feat: treat backslash N as missing sentinel

[JohnnyWilson16]

Description

Please include a summary of the changes and the related issue/feature description.

Fixes # (issue number if applicable)

Type of Change

• Bug fix (non-breaking change which fixes an issue)
• New feature (non-breaking change which adds functionality)
• Breaking change (fix or feature that would cause existing functionality to not work as expected)
• Refactor / Style / Performance improvement

Checklist

• My code follows the style guidelines of this project
• I have performed a self-review of my own code
• I have commented my code, particularly in hard-to-understand areas
• I have added tests that prove my fix is effective or that my feature works
• New and existing unit tests pass locally with my changes
• Type checks (mypy) and linter checks (ruff) pass locally