The ghosts were fascinated by the blood on Lyra's forehead. It glowed as brightly as a holly berry in the dimness, and several of them had brushed through it, longing for the contact with something so vibrantly alive. One ghost girl, who when she was alive must have been about nine or ten, reached up shyly to try and touch it, and then shrank back in fear; but Lyra said, "Don't be afraid, we en't come here to hurt you, speak to us, if you can!" "If you'd like." "Very well," said the Chevalier. "We shall help you, because that's the task we've been given. But you must let us know what you intend to do." The spies, their thoughts moving even more quickly than their darting steeds, exchanged a glance and brought the dragonflies to rest side by side on a dry, withered branch. "Both here, both alive," said the Chevalier's voice near his ear. "Is there anyone else with her?" Will said. "No soldiers, or anyone like that?" So they set off across the floor of that great desolate plain, and the harpies wheeled higher and higher overhead, screaming and screaming. But they kept their distance, and the Gallivespians flew above, keeping watch. What are you dreaming? "Very well. Fra Pavel, you would do well to continue that line of investigation. Whatever you need in the way of clerical or secretarial help is yours to command. Please stand down." Instead, he clung there, gazing forward. "Thank you, my lord," said the reader. "And... It was me that took him there, to Svalbard, where he got killed, it was my fault he was dead. And I thought back to when we used to play in Jordan College, Roger and me, on the roof, all through the town, in the markets and by the river and down the Claybeds... Me and Roger and all the others... And I went to Bolvangar to fetch him safe home, only I made it worse, and if I don't say sorry, it'll all be no good, just a huge waste of time. I got to do that, you see, Will. I got to go down into the land of the dead and find him, and...and say sorry. I don't care what happens after that. Then we can... I can ... It doesn't matter after that." They discussed practical arrangements, money, and so forth; and then the President said, "Once you leave here, Father Gomez, you will be completely cut off, forever, from any help we can give. You can never come back; you will never hear from us. I can't offer you any better advice than this: don't look for the child. That would give you away. Instead, look for the tempter. Follow the tempter, and she will lead you to the child." "Impossible," roared the bear. "It would be shameful to fight you. You are as weak as an oyster out of its shell. I cannot fight you." Fra Pavel moved some of his books, and the young priest laid the gold chain on the table. The others bent over to look as Father MacPhail fiddled with the catch. Dr. Cooper offered him a pocketknife, and then there was a soft click. "I did not! You came charging out and attacked me." They looked at the oldest man among them, as if he were their guide. Something stirred in the cliff-ghast's memory. He paused, one hand on the warm liver, and as his brother knocked him aside, the recollection of a babbling Arctic fox came to his mind. Mrs. Coulter whispered to the shadow beside her: The twelve members of the Court looked through the dim afternoon light at the cleric on the stand, their last witness. He was a scholarly-looking priest whose daemon had the form of a frog. The Court had been hearing evidence in this case for eight days already, in the ancient high-towered College of St. Jerome. She spread the silk on the ground and began the process of dividing and counting, dividing and counting and setting aside, which she'd done so often as a passionate, curious teenager, and hardly ever since. She had almost forgotten how to do it, but she soon found the ritual coming back, and with it a sense of that calm and concentrated attention that played such an important part in talking to the Shadows. Every spy was equipped with a number of these larvae, which, by feeding them carefully regulated amounts of oil and honey, they could either keep in suspended animation or bring rapidly to adulthood. Tialys and Salmakia had thirty-six hours, depending on the winds, to hatch these larvae now, because that was about the time the flight would take, and they needed the insects to emerge before the zeppelins landed. "I wonder why she's so sad," Will said as he and Lyra climbed the road up to the ridge. "How do you know my name?" he said harshly.