A novel by the author Philip Pullman, and the second in the His Dark Materials trilogy, in which Lyra continues her journey through the worlds. In the first new world she comes across, she meets a boy named Will Parry, who comes from Oxford in our own universe and is fleeing from the local authorities-- he has killed a man to defend his ailing mother.
They travel together through Will's world-- Will to find out more information about his missing father, Lyra to learn more about Dust, and encounter several people from Lyra's world. While trying to recover the alethiometer, which these people had stolen from Lyra, Will becomes the bearer of the Subtle Knife, which has the power to cut through the barriers between universes.
Meanwhile, the other characters are all working to figure out what exactly Lyra's destiny is, and what to do with the knowledge. A scientist named Mary Malone, whom Lyra had contacted in our own Oxford, learns the terrible secret of Dust and of Lyra, and leaves to fulfill her own destiny.
