Merrin moves like a spring-wound curiosity: precise, lively, and sometimes startlingly fast for a man of his years. He keeps his back slightly bent from decades peering into workbenches, but his hands are steady and quick. He wears half-moon spectacles perched low on a small, freckled nose; a third, minuscule lens on a slender hinge flips down from the frame for inspecting gems, and it gives a faint ticking whisper when used. His clothing is immaculate—tailored waistcoat with pockets full of tiny tools, silk cravat with a pattern of tiny gears, and fingerless gloves of soft leather—but patched in invisible places where a craftsman's work frays. An unexpected detail: a faint smudge of mineral dust that shifts color with his mood, clinging along his right cheek like a living brooch. To strangers Merrin is a warm lamp in a window; to buyers, a precise scale and a very penetrating gaze.