Elias had never been to the third floor. No one had. The elevator buttons went 1, 2, and a blank where 3 should have been.

Elias listened. At first, nothing. Then, faintly—the turning of a page.

He went.

Before him stood a wooden sign, hand-painted in fading black letters:

His world had a precise geography. The morning began at the yellowing desk by the window, where the frost had painted ferns on the glass. Beyond it, the actual town of Otava—a cluster of apartment blocks, a grocery store, a library, and a railway station that saw four trains a day—existed like a forgotten footnote. The real Otava was inside: the stack of textbooks on structural engineering, the half-empty coffee mug with a dried ring at the bottom, and the Otavan suuri ensyklopedia , Volume 7 (Gry—Hir), which he used as a monitor stand.

(Here begins the student’s true world. There is no map. Follow the sound.)

Elias touched the edge of the map. The paper was soft as skin.