Disclaimer: I do not own the His Dark Materials Series.

A/N: Hi, all! So sorry for the delay. I'd really meant to update this sooner, but time seems to literally escape me. Months go by and it's like I've barely noticed. Anyway, here is the next installment, and the introduction of a new character and new plot angle. (I've also just always wanted to write a scene where Mrs. Coulter is at a bar :D)

Luxurious Lies

49.

Shadows

It was what Londoners called a "slum" bar with weak beer, too many people, and not enough lighting, but it was all that they had in Lavia. And it was a place for everyone, men and women alike.

Mrs. Coulter had been coming to the "Rabbit's Den" the past several weeks, trying to fall in with the crowds she needed in order to discover more of what's been going on with Dust and the Magisterium. As Father MacPhail had sneered to her, Lavia was the perfect place to conduct research in secret since the townspeople were dim and gruff and poor. They wouldn't suspect a thing. She thus assumed that they'd had some Magisterium transplants here to keep an eye on things, and to keep an eye on her. And it was her job to find out. Discreetly.

Mrs. Coulter's progress was slow, however. She was passive. Kind and pretty like everyone expected. It had to be that way, to a certain extent. She couldn't let on to what she was actually doing, after all. The Magisterium couldn't find out. But it was still frustrating, as Mrs. Coulter had grown accustomed to getting what she wanted quickly and thoroughly. This just wasn't a situation where that could happen, which annoyed her—and most of all the golden monkey.

She went in tonight with a group of women she'd met at a book club. They were dreadfully boring people, going on and on about their husbands and their children, some of whom Mrs. Coulter taught over at the school. Most of the men worked in the mines and were at the bar, too, chatting with their friends while they tossed their wives coins to buy sour wine to keep them satisfied. It was insulting, really, the more Mrs. Coulter thought about it. They were treated so poorly. She was glad to be widowed.

Everyone was curious about Mrs. Coulter, as the new woman in town. Who was "Mrs. Clemsen," the quiet, soft-spoken woman traveling from Brytain to educate the under-privileged children of the North? Her husband, as they'd leaked, was traveling across Afrika spreading the word of the Authority. The two had no children of their own, and instead embraced all the children of the world, in a disgustingly zealous way that Mrs. Coulter didn't think anyone actually behaved. But the people here bought it, and lapped it up like honey.

"I couldn't even imagine," one of the women was saying, her dark green eyes glittering as she gazed at Mrs. Coulter. "Traveling across the world on your own like this? My husband wouldn't dare let me do that."

"Johnathan and I trust each other," Mrs. Coulter simply responded, bowing her head. "We know that the Authority guides our work, and that we'll be safe as long as we follow in His path."

"That's so romantic," someone else sighed, prompting a collective sigh from the group. "The two of you separated by your shared love and work."

"It's like The Prophet's Blessing!" yet another offered, which led the conversation back to the dreadful books they read week after week, which half the women didn't even understand, from what Mrs. Coulter could tell.

How pathetic, Mrs. Coulter thought, barely listening as they droned on and on about things that were not the main point of the book at all. The woes of such pointless lives.

All the while, the golden monkey kept his ears pricked as he looked around them. It was the usual crowd tonight. A few burly men to the left, yet another group to the right. The cliques here were strange. She didn't yet understand them, but they were there. A lot of the men seemed the same to Mrs. Coulter, but there was a clear divide between certain groups of them. There was Delver and his men, for example, and then Anderson and his. And the two groups never crossed, not even at the bar getting drinks. They timed it somehow, so that they did nothing more that occasionally glower at one another from across the room.

It was fascinating. Mrs. Coulter had always been interested in sociology, the study of human society. She'd dabbled with it a bit in her schooling, but never directly. There was more to this, she knew. She'd met a few sociologists back in London, who never ran out of things to study, it seemed. Human behavior was one thing, as the psychologists handled, but how humans acted in groups and in governments was different. There was a certain "tick" to it, on how to act in relation to others. Such matters were also part of the implicit education all women received: knowing how to act, how to gauge another's reaction, etc. It was easy to get lost in it like this, as if it were some harmless social experiment.

Except it wasn't. The stakes were high. This was real life. And Mrs. Coulter didn't have time to dabble like this.

Let's move, the monkey thought to her, even more desperate than she was to escape the pure mediocrity around them. She'd met a group of scientists the other night and wondered if they would be back tonight. She hadn't yet discerned their patterns and their movements, but she had to try and find out. After politely bowing out of the conversation with the other women, Mrs. Coulter made her way over to the wooden bar, ordering another glass of wine and looking around for the scientists.

"Well, would'ja look at that."

It was a voice she hadn't heard before. Spinning around, Mrs. Coulter looked to see a tall, lanky man leaning against a nearby pillar. He was wearing an angular cap. Like a detective, almost. She hadn't seen him before. He was in his early or mid-forties, and seemed rough around the edges.

He's trouble, the monkey inwardly growled at her. And she couldn't disagree, which part of her liked.

"Hello." Polite and docile as always, she nodded to him and turned away, waiting to see what he would do.

"Wait a minute." He came closer, moving his hat and looking at her closely. "I haven't seen you here before. Who the hell are you?"

Interesting, she thought to herself, holding back a smirk as she turned back to him. Unapologetically uncouth. "My name is Maria Clemsen," she said, softly. "I'm the new schoolteacher, here to instill educational as well as moral maturation into the children of the North."

"Heh." Leaning against the bar now, the man nodded to the bartender and then touched his hat. "So you're one of them, eh?"

"I don't know who you mean," she responded, sweetly.

"'Course ya do." The bartender came over with a tall class of beer, which the man grasped causally in his right hand. "Because you ain't here on Church business."

"Why, I beg your pardon!" The golden monkey was getting nervous now, sitting at her feet and staring blankly at the man's mountain lion daemon, but he insisted that she wrap the conversation up and return to the ladies before she said something she shouldn't. They both knew it was getting a bit dangerous.

"I don't buy it one bit," the man was saying, chewing his tobacco and then sipping his drink. "Married, too, I reckon?"

"Yes," she said, although she could sense her own lack of conviction in that moment, which he did, too.

"You're someone important," he continued, eyes flickering down to her lips and then back to her eyes. "I can see it in your eyes. You're not like these stupid saps."

"Everyone is important in the Authority's eyes," she simply responded, but she caught herself in a mid-smile in spite of herself. He leaned closer, amusement trickling into his eyes now.

"Right, right. Aren't we all. I also don't believe that you're married."

She raised her eyebrows at that. It felt borderline flirtatious, but Mrs. Coulter had to watch herself. Had to measure and calculate the situation. She was aware of the golden monkey now tugging at her ankles. "But I am. I was married seventeen years ago."

"And then what?" He spat his tobacco into his cup, his daemon yawning, bored. "Nah, there's more to it. More to ya."

"I take it you aren't here for the mines, then?"

It was a fine line to walk, this back-and-forth interrogation. He didn't trust her, and she didn't trust him. And she supposed that he shouldn't. He was up to something. He might be Magisterium, or even the Resistance. His entire presence screamed Resistance, and hers screamed more than a traveling bible-preacher. But she couldn't tell what was what, and thus had to remain neutral. For now.

"I'm here every night after my shift," he simply said after a long pause, tossing a few coins on the counter and gathering up his hat. "If you're not too busy with those housewives, maybe I'll see ya around."

Her eyes followed him as he left the bar. The monkey's did, too.

We've got to watch him, he warned her.

"Indeed we too," she chuckled, taking her glass of wine and heading back to her table with new thoughts to distract her during what would be more painful conversation.