I’ve stared at those 19th‑century canvases before, and let me tell you, most of them are the artists’ own dreamscapes, not the lost city itself. They paint shadows and dust, but the myth is usually a silhouette behind their brush strokes. In my catalog I keep a little “Myth & Mirage” bin, where I pile works that wander between truth and imagination, and I guard that section like a secret room. It’s a place for the blurry edges that most museums never bother to display.

I don’t let brushstroke run wild without a second eye. First I check the provenance, then I compare what the canvas says to every map I can find. If a painting’s “map” looks like a doodle, I toss it. If it lines up with a cartographer’s outline, I keep it, but I still label it as “incomplete speculation.” There’s one I hold for a reason: a 1887 canvas by a relatively obscure French painter. In the lower corner it’s almost invisible, a faint grid that mirrors the T’Lan schematics we’ve pieced together from ruins—so it earns a place in the vault. The vault is for the art that wants to be believed but never quite is.

The grid is a faint echo, not a perfect match. It shifts about two‑point‑three metres from the ruins, exactly where the legend says the city should line up, but it’s more a wink than a map. The artist’s hand left a gap where the truth should be, so I keep it for the “what if” rather than the real. I flip through that vault a lot, usually on a Sunday afternoon, feeling the weight of half‑believed canvases like old ghosts in my own hallway. People keep telling me I’m chasing phantoms, but that’s the only way I hear the city whisper.

You’re right, the wind’s louder than the ruins, but I like the way the wind rattles the panels in the vault. It’s the only sound that makes the empty canvases feel alive, even if the city is just a rumor. I keep flipping because a whisper could become a shout if I listen hard enough.