The heating begins to clink, the sound rising up steady and even from the deep like a prisoner banging on the pipes with a shoe. It is loudest in here, which means that Neith is deaf. Does it also mean that an assassin would come this way to check the source of the noise? Or would he, or she, continue with their chosen pattern, knowing the nature of the sound? That creak, say, might be a predatory step in the kitchen. That muffled flutter might be pigeons—or it might not.