"Dr. Malone," said Lyra in the m, "Will and me have got to look for our daemons. When weve found them, well know what to do. But we t be without them for much longer. So we just want to go and look."
"Where will you go?" said Mary, heavy-eyed and headachy after her disturbed night. She and Lyra were on the riverbank, Lyra to wash, and Mary to look, surreptitiously, for the mans footprints. So far she hadnt found any.
"Dont know," said Lyra. "But theyre out there somewhere. As soon as we came through from the battle, they ran away as if they didnt trust us anymore. t say I blame them, either. But we know theyre in this world, ahought we saw them a couple of times, so maybe we find them."
"Listen," Mary said relutly, and told Lyra about the man shed seen the night before.
As she spoke, Will came to join them, and both he and Lyra listened, wide-eyed and serious.
"Hes probably just a traveler and he found a window and wahrough from somewhere else," Lyra said when Mary had finished. "Like Wills father did. Theres bound to be all kinds of openings now. Anyway, if he just turned around a, he t have meant to do anything bad, he?"
"I dont know. I didnt like it. And Im worried about you going off on your own, or I would be if I didnt know youd already done far more dangerous things than that. Oh, I dont know. But please be careful. Please look all around. At least out on the prairie you see someone ing from a long way off..."
"If we do, we escape straight away into another world, so he wont he able to hurt us," Will said.
They were determio go, and Mary was relut tue.
"At least," she said, "promise that you wont go in among the trees. If that man is still around, he might be hiding in a worove and you wouldnt see him in time to escape."
"We promise," said Lyra.
"Well, Ill pack you some food in case youre out all day."
Mary took some flat bread and cheese and some sweet, thirst-queng red fruits, ed them in a cloth, and tied a cord around it for one of them to carry over a shoulder.
"Good hunting," she said as they left. "Please take care."
She was still anxious. She stood watg them all the way to the foot of the slope.
"I wonder why shes so sad," Will said as he and Lyra climbed the road up to the ridge.
"Shes probably w if shell ever go home again," said Lyra. "And if her laboratoryll still be hers when she does. And maybe shes sad about the man she was in love with."
"Mmm," said Will. "Dyou think well ever go home?"
"Dunno. I dont suppose Ive got a home anyway. They probably couldnt have me back at Jordan College, and I t live with the bears or the witches. Maybe I could live with the gyptians. I wouldnt mind that, if theyd have me."
"What about Lord Asriels world? Wouldnt you want to live there?"
"Its going to fail, remember," she said.
"Why?"
"Because of what your fathers ghost said, just before we came out. About daemons, and how they only live for a long time if they stay in their own world. But probably Lord Asriel, I mean my father,
couldnt have thought about that, because no one knew enough about other worlds whearted... All that," she said wly, "all that bravery and skill... All that, all wasted! All for nothing!"
They climbed on, finding the going easy on the rock road, and when they reached the top of the ridge, they stopped and looked back.
"Will," she said, "supposing we dont