Will's Oxford unfurls it's many mysteries for Lyra, we meet Doctor Mary Malone (!) and your Materialists shudder over strangers and specters and are awed by the Angels and Lee's adventures.
After hitting a dead-end, Will and Lyra separate to pursue their own interests while in Oxford. Will finds that much of what he needs to know about his father is a matter of public record. He writes a short postcard to his mother, then heads to the library to do some research. Meanwhile, Lyra looks for a quiet place to consult the alethiometer. She ends up in a museum where she discovers an exhibit containing the exact furs and sledge from her kidnapping in the North, along with a photo of the same Samoyed hunters who took her to Bolvangar! Close by is another exhibit showcasing a number of human skulls, all of which have holes bored into them. The alethiometer reveals a strange truth about the skulls that Lyra doesn’t fully understand. Shortly after, she is approached by an older, grey-haired man in a linen suit, who was quietly watching her from the upper level of the museum. He tries to get Lyra to come with him but she declines. After consulting the alethiometer again, Lyra finds a physicist named Dr. Mary Malone, a former nun who researches dark matter and something she calls Shadows. Dr. Malone explains to Lyra that Shadows are conscious and they cluster around humans. Lyra realizes they are the same thing as Dust, and convinces Mary that she can talk to Shadows. Will learns more about the Arctic expedition his father was on just before he vanished. Back in Cittagazze, he reads his father’s letters and finds out that just before he disappeared, his father was looking for the same kind of hole into another universe that Will fell through. In Lyra’s world, Lee Scoresby searches for Stanislau Grumman and accidentally kills an agent of the Church. Serafina and her witches enter the world of Ci’gazze and learn about the Specters and the bene elim, angels who are able to pass between worlds. Ruta Skadi leaves the witches to follow a flight of angels as they make their way North. As they approach a large mountain range, Ruta hears the clanging and pounding of the “fortress Lord Asriel was building at the end of the world”.