The cabin was quiet, with only the soft slap of water against the hull. Naruto sat at the table, turning the copper foil over beneath the lamp. The patterns on its surface gleamed a dull gold in the lamplight. Nami sat opposite him, holding the old booklet in both hands, but she had yet to open it.
"When did your adoptive mother leave you that note?" Naruto asked.
"Five years ago," Nami said. Her gaze settled on the copper foil. Her voice was even, but she spoke a little more slowly than usual. "I was still back home then. They'd just finished renovating the island's lighthouse. One night, she called me into her room and gave me a folded note. She said to open it if my compass ever broke or something seemed wrong with a sea chart."
"You didn't open it then?"
"She told me not to open it before the time was right." Nami opened the booklet and pressed it flat, brushing her fingers over the corner of a page. Tucked into its lower right corner was a piece of paper folded into a small square. The paper had yellowed, and its edges had begun to fray. "After she was gone, I kept it with me, but I never opened it. Not until last year, in the East Blue, when my compass pointed in the wrong direction for three days straight. That's when I unfolded it. There was just one sentence: the waters north of Gray Whale Cape."
"Just that one sentence?"
"Just that one. No explanation, no signature." Nami pulled out the note and handed it to Naruto. The handwriting was neat and elegant, written in dark blue ink, with a slight habitual hook to the left at the end of each stroke. Compared with the tiny