The first name matched before Eli understood the date beside it.
He had seen the name in the inquiry’s preserved record of the Tower filament: a line among many, detached from a face or an ordinary place in the world. Here it sat in a traveler’s register beside a route reference and a death confirmation. The handwriting belonged to someone who had tried to record a person, not a machine that had collected a signal.
Eli leaned closer, then stopped when Ilyan held up one finger.
“One page at a time.”
“Yes.”
Juno opened the authorized comparison extract from the inquiry record. The original filament and its preserved data remained under their own custody; this was the approved working material with source references, copied symbols, and the distinctions between recovered characters and uncertain ones. She placed it beside the local entry without moving either sheet across the other’s cover.
The council’s observer checked that both sources fell within the comparison permission. Then Ilyan exposed the date column.
“Which date is this?” Juno asked.
