915

The planets were touched by her playful whispers, at a loss to understand her departure.

914

Left for North, those ballrooms of leaf-patterned light.

911

Some were trying to speak, and they clustered around her feet and even tried to pluck at her leggings, though the taboo held them back. She could tell why, poor things; they missed the heavy solid warmth of their humans’ bodies; just as Pantalaimon would have done, they longed to press themselves against a heartbeat.

906

when he held her wrists hard against his collarbone the blisters smoothed over into translucent globes, enormous pearls spattering her belly and back

903

Dog screams hurtled across the ceaseless ice.

902

The Intercessor was a plump, elderly man known as Father Heyst. It was his job to lead all the College services, to preach and pray and hear confessions. When Lyra was younger, he had taken an interest in her spiritual welfare, only to be confounded by her sly indifference and insincere repentances. She was not spiritually promising, he had decided.

901

I’m in elimae, which feels nice.
*
He put the lamp down and did as she told him. When she commanded, in that imperious way, she was very like her father, for all that her face was wet with tears and her lips trembling.

831

Oh, the wicked liar, oh, the shameless untruths she was telling! And even if Lyra hadn’t known them to be lies…she would have hated it with a furious passion. Her dear soul, the daring companion of her heart, to be cut away and reduced to a little trotting pet? Lyra nearly blazed with hatred, and Pantalaimon in her arms became a polecat, the most ugly and vicious of all his forms, and snarled.

830

A raven aria in seven movements.

829

curling lamb’s breath coated her eyes, diffusing the earth ’til it vanished in early morning washes of white