Living among scholars in the hallowed halls of Jordan College, Lyra hears rumors of a magical dust that supposedly possesses powers that can unite whole universes, and begins a difficult and dangerous journey to find it.

As the boundaries between worlds begin to dissolve, Lyra and her daemon help Will Parry in his search for his father and for a powerful, magical knife.

In 1878 in London, Sally, now twenty-two and established in her own business, and her companions Frederick and Jim try to solve the mystery surrounding the unexpected collapse of a shipping firm and its ties to a sinister corporation called North Star.

Twenty-year-old college undergraduate Lyra is once again thrown together with Malcom Polstead, now a professor, after Lyra and her daemon, Pantalaimon, receive secrets from a dying man about a daemon-haunted city and the origins of Dust.