Nadir Vex is a compact gnome with a foxlike face and a machinist's stillness, as if every motion has been measured with a ruler and then deliberately made slightly wrong. His skin is warm bronze with faint ink stains at the knuckles, and his dark auburn hair is usually oiled back except for one unruly curl that springs straight up like a question mark. He wears a tailored coat of soot-gray velvet lined with bright copper thread, immaculate at first glance and oddly patched at the elbows with sailcloth from three different ships. The most memorable thing about him is his right eye, a pale silver prosthetic with a starburst iris that clicks softly when he focuses on a lie, while his left eye remains a sharp hazel that seems to laugh before his mouth does. He moves with quick, birdlike economy, but when he grows excited his shoulders hunch and his hands become theatrical, as though an invisible orchestra has suddenly begun.