It wasn't a dragon.

Or rather, I could make it into one. The marks offered enough familiar parts. A wing. A horn. Something like a jaw.

But to make them fit, I had to ignore the waterline. Straighten the curve. Move the bar.

I was changing the evidence to suit the picture I wanted.

I stopped.

Then I laid out the drawings in the order I had made them. Not by creature. By the change each one had caused.

The shadow made me draw a second version. The raptor made me look at a real feather clue. The Triceratops shifted my attention to empty space. Parasaurolophus made me imagine something I couldn't hear.

Colour changed a monster. A wing became a horizon. A reflection changed a viewpoint. Armour changed meaning when I moved to the other side of it.

They weren't instructions for assembling an animal.

They were instructions for looking again.

I drew the marks without forcing them into a body.

A frame. A split. A space opening between two edges.

A door.

That was the answer to the first puzzle. The specimens hadn't hidden one secret creature. They had led me to the same threshold from different directions.

The notebook's smaller writing appeared inside the frame.

You have found the opening.

Below it, a second line.

Now decide which side you are on.