Kaelen has the haunting look of a man who has seen the bottom of the world and forgotten how to breathe air. His skin is unnaturally pale and perpetually pruned as if he has been soaking in a tub for weeks. Water does not just cling to him, it seems to manifest from his skin, dripping rhythmically from his fingertips and the hem of his oversized coat. His movements are fluid and swaying, never quite finding balance on dry land. The most jarring element is his eyes, which lack pupils and instead shimmer with the opalescent sheen of a crushed pearl.

Kaelen is eerily soft-spoken and prone to long silences where he seems to be listening to something underwater. He is obsessively protective of any books or paper he finds, treating them with a reverence that borders on religious mania. While he is deeply compassionate toward other survivors of tragedies, he becomes violently agitated and catatonic at the mention of the High Admiral. He views the world as a thin crust floating over a vast, infinite library that is slowly rising to reclaim its lost volumes.

Ten years ago, the Morning Star was the pride of the fleet until it vanished in a calm sea. Kaelen was the only soul to wash ashore three years later, speaking of a library made of coral and bone where the history of every drowned soul is written in silt. He claims he survived by becoming a page-turner for the Librarian of the Abyss. Since his return to the coastal trade city, he has lived in the shadows of the docks, evading the press gangs and the watchful eyes of the High Admiral's scouts, who believe Kaelen stole something far more valuable than a mere story from the depths.