CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
"So is yours."
The words sat in the room like something spilled, spreading before either of them could stop it, and Lyra heard herself ask the only question that mattered before she'd fully processed the first one.
"What ledger?"
Dimitri stood, crossed to a section of the bookshelf she'd walked past a dozen times without noticing, and pressed something she couldn't see. A panel gave way, quiet and smooth, like it had been oiled recently, like it was opened more often than she'd have guessed. He came back with a leather-bound book, worn soft at the corners, and set it on the desk between them the way he'd set down the photograph of Calder Mace four days ago.
"This is what your father died protecting," he said. "This is what Mace has been trying to get his hands on for
