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bookcase.”
    Lord Asriel smiled and said, “And what has she learned?”
    “The Society thinks that your daughter is the most important child who has ever lived. They think that a great crisis will come before very long, and that the fate of everything will depend on how she behaves at that point. As for the Consistorial Court of Discipline, it’s holding an inquiry at the moment, with witnesses from Bolvangar and elsewhere. My spy in the Court, the Chevalier Tialys, is in touch with me every day by means of the lodestone resonator, and he is letting me know what they discover. In short, I would say that the Society of the Work of the Holy Spirit will find out very soon where the child is, but they will do nothing about it. It will take the Consistorial Court a little longer, but when they do, they will act decisively, and at once.”
    “Let me know the moment you hear any more.”
    Lord Roke bowed and snapped his fingers, and the small blue hawk perching on the bracket beside the door spread her wings and glided to the table. She had a bridle, a saddle, and stirrups. Lord Roke sprang on her back in a second, and they flew out of the window, which Lord Asriel held wide for them.
    He left it open for a minute, in spite of the bitter air, and leaned on the window seat, playing with the ears of his snow-leopard dæmon.
    “She came to me on Svalbard and I ignored her,” he said. “You remember the shock . . . I needed a sacrifice, and the first child to arrive was my own daughter . . . But when I realized that there was another child with her, so she was safe, I relaxed. Was that a fatal mistake? I didn’t consider her after that, not for a moment, but she is important, Stelmaria!”
    “Let’s think clearly,” his dæmon replied. “What can she do?”
    “
Do
—not much. Does she
know
something?”
    “She can read the alethiometer; she has access to knowledge.”
    “That’s nothing special. So have others. And where in Hell’s name can she be?”
    There was a knock at the door behind him, and he turned at once.
    “My lord,” said the officer who came in, “an angel has just arrived at the western gate—wounded—he insists on speaking to you.”
    And a minute later, Baruch was lying on the camp bed, which had been brought through to the main room. A medical orderly had been summoned, but it was clear that there was little hope for the angel: he was wounded sorely, his wings torn and his eyes dimmed.
    Lord Asriel sat close by and threw a handful of herbs onto the coals in the brazier. As Will had found with the smoke of his fire, that had the effect of defining the angel’s body so he could see it more clearly.
    “Well, sir,” he said, “what have you come to tell me?”
    “Three things. Please let me say them all before you speak. My name is Baruch. My companion Balthamos and I are of the rebels’ party, and so we were drawn to your standard as soon as you raised it. But we wanted to bring you something valuable, because our power is small, and not long ago we managed to find our way to the heart of the Clouded Mountain, the Authority’s citadel in the Kingdom. And there we learned . . .”
    He had to stop for a moment to breathe in the smoke of the herbs, which seemed to steady him. He continued:
    “We learned the truth about the Authority. We learned that he has retired to a chamber of crystal deep within the Clouded Mountain, and that he no longer runs the daily affairs of the Kingdom. Instead, he contemplates deeper mysteries. In his place, ruling on his behalf, there is an angel called Metatron. I have reason to know that angel well, though when I knew him . . .”
    Baruch’s voice faded. Lord Asriel’s eyes were blazing, but he held his tongue and waited for Baruch to continue.
    “Metatron is proud,” Baruch went on when he had recovered a little strength, “and his ambition is limitless. The Authority chose him four thousand years ago to be his Regent, and they laid their plans