Serafina Pekkala, but Pan knew that.
“No,” he said. “I just worked it out.”
“Oh, well,” Lyra said, blowing out her cheeks in scorn, “if you worked it out…”
“I’m right.”
“You’re dreaming.”
“I’m right.”
“But…he’s the consul of all the witches, not just Serafina’s clan.”
“So what?”
“Anyway,” Lyra added weakly, baffled, “he’s…sort of indoors.”
“Yeah, and he’s very clever and he’s very tough.”
“But I still don’t know how you know!”
“Just something I noticed.”
“What?”
“You remember Serafina’s crown? Those little scarlet flowers?”
“What about it?”
“Well, he was wearing one in his lapel. And it was fresh. And it’s the wrong season.”
“There might be all kinds of reasons…”
“No, it’s a token they have. Witches and their lovers.”
They were passing the last houses in the town: wooden buildings mostly one storey in height, with stone chimneys and corrugated iron roofs held down by cables against the winds. The tractor and the trailer swung from side to side through the ruts and potholes.
Lyra wedged herself in more tightly, and pulled the hood of her anorak down further around them both.
“Pan,” she said, “if I had something to tell you…I mean, if I knew something you didn’t…”
“I’d know,” he said confidently.
“You might not.”
“I would. Anyway, you wouldn’t be able to keep it to yourself.”
“We’ll see,” she said. “One day I’ll find a secret you’ll never know about.”
“And I bet I’ll know it within five minutes.”
“All right,” she said. “Try this. What was I talking to Dr. Lanselius about?”
“About the dig,” he said at once.
“And?”
“The fish bones.”
“And?”
“Some other stuff. I don’t know. The fact remains that you don’t notice anything, and I do.”
“Well, I’m glad to hear it.”
“Well, I’m glad you’re glad to hear it.”
“You better be.”
The note of the tractor engine changed as they began to climb the slope towards the forest. It wouldn’t be nightfall for some hours yet, but the clouds were low and heavy.
“All right back there?” Duncan Armstrong called.
“Fine,” she called back.
“It’s going to get cold.”
“Good!”
Pantalaimon settled more comfortably around her neck.
After a few minutes Lyra said, “You don’t know it’s a token at all. The flower.”
“It doesn’t matter,” he said, “because he wasn’t wearing one anyway. I knew you wouldn’t remember.”
“All right, enough,” Lyra said shakily. “You’re being a pain, you know? You’re more observant, you’re this, you’re that, I never notice anything…That’s all true, Pan. I know it is. But why compete? Why try and make a fool of me? You notice things for me, and I think of things for you. We do what we’re good at. We used to be kind to each other. We are each other. We shouldn’t have secrets. We should tell the truth to each other.”
He said nothing, but he wasn’t pretending to be asleep. Then he said, “She told me what you were talking about.”
“Well then.”
“No, not well then. All this time you wanted me to tell you something and you didn’t even ask?”
“I was worried in case it wasn’t the right time. I didn’t want to make you feel you had to. I don’t know. This is difficult, Pan. Trying not to ask…It never felt easy. But I’d done something horrible to you in the first place and you had the right to keep it to yourself, if you wanted to. But I didn’t want you to think I didn’t care or I wasn’t interested…”
“I wouldn’t ever think that.”
There was another silence, but a more companionable one.
“What did she say?” said Lyra. “If she didn’t tell you that nonsense about lovers.”