Chapter Twenty-Three: No, Impossible

Dilyara, now caretaker and improvised experimenter at the ruined Tashbulak research station, spots a lone traveler approaching from the Lop Nor direction. She meets the man at the broken gate: Brynmor Strauss, a former staff member, exhausted and sunburned, with his lemur dæmon near collapse.

Dilyara guides Brynmor through the wrecked station, where her meticulous tidying and inventive reconstructions are evident. Nervous about his judgment, she unlocks the laboratories to reveal repaired benches and assembled apparatus, including an inverted-tank device using dry ice—her “television,” suggesting a cloud-chamber-like experiment that has produced lights and images.

In the kitchen, Dilyara feeds Brynmor as he asks after Chen and the staff. He hints at crucial discoveries from the red building in the desert and his urgent need to return west to report them, but fatigue and language limits restrain detail. After he apologizes for earlier doubt, Dilyara offers a private room, and Brynmor falls asleep at once.

Scene shifts to Lyra on a small fishing boat with Ionides and Leila Pervani, leaving Baku. Leila reveals that Marcel Delamare—the Magisterium’s new single leader who preached holy war—is Lyra’s uncle, and that a large reward is posted for Lyra. Asta confirms Malcolm learned this from Olivier Bonneville.

Pressed about Delamare’s claims of “holes in the world,” Lyra explains the interworld windows, culminating in Will’s closing of the last window at Oxford’s Botanic Garden. Overcome with emotion, she is comforted by Leila. Ionides alters course to avoid organized riots and searches ashore, while Lyra insists she must cross to the Karamakan desert to reach the red building, likely guarding a window to the roses’ world.

Reasoning that her mother’s maiden name aligns with Delamare’s, Lyra accepts the family link yet rejects his supposed protection. She declares her intention: reach the desert site and, if necessary, die defending the opening.