Lyra. Chapter 4. Arming Him

In another life she had mended this same padded coat, laughing at his lectures, never thinking what it was for. Now she knew what it was for. She fastened the straps with the steady hands she used for everything — wounds, fevers, fear — and felt the steel go cold and final under her fingers. The traveller who could not stop talking about books was gone. In his place stood the thing the war had made him, and she was buckling him into it with her own hands. She did not ask him to stay. She only made sure nothing was loose. This is the end of the soft hours.