day Will and Lyra went out by themselves again, speaking little, eager to be aloh each other. They looked dazed, as if some happy act had robbed them of their wits; they moved slowly; their eyes were not focused on what they looked at.
They spent all day on the wide hills, and in the heat of the afternoon, they visited their gold-and-silver grove. They talked, they bathed, they ate, they kissed, they lay in a trance of happiness murmuring words whose sound was as fused as their sense, and they felt they were melting with love.
In the evening they shared the meal with Mary and Atal, saying little, and because the air was hot they thought theyd walk down to the sea, where there might be a cool breeze. They wandered along the river until they came to the wide beach, bright uhe moon, where the low tide was turning.
They lay down in the soft sand at the foot of the dunes, and then they heard the first bird calling.
They both turheir heads at once, because it was a bird that sounded like no creature that beloo the world they were in. From somewhere above in the dark came a delicate trilling song, and then another answered it from a different dire. Delighted, Will and Lyra jumped up and tried to see the singers, but all they could make out air of dark skimming shapes that flew low and then darted up again, all the time singing and singing in rich, liquid bell tones an endlessly varied song.
And then, with a flutter of wings that threw up a little fountain of sand in front of him, the first bird landed a few yards away.
Lyra said, "Pan... ?"
He was formed like a dove, but his color was dark and hard to tell in the moonlight; at any rate, he showed up clearly on the white sand. The other bird still circled overhead, still singing, and then she flew down to join him: another dove, but pearl white, and with a crest of dark red feathers.
And Will knew what it was to see his daemon. As she flew down to the sand, he felt his heart tighten and release in a way he never fot. Sixty years and more would go by, and as an old man he would still feel some sensations as bright and fresh as ever: Lyras fingers putting the fruit between his lips uhe gold-and-silver trees; her warm mouth pressing against his; his daemon being torn from his unsuspeg breast as they ehe world of the dead; and the sweet rightfulness of her ing ba at the edge of the moonlit dunes.
Lyra made to move toward them, but Pantalaimon spoke.
"Lyra," he said, "Serafina Pekkala came to us last night. She told us all kinds of things. Shes gone back to guide the gyptians here. Farder s ing, and Lord Faa, and theyll be here...」
"Pan," she said, distressed, "oh, Pan, youre not happy, what is it? What is it?"
Then he ged, and flowed over the sand to her as a snow-white ermihe other daemon ged, too, Will felt it happen, like a little grip at his heart, and became a cat.
Before she moved to him, she spoke. She said, "The witch gave me a name. I had no need of one before. She called me Kirjava. But listen, listen to us now..."
"Yes, you must listen," said Pantalaimon. "This is hard to explain."
Betweehe daemons mao tell them everything Serafina had told them, beginning with the revelation about the childrens own natures: about how, without intending it, they had bee like witches in their power to separate aill be one being.
"But thats not all," Kirjava said.
And Pantalaimon said, "Oh, Lyra, five