The light came from a room whose household had already crossed.
Iven noticed it after his relief interval, walking the upper service route toward the late kitchen. The departure mark remained beside the door. A second mark identified the personal effects left for a later equipment collection. Someone had hung a blanket inside the window, but it did not quite cover the lower corner.
From behind it came a short, hard blow.
Then a voice said, “Open it.”
Iven stopped.
He knew the woman whose room it was only by sight, a bent-backed mender who had travelled with her daughter yesterday. There ought to have been no one inside requiring a lock opened at this hour.
Another blow followed. Not a hammer finding a fitting. Flesh against something that would not yield.
Iven went to the next lit doorway and asked the guide sitting there to send for the ward watch. Then he stepped into the shadow of the service stair and changed his prepared loadout. Clamp to spring. Bearing to piston. Plate and winch remained. Two familiar reseats, made before anyone had him in reach.
