Lyra's POV
I woke up before sunrise, the words from the night before still in my mind, “You other half”
I'd repeated them so many times in the dark that they'd started to lose their shape the way any word does when you say it too often.
I told myself I was losing my mind, it seemed the simplest explanation and the simple things were easier to hold onto than the alternative.
I went to the stream before the village woke, kneeling at the edge to splash cold water over my face hoping it might clear my head, instead as the water drilled from my fingers I heard it again not through my ears this time but somewhere deeper as though the word had been spoken directly into the center of my thoughts.
“Listen”
I went still, water was dripping from my chin and turned to look behind me. The bank
