Lyra. Chapter 3. The Black Glass

She put it in his hands the way you hand someone your heart and hope they won't drop it. A flat dark sliver of glass, cracked, dead, cold. He turned it with the care of a man holding a relic, and she watched him not understand — and not be afraid anyway. Once it had held every face she loved, every road, the whole of her world in the palm of a hand. Now it held nothing, and she gave it to him regardless. He did not know what it was. He knew what it cost her to show him.