Elias listened. At first, nothing. Then, faintly—the turning of a page.
The stairs were narrow, the air tasted of paper dust and silence. The third floor was a single long room with a sloped ceiling. At its center, under a dusty skylight, lay a table covered in maps. Not the printed kind—hand-drawn, ink on vellum, centuries old. One map showed the known world as a flat disc, Otava marked not as a town but as a mythological island: Otava Insula, Hic sunt dracones (Here be dragons). Another showed a railway line leading straight off the edge, past the word Tuntematon (Unknown). otavan opiskelijan maailma
Elias touched the edge of the map. The paper was soft as skin. Elias listened
The road curved. The fields turned to forest. Then, without warning, the asphalt ended. The stairs were narrow, the air tasted of