August was utterly unaware of the debate going on in Lyra's mind - instead, he was returning his attention to the midwife's body. He was going to have to deal with this, sooner rather than later - specifically he was going to have to deal with it sooner than she could be discovered by anyone else in the house. But how did one even hide a body in a town like this? Should he bury it?

No, he realized - there was a lake. If he weighed down her body and dumped it in the Black Lake, it would surely be ages before it was discovered, and by the time she was found she would be identifiable only as (if anything) the victim of a vampire. It could never be traced to him, and with Lyra under everyone's radar...

His train of thought was derailed by her next statement. "Hm?" August said, "Of course - of course." Now that the baby was here, and alive, and here - there was nothing more important to August, immediately. Until the baby arrived he had not known what to do but now their son was here and - Lyra was asking him about raising him.

August tilted his head at her, just slightly. "Lyra -" he said, slowly, with a frown, "Are you going to - go?"

He wanted her to stay, desperately. He didn't know how to do this alone.

(He did not know how they would make it work together, either, and he knew this too.)

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