“What about the window I found?”
“I dunno about that. Maybe all the worlds are starting to move into one another.”
“And why are you looking for dust?”
She looked at him coldly. “I might tell you sometime,” she said.
“All right. But how are you going to look for it?”
“I’m going to find a Scholar who knows about it.”
“What, any scholar?”
“No. An experimental theologian,” she said. “In my Oxford, they were the ones who knew about it. Stands to reason it’ll be the same in your Oxford. I’ll go to Jordan College first, because Jordan had the best ones.”
“I never heard of experimental theology,” he said.
“They know all about elementary particles and fundamental forces,” she explained. “And anbaromagnetism, stuff like that. Atomcraft.”
“What-magnetism?”
“Anbaromagnetism. Like anbaric. Those lights,” she said, pointing up at the ornamental streetlight. “They’re anbaric.”
“We call them electric.”
“Electric . . . that’s like electrum. That’s a kind of stone, a jewel, made out of gum from trees. There’s insects in it, sometimes.”
“You mean amber,” he said, and they both said, “Anbar . . . ”
And each of them saw their own expression on the other’s face. Will remembered that moment for a long time afterward.
“Well, electromagnetism,” he went on, looking away. “Sounds like what we call physics, your experimental theology. You want scientists, not theologians.”
“Ah,” she said warily. “I’ll find ’em.”
They sat in the wide clear morning, with the sun glittering placidly on the harbor, and each of them might have spoken next, because both of them were burning with questions; but then they heard a voice from farther along the harbor front, toward the casino gardens.
Both of them looked there, startled. It was a child’s voice, but there was no one in sight.
Will said to Lyra quietly, “How long did you say you’d been here?”
“Three days, four—I lost count. I never seen anyone. There’s no one here. I looked almost everywhere.”
But there was. Two children, one a girl of Lyra’s age and the other a younger boy, came out of one of the streets leading down to the harbor. They were carrying baskets, and both had red hair. They were about a hundred yards away when they saw Will and Lyra at the café table.
Pantalaimon changed from a goldfinch to a mouse and ran up Lyra’s arm to the pocket of her shirt. He’d seen that these new children were like Will: neither of them had a dæmon visible.
The two children wandered up and sat at a table nearby.
“You from Ci’gazze?” the girl said.
Will shook his head.
“From Sant’Elia?”
“No,” said Lyra. “We’re from somewhere else.”
The girl nodded. This was a reasonable reply.
“What’s happening?” said Will. “Where are the grownups?”
The girl’s eyes narrowed. “Didn’t the Specters come to your city?” she said.
“No,” Will said. “We just got here. We don’t know about Specters. What is this city called?”
“Ci’gazze,” the girl said suspiciously. “Cittàgazze, all right.”
“Cittàgazze,” Lyra repeated. “Ci’gazze. Why do the grown-ups have to leave?”
“Because of the Specters,” the girl said with weary scorn. “What’s your name?”
“Lyra. And he’s Will. What’s yours?”
“Angelica. My brother is Paolo.”
“Where’ve you come from?”
“Up the hills. There was a big fog and storm and everyone was frightened, so we all run up in the hills. Then when the fog cleared, the grownups could see with telescopes that the city was full of Specters, so they couldn’t come back. But the kids, we ain’ afraid of Specters, all right. There’s more kids coming down. They be here later, but we’re first.”
“Us and Tullio,” said little Paolo proudly.
“Who’s Tullio?”
Angelica was cross: Paolo shouldn’t have mentioned him, but the secret was out now.
“Our big brother,” she said. “He ain’ with us. He’s hiding till he can . . . He’s just hiding.”
“He’s gonna get—” Paolo began, but Angelica smacked him hard, and he shut his mouth at once, pressing his quivering lips together.
“What did you say about the city?” said Will. “It’s full of Specters?”
“Yeah, Ci’gazze, Sant’Elia, all cities. The Specters go where the people are. Where you from?”
“Winchester,” said Will.
“I never heard of it. They ain’ got Specters there?”
“No. I can’t see any here, either.”
“ ’Course not!” she crowed. “You ain’ grown up! When we grow up, we see Specters.”
“I ain’ afraid of Specters, all right,” the little boy said, thrusting forward his grubby chin. “Kill the buggers.”
“En’t the grownups going to come back at all?” said Lyra.
“Yeah, in a few days,” said Angelica. “When the Specters go somewhere else. We like it when the Specters come, ’cause we can run about in the city, do what we like, all right.”
“But what do the grownups think the Specters will do to them?” Will said.
“Well, when a Specter catch a grownup, that’s bad to see. They eat the life out of them there and then, all right. I don’t want to be grown up, for sure. At first they know it’s happening, and they’re afraid; they cry and cry. They try and look away and pretend it ain’ happening, but it is. It’s too late. And no one ain’ gonna go near them, they on they own. Then they get pale and they stop moving. They still alive, but it’s like they been eaten from inside. You look in they eyes, you see the back of they heads. Ain’ nothing there.”
The girl turned to her brother and wiped his nose on the sleeve of his shirt.
“Me and Paolo’s going to look for ice creams,” she said. “You want to come and find some?”
“No,” said Will, “we got something else to do.”
“Good-bye, then,” she said, and Paolo said, “Kill the Specters!”
“Good-bye,” said Lyra.
As soon as Angelica and the little boy had vanished, Pantalaimon appeared from Lyra’s pocket, his mouse head ruffled and bright-eyed.
He said to Will, “They don’t know about this window you found.”
It was the first time Will had heard him speak, and he was almost more startled by that than by anything else he’d seen so far. Lyra laughed at his astonishment.
“He—but he spoke! Do all dæmons talk?” Will said.
“ ’Course they do!” said Lyra. “Did you think he was just a pet?”
Will rubbed his hair and blinked. Then he shook his head. “No,” he said, addressing Pantalaimon. “You’re right, I think. They don’t know about it.”
“So we better be careful how we go through,” Pantalaimon said.
It was strange for only a moment, talking to a mouse. Then it was no more strange than talking into a telephone, because he was really talking to Lyra. But the mouse was separate; there was something of Lyra in his expression, but something else too. It was too hard to work out, when there were so many strange things happening at once. Will tried to bring his thoughts together.
“You got to find some other clothes first,” he said to Lyra, “before you go into my Oxford.”
“Why?” she said stubbornly.
“Because you can’t go and talk to people in my world looking like that; they wouldn’t let you near them. You got to look as if you fit in. You got to go about camouflaged. I know, see. I’ve been doing it for years. You better listen to me or you’ll get caught, and if they find out where you come from, and the window, and everything . . . Well, this is a good hiding place, this world. See, I’m . . . I got to hide from some men. This is the best hiding place I could dream of, and I don’t want it found out. So I don’t want you giving it away by looking out of place or as if you don’t belong. I got my own things to do in Oxford, and if you give me away, I’ll kill you.”