When Lyra came down, ahey left to look for some clothes for her. They found a department store, shabby like everywhere else, with clothes in styles that looked a little oldfashioo Wills eye, but they found Lyra a tartan skirt and a green sleeveless blouse with a pocket for Pantalaimon. She refused to wear jeans, refused even to believe Will wheold her that most girls did.
"Theyre trousers," she said. "Im a girl. Doupid."
He shrugged; the tartan skirt looked unremarkable, which was the main thing. Before they left, Will dropped some s iill behind the ter.
"What you doing?" she said.
"Paying. You have to pay for things. Dont they pay for things in your world?"
"They dont in this one! I bet those other kids ent paying for a thing."
"They might not, but I do."
"If you start behaving like a grownup, the Specters11 get you," she said, but she didnt know whether she could tease him yet or whether she should be afraid of him.
In the daylight, Will could see how ahe buildings in the heart of the city were, and how o ruin some of them had e. Holes in the road had not been repaired; windows were broken; plaster eeling. Ahere had once been a beauty and grandeur about this place.
Through carved archways they could see spacious courtyards filled with greenery, and there were great buildings that looked like palaces, for all that the steps were cracked and the doorframes loose from the walls. It looked as if rather than knock a building down and build a new ohe citizens of Cigazze preferred to patch it up indefinitely.
At one point they came to a tower standing on its own in a little square. It was the oldest building theyd seen: a simple battlemeower four stories high. Something about its stillness in the bright sun was intriguing, and both Will and Lyra felt drawn to the half-open door at the top of the broad steps; but they didnt speak of it, and they went on, a bit relutly.
When they reached the broad boulevard with the palm trees, he told her to look for a little cafe on a er, with green-painted metal tables on the pavement outside. They found it within a mi looked smaller and shabbier by daylight, but it was the same place, with the zinctopped bar, the espresso mae, and the half-finished plate of risotto, now beginning to smell bad in the warm air.
"Is it in here?" she said.
"No. Its in the middle of the road. Make sure theres no other kids around."
But they were alone. Will took her to the grassy median uhe palm trees, and looked around to get his bearings.
"I think it was about here," he said. "When I came through, I could just about see that big hill behind the white house up there, and looking this way there was the cafe there, and ..."
"Whats it look like? I t see anything."
"You wont mistake it. It doesnt look like anything youve ever seen."
He cast up and down. Had it vanished? Had it closed? He could anywhere.
And then suddenly he had it. He moved bad forth, watg the edge. Just as hed found the night before, on the Oxford side of it, you could only see it at all from one side: when you moved behind it, it was invisible. And the sun on the grass beyond it was just like the sun on the grass on this side, except unatably different.
"Here it is," he said when he was sure.
"Ah! I see it!"
She was agog, she looked as astounded as hed looked himself to hear Pantalaimon talk. Her d, uo remain inside her pocket,