Lyra woke up with her heart racing again, the same way it had been doing all week, except this time it felt worse. It felt like something was tugging at her from inside her chest, like someone had reached directly into her body and pulled at a string she didn’t know she had.

She sat up slowly, breathing through her mouth because the air felt too hot in her throat. Her hands went straight to her stomach, not because the baby hurt but because she felt this sharp, strange pressure just under her ...