First they went back to the cafe, to recover a and ge their clothes. It was clear that Will couldnt go everywhere covered in blood, and the time of feeling guilty about taking things from shops was over; so he gathered a plete set of new clothes and shoes, and Lyra, demanding to help, and watg in every dire for the other children, carried them back to the cafe.
Lyra put some water on to boil, and Will took it up to the bathroom and stripped to wash from head to foot. The pain was dull and uing, but at least the cuts were , and having seen what the knife could do, he khat no cuts could be er; but the stumps where his fingers had been were bleeding freely. When he looked at them he felt sick, and his heart beat faster,
and that in turn seemed to make the bleeding even worse. He sat on the edge of the bath and closed his eyes and breathed deeply several times.
Presently he felt calmer a himself to washing. He did the best he could, drying himself on the increasingly bloodied towels, and then dressed in his new clothes, trying not to make them bloody too.
"Yoing to have to tie my bandage again," he said to Lyra. "I dont care how tight you make it as long as it stops the bleeding."
She tore up a sheet and ed it around and around, clamping it dowhe wounds as tight as she could. He gritted his teeth, but he couldhe tears. He brushed them away without a word, and she said nothing.
When shed finished, he said, "Thank you." Then he said, "Listen. I want you to take something in your rucksae, in case we t e back here. Its only letters. You read them if you want."
He went to the bedroom, took out the greeher writing case, and handed her the sheets of airmail paper.
"I wohem unless—"
"I dont mind. Else I wouldnt have said."
She folded up the letters, and he lay on the bed, pushed the cat aside, and fell asleep.
Much later that night, Will and Lyra crouched in the lahat ran along beside the tree-shaded shrubbery in Sir Charless garden. Otagazze side, they were in a grassy park surrounding a classical villa that gleamed white in the moonlight. Theyd taken a long time to get to Sir Charless house, moving mainly in Cittagazze, with frequent stops to cut through and check their position in Wills world, closing the windows as soon as they knew where they were.
Not with them but not far behind came the tabby cat. She had slept siheyd rescued her from the stohrowing children, and now that she was awake again she was relut to leave them, as if she thought that wherever they were, she was safe. Will was far from sure about that, but he had enough on his mind without the cat, and he ignored her. All the time he was growing more familiar with the knife, more certain in his and of it; but his wound was hurting worse than before, with a deep, unceasing throb, and the bandage Lyra had freshly tied after he woke up was already soaked.
He cut a window in the air not far from the white-gleaming villa, and they came through to the quiet lane in Headington to work out exactly how to get to the study where Sir Charles had put the alethiometer. There were two floodlights illuminating his garden, and lights were on in the front windows of the house, though not iudy. Only moonlight lit this side, and the study window was dark.
The lane ran down through trees to another road at the far end, and it wasnt lighted. It would have been easy for an ordinary burglar to get unobserved into the