Chapter Thirty-One: Merchant People

Guided by Cariad, Pan slips into a ruined station room where multilingual “merchant” workers discuss grand infrastructure projects. Their dæmons sit passive and ignored, alarming Pan. A young woman’s mouse dæmon admits fear and silence, and an older woman casually drops her lizard dæmon into a bag, deepening Pan’s dread.

At dawn, Magisterium soldiers raid the corridors. The composed older merchant woman coolly outfaces a sergeant before leaving. Pan reaches Dilyara’s room, where Cariad tends the exhausted Brynmor Strauss. Strauss warns that a plague from the red building’s other world infects all who enter and begs Lyra to stay away.

Dilyara leads Pan to a darkened lab and a cloud chamber. When she places a small dead dæmon beside it, the particle tracks veer away as if repelled, then resume once it’s moved. She says the body belonged to a merchant person and sends Pan off; outside, a gryphon flies east.

Elsewhere, Delamare receives Ionides in his tent. Ionides proposes collaboration: he and Dr. Pervani will guide the army safely across the deadly, shifting Lop Nor in return for access to the red building. He warns that without a guide, Delamare is marching into a death trap.

Delamare, unsettled yet calculating, weighs the offer over Tokay. Ionides pointedly reveals Olivier Bonneville once stole Pervani’s passport, proving his resourcefulness. Ionides departs, leaving Delamare disturbed but tempted to accept guidance while planning to retain control by force if needed.