An Opus Alchymicum Vol 1: The Experimental Theologian's Apprentice

The Secret Platform

It was in the days that followed the near-miss at the Royal Arctic Institute that Lyra Silvertongue had her first ever insight into what motherhood was all about. For even though Hermione wasn't actually her daughter, the rabid rise in Lyra's protective instinct for the child was the closest she had ever come to feeling anything like maternal emotion.

And she wasn't sure if she hated or loved the sensation.

For everything now tingled in her world. Small noises sparked defensive responses in her and she became a slave to Hermione's needs, constantly checking that she was warm enough and wishing that she'd learned to cook properly, so that she could prepare more nutritious meals for her young Apprentice. She found herself fretting at odd moments, when she'd randomly think how she would cope if anything bad ever happened to Hermione, and began to appreciate the enormity of what she'd done in taking the girl away from her actual parents in the first place.

Which got Lyra to thinking about Pantalaimon's recent admonishment of her, creating a well of guilt that she needed to absolve herself of before they could go on.

"Pan ... you don't really think it's kidnapping ... do you?"

Pantalaimon looked at Lyra inscrutably a moment, giving her the time to think it out and answer for herself.

Which she promptly did.

"I mean, I didn't steal her, did I?" Lyra argued, as much to herself as her dæmon. "You know, take her against her will, or anything? She came by her own choice."

"Perhaps, but that was a choice heavily influenced by you," Pantalaimon pointed out, picking a morsel of something from between his claws. "You know your name carries weight, especially to the star-struck girls of Jericho Prep. Those disciples of yours would be hard-pressed to deny you anything that you might deign to ask of them."

"You make it sound like hero-worship," Lyra huffed.

"It is," her dæmon replied flatly. "And you trade on it. You always have. You have your father's ego and it is a beast that always needs feeding."

"That isn't fair."

"Perhaps. But it is true. You used it to convince Hermione to take a curve away from her education to become your personal pupil ... this other thing that developed is just an added bonus."

"Hey, it wasn't me who told her she was going to fall in love in another world," Lyra rebuked hotly. "I didn't say that. I just told her it, passed on the message."

"But you did seek her out in the first place," Pantalaimon replied. "You set all of this in motion."

"I wanted to meet her," Lyra reminded her dæmon. "You know how we've been watching her progress at Jericho Prep."

"Of course I do, since I was the one you sent to do most of the watching," Pantalaimon quipped. "Or should I call it spying. I'm coming to think that much of what you do is laced with intrigue and subterfuge. How did I miss you becoming so artful?"

"Because I'm good at all this subterfuge," Lyra smirked.

"Yes, it would appear so," Pantalaimon replied, trying to keep an impressed sort of grin from behind his whiskers. "So ... the CCD."

"What about them?"

"What do you mean 'what about them'!" Pantalaimon cried, incredulously. "What are we going to do about them? We know they are watching us now."

"Pan, we knew that anyway," Lyra answered dismissively. "But the fact that they have an eye on Hermione, too, bothers me. We do need to be a bit more cautious, at least until Malcolm gets here."