And always, the brass key in his left boot.

By age seven, Nadie knew three things: how to strip a rifle blindfolded, how to tell a landmine from a rock by the way it sat in the earth, and how to be silent for hours inside a hollowed cistern while soldiers’ boots drummed the floor above him.

He found the city by following a river of rusted tanks. It was a skeleton of a place, but some bones still stood. Street 17 was a canyon of collapsed balconies and wind-whipped laundry. The red door had faded to the color of dried blood. The lock was old, European, pre-war.