Kmujtaz moves like a tide: purposeful, slow to swell and quick to withdraw. His scales are an unnatural, fire-engine red—slick and glossy as varnished coral, as if someone painted ocean glass with cinders. Contrasting that, his braided hair is an impossible royal purple, woven into two long ropes that hang past his shoulder blades and are threaded with tiny brass rings engraved with tide charts. When he walks the braid sways in an almost windless rhythm. He favors a long flowing blue robe patterned faintly with constellations and cartographic lines; the hem is singed in a few places where old experiments went wrong. He leans on a flying broom whose shaft is wrapped in leather and salt-streaked rope; a lantern hangs from the broom by a silver chain and emits a soft, watery teal glow. Close inspection reveals faint barnacle-like ridges along his forearms and a faint salt-spray smell about him. Unexpectedly, the inside of his mouth burns cold—breath smells of seawater and ash.