Lyra started to shake her head, but stopped. There were tears gathering at the corners of her eyes, and she didn't want to let them fall. You have to, she thought, but she couldn't say the words. As she looked at August she realized how unfair this was to him, and how helpless and alone he already looked. He hadn't asked to raise a child, and the infant boy had not asked to be born to such a hopelessly blighted set of parents, but that didn't change the fact that the baby was here, and someone would have to care for it, and that someone could not be her. She could not give him anything like a normal life, even if she could care for him, which she wasn't even sure she was capable of doing. Was her body still functional enough to produce milk for a baby? It seemed nonsensical, a dead body offering up nourishment for life. She had no money for a wetnurse, though, and even if she did... she could not trust herself around something so small and fragile and undefended as a newborn.

But August looked so stricken, standing there, and she could not leave it entirely to him, either, if he was asking for her help.

What's in a name? she thought, the words drifting to her mind as part of a bittersweet memory. The two of them exchanging lines from Shakespeare through letters, back when they had been carefree and happy but too stupid to know it.

"Alright," she said, raising her hands to wipe the tears out of her eyes before they had a chance to trickle down. She needed to pull herself together, at least for a few more minutes. "Alright, then. What was the last Shakespeare play you read? You do still read Shakespeare, don't you?" she said, her tone attempting levity even though the world was falling to pieces around them.