they accused you of thinking strangely? it would seem to me they are avoiding the question, they say, or claim, that they see both forwards and backwards in time, as the land itself, that they are ever present as they cant remember a time when they werent a shade, they are a mirror of our actions in marinds bell, the archives, and no mans land, therefore they must be aware on at least some level of what is going on in those parts at any given time, the disaperence of marind from marinds bell would cause quite an effect because it either started or almost started a war, fogive me i forget my lore sometimes, and the shades would notice this impact in the reflection, so they muct at least know something about marind and the time when she went, a reason why the shades might shy away from the question might be if they had something to do with it, though i do find this unlikely unless they wanted to provoke a war which they seemingly so enjoy, ask not how to solve her murder, but what they know of it
i am unsure as to the need of attacking them, i was just stating a possible way to achieve such