Kuon placed the catalog upon the floor.
He laid it face down, pressing the open pages flat against the wooden planks. The blue glare of his artificial eye intensified, sending a piercing light through the back of the paper.
The catalog glowed from within, shimmering like a paper lantern.
The lines of the nautical chart, captured upon the page, were projected onto the floor below. Three distinct paths. North, West, and Down. Distorted, curving lines flickered in a spectral blue over the natural grain of the floorboards.
"What are you doing?" Asahi asked, leaning in to look.
"Projection," Kuon replied. "I’m enlarging the chart I copied into the catalog. By using the light from my eye, I can pull the information drawn on the paper out onto the surface."
The blue lines seemed to crawl across the floor. At this scale, the sharp angles of the curves were far more apparent than they had been on the page. The Observer’s grey guiding lines were visible too—thin, ashen threads coiling around the three main paths, constricting them.
"It’s so easy to see like this," Koyoi said, kneeling on the floor. He placed his palm over one of the blue lines; the light filtered through the gaps between his fingers. There was no heat to it. It was merely light.
But in the next heartbeat, he saw something else.
"There’s a shadow," Koyoi cried out.
The lines of the chart projected on the floor were casting a second image. Directly beneath the paths traced in blue light lay a set of dark, shadowed lines. Their shapes were subtly, fundamentally different from the lines of light.
Kuon narrowed his artificial eye. "A shadow?"
"On the floor... even deeper down. The shadows of the lines aren't matching up with the light."
Kuon lifted the catalog slightly. As the angle of the light shifted, the shadowed lines emerged with startling clarity.
The nautical chart of blue light and its shadow counterpart lay overlapped upon the floorboards.
The shadow chart was not distorted.
Three lines stretched out, perfectly straight. To the North, to the West, and Down. There were no grey guiding lines from the Observer here. Only the pure, original paths where the Names were meant to fly remained etched in the darkness.
"This is..." Kuon’s voice turned raspy. "It’s the original chart. The true map, as it existed before the Observer rewrote it, remains preserved as a shadow."
Asahi pressed his face close to the floor, his eyes tracing the shadowed paths. "These lines are straight. They don't bend at all. Then, the place where the Names are truly supposed to return is—"
"The shadow is the truth," Kuon declared.
"The lines of a nautical chart are drawn by the will of the Names themselves. The Observer twisted that will to bend the paths. But he couldn't erase the traces of how those lines were first drawn. Even if the light is rewritten, the shadow remembers its true form."
Koyoi traced his finger along a shadowed line. His fingertip slid northward across the floorboards, following a path that was straight and true. A road without a single curve.
"Is the Well at the end of this line?"
"The receptacle," Kuon corrected. "The place where the Names make planetfall. If we follow the shadow lines, we can find the location of the true receptacles."
Kuon pulled a pencil from his coat and began to copy the shadow lines into the margins of the catalog. Comparing the blue glow with the dark silhouettes, he meticulously recorded the original paths.
"The northern line points toward Hoshino. It really is Hoshino. The Observer tried to veer them East, but there’s no doubt—the original destination is Hoshino."
"And the West?"
"The western line leads to... Namizato. An old port town by the sea. There is a receptacle there as well."
"And Down?"
Kuon’s pencil faltered.
He stared at the third shadowed line. Even in the shadow, the path plunging downward continued into the depths. However, the name of the destination written at its end was illegible, even under the light of his artificial eye.
"...It’s too deep. There are limits to the information a shadow can hold. I won’t know where the third path leads until we get closer."
Asahi stood up, stretching his legs. "Two out of three is plenty for now. Hoshino and Namizato. We go to Hoshino first and call the Names there. Then we head for Namizato."
"Hoshino is the priority," Kuon agreed, nodding. "According to the transcripts, the majority of the Names are headed toward Hoshino. Of the thirty-seven souls, more than twenty are on that northern line. Shizuku’s brother is among them."
Koyoi looked down at the drawstring pouch. Inside the fabric, Shizuku pulsed with a quiet, steady rhythm. Fifty-two lives—including the Name from the ticket—were even now flying along those distorted roads.
"If we have the map of shadows, we can tell them the true way," Koyoi murmured. "When we call them, we should use this map. If we call out toward the straight paths instead of the twisted ones, the Names can return from the right direction."
Kuon stopped his pencil and looked up at Koyoi. The blue light of his artificial eye had turned soft.
"Exactly. A voice carries direction. If the one who calls faces the correct way, the Names can descend without losing their path. The shadow map will be our compass."
As he lifted the catalog from the floor, the shadow chart vanished.
But the lines Kuon had traced remained vividly etched in the margins of the page. Three straight lines. The true homecoming for the Names, as it was before the Observer’s interference.
The train let out a long, mournful whistle.
Through the thickening fog, the lights of a station began to draw near.
Koyoi gathered the bundle of transcripts and the pouch, standing up quietly. With the map of shadows held close to his chest, he prepared for the next stop.
Outside the window, a single streak of golden light cut across the northern sky.
Straight.
Without faltering.