When she registers that there's a human form slumped in that corner chair, Klara first revises her mental simulation of how the living occupants here must have spent their last minutes - she thought it must have been a corpse, and the low visibility supported that thought. The glimmer of metal is curious. Perhaps they had chosen a swifter death than of Sand Plague, and the tool still rested in their grip. But she draws closer - one step, a second - and learns two things at once.

The first is that this is not a corpse. That sound, the repetitive movement of the chest - there is breath in them yet.

The second is that this is in fact not a common resident of one of many indistinct houses, but someone with which she is readily familiar. Klara has to quickly cup her hands to her lips to keep the reflexive mutter of "Ripper" from coming out, turning the sound into an indeterminate gasp. The Ripper - rather, the Haruspex. Why was he here, of all the spots in the town...? What pitiful coincidence.