Lyra wanted nothing to do with any of it. The wraiths, the sky-plague, the black ooze, the chained wolf, the moving isle — beyond mortals. Beyond her. Ghosts speaking in dreams begging her to be a hero was nothing she'd ever signed up for, let alone wanted.

But she didn't want the world to end, either. And these days, she had more to think of than herself.

So, yes, she picked the big fuckoff door that would take her to the big fuckoff island to face the big fuckoff wolf responsible for trying to ruin all of her shit.

And stood at the threshold of the ancient prison, bottlebrush fur fluffed out with fear and static. First at the wolf himself, monstrous, bleeding from the pull of tightened chains and ripping fangs.

Then, worse, at the ones trying to free him. This, their executioner!

She'd had millennia fewer to nurse hatred for the man who betrayed her, and no act of mercy from him would ever have stayed her wrath if he was put before her now. She'd burned ships before, with same fervor this monster sent blue claws to rend the earth.

But she'd burn this tyrant, too, for thinking he had the right to decide her fate, or the fate of her pups.

'Ave ye all lost yer damn minds? Lyra snarled, rushing to the fray in desperation. Ye set tat beast free an' it'll kill ye all, an' yer mates, an' yer whelps, an' everyone else! Teeth latched to the mangled leg, aiming for an artery to cleave open.