Lyra. Chapter 3. What She Kept

The shed was dark and the house breathed warm through the wall, and she could not sleep. She held the dead phone to her chest the way she used to hold it charged and glowing — out of habit, out of grief, out of something gentler tonight. A man had spoken to her in a language she half-knew. He had not run. He had not called her witch. He had simply wanted to understand. She smiled at the rafters. Somewhere a few walls away, a sword leaned against the timber, and its owner was not sleeping either.