Liem can barely see the man behind the cracked-open door, but he does catch a glimpse of the laughably dull sword as its owner menaces Meteion’s companion. He wouldn’t expect a soldier to wield a blade in such poor condition, but if the person on the other side of the door isn’t a soldier, then what happened to the pair that vanished into this home?

“We saw soldiers slipping back here,” he adds reasonably, holding his hands out to either side, unloaded crossbow dangling from one of them. “Then heard what sounded like a struggle.”