Fortunately, the core theme of the entire speech draft was to settle accounts for the mistakes committed by Hebrew, the Pope of Light, rather than to lavish personal praise upon Lyra. As such, this part did not take up much space overall, only because it was placed at the beginning did it seem as though quite a bit of ink had been spent on it.
Seeing the girl's hand holding the parchment tighten slightly, the upward curve of Astrid's lips gradually became impossible to suppress. She leaned a little toward Lyra and spoke softly.
"Do you want me to read it out loud… for Lyra to hear once?"
This could count as a legitimate excuse to bully the little maid. Unlike the formal written language used in letters, a speech draft would ultimately have to be spoken word for word anyway. Testing the waters in advance certainly wouldn't hurt.
Read it to her… the contents in here?
