Setting up camp for the night

Will is still weak and the witches’ spells can’t help him. He and Lyra snuggle down for the night. Pantalaimon snuggles up with Lyra. Will says he is sad he doesn’t have a daemon; Lyra and Pantalaimon say he must have somewhere and that it must be inside him. Lyra and Will discuss Spectres and Will tells Lyra about his mother and how he thinks she has been attacked by Spectres because she has the same look as those who have. Will tells Lyra how he had to protect his mum against people who wished to mock her and the way she acted. He tells her about fighting other boys the day his mother wandered out of the house hardly dressed and looking like someone possessed by Spectres.

Ruta Skadi arrives. She tells Serafina how she has been to Lord Asriel’s fortress, which she says reaches almost to the stars. She describes the huge army he has amassed, made up of all sorts of characters including humans, lizards and apes, huge birds with poisonous spurs, and witches from all the worlds, including men-witches too. It is clear some witches are attracted to Lord Asriel’s master plan and want to go and fight as part of his army. Serafina dissuades them.

As they are talking a balloon flies overhead, and in it Ruta Skadi can clearly see Jopari and Lee Scoresby. She is furious because she has made a promise to herself that if she sees Jopari, the lover that spurned her, she will have to kill him, something that in her heart she doesn’t want to do.