Without hurrying or hesitating, Lyra stepped off the pavement and made to cross the street, walking toward the last house on the other side as if that had been the destination all the time.
The daemon-bird on the roof behind them uttered that low strangled rattle, but louder this time, and launched himself down to fly at Lyra's head. She heard and turned, and he flew around her urgently, saying:
“Where? Where are you going? Why are you crossing the street?”
She crouched, making him fly low, and that let Pantalaimon fling himself from her shoulder as she rose again quickly, taking impetus from her movement and leaving a deep scratch in the skin of her shoulder as he did; but their aim was good, and he seized the daemon-bird in the air, and bore him to the ground in a tangle of squawking, screaming, scratching anger—
—and from the house behind them came a high wild scream: the voice of a witch.
Lyra spun around to face her. Pan had the advantage of weight and power over the other daemon, but it would be quite different with the witch herself, an adult to Lyra's youth, and one used to fighting and ready to kill, besides. What did it mean? Lyra's mind was whirling. They'd nearly walked into a trap—and now Lyra, weaponless, would have to fight to stay alive. She thought, “Will—Will—be like Will—”
It was all happening too quickly. The witch hurtled out of the door, half falling, stumbling, knife in hand, her face contorted and her eyes bulging and fixed on Lyra. The two daemons were still struggling, snarling, snapping, biting, tearing, and each of their people felt every blow and every scratch. Lyra moved into the center of the little street, and backed away toward the edge of the canal, thinking that if she could get the witch to charge toward her—
The witch's face was scarcely human anymore: it was a mask of madness and hatred, so forceful that Lyra quailed to see it. But she kept the image of Will firm in her mind: what would he do? He'd be still, he'd wait for an opening, he'd make sure of his footing, he'd be perfectly balanced; and she was ready, as the witch rushed at her, to meet her force with all the courage she could summon.
But then the strangest thing happened, in a second or less. There came a dizzying blow to Lyra's head, and she staggered aside as a vast white shape hurtled past from behind her, straight at the witch. The air was filled with a monstrous rapid creaking of gigantic wingbeats—and then before she could catch her balance, the witch was smashed back and down against the road by the full force of a swan, flying full tilt. Pan cried out, for the daemon- bird was loose and twitching in his grasp. The witch, still just alive, was crawling toward Lyra, crawling like a broken lizard, and there were sparks around her—real sparks—as her knife grated on the stone. Beyond her, the swan lay stunned, his great wings spread out helplessly. Lyra was too sick and dizzy from the blow to do more than push herself up feebly and try to marshal her thoughts—but then Pan said shakily:
“He's dead. They're dead, Lyra.”
The witch's eyes still bulged and glared, fixed on Lyra, and the muscles of her arms still held her top half rigidly up from the ground; but her back was broken, and there was no life in her expression. Suddenly the muscles gave way, and she flopped to the ground like a rag.
The swan was moving—hauling himself along, unable to stand; and just above, Lyra heard that powerful creak once more, and felt the rush of air, as three more swans flew across the canal and low along the street, over their stricken brother. People in the houses nearby must have heard all this—there must be faces at the windows, doors opening—but Lyra couldn't be afraid of that. She forced herself to her feet and ran to the fallen swan, who was beating his wings awkwardly and scrabbling for purchase on the smooth road.
Ignoring her fear of the stabbing beak, she knelt down and put her arms under the hefty bulk of him and tried to lift. Oh, it was so awkward, and he was full of fear as well, beating and struggling, but then she found the best angle and he came up cleanly in her arms. Stumbling, clumsy, slow, trying not to step on his trailing, sweeping wings, she carried the swan to the end of the street, where the black water of the canal gleamed beyond the pavement.
Over her head, returning, the other swans came past so low that Lyra felt the snap of feathers in her hair and felt the sound they made in her very bones; and then she was at the edge of the water and she bent down, trembling with the weight of him, and he slid heavily out of her grasp and into the dark water with a splash. After a moment he swung upright, and shook his wings, standing up in the water to beat them hard and wide, and then he sank down again and paddled away. Farther along the canal, the other swans skimmed down onto the water one after the other, and swam toward him, faint white patches in the dark.
Lyra felt a hand on her shoulder. She was too shaken already to be further startled; she merely turned, to see a man in his sixties, with a dazed and ravaged face and scarred, sooty hands. His black cat daemon was close in conversation with Pan, at their feet.
“This way,” he said quietly, “and you won't be caught up in anyone's curiosity. Now she's dead, the street will begin to wake up.”
He led the way along the canal path to the right, toward the ironworks, and slipped through a narrow gate in the wall. The faint moonlight was enough to show Lyra a passage between the wall and the high brick side of the building. With Pan on her shoulder, whispering, “It's safe—we're safe with him,” she followed the man along and around a corner into a bleak little courtyard, where he lifted a trapdoor.
“This takes us into my cellar, and then there's a way out farther along. When they find her body there'll be a big fuss. You don't need to be mixed up in that.”
She went down the wooden steps and into a hot, close, sulfurous room lit only by the flames from a great iron furnace in one corner. Benches along each wall were laden with glass beakers and retorts, with crucibles and sets of scales and every kind of apparatus for distilling and condensing and purifying. Everything was thick with dust, and the ceiling was completely black with years of soot.
“You're Mr. Makepeace,” Lyra said.
“And you're Lyra Silvertongue.”
He shut the door. Pan was ranging curiously here and there, touching delicately with a nose or a paw, and the black cat calmly leapt up to a chair and licked her paws.
“She was lying,” said Lyra. “Her daemon lied to us. Why?”
“Because she wanted to kill you. She wanted to trick you into coming here, and then kill you, and put
