Nalia is a compact young human woman with strong wrists, a quick step, and the practical balance of someone accustomed to carrying full pots across wet flagstones. Her face is broad at the jaw and soft around the mouth, with a small dimple appearing only when she is being deliberately insincere. Her dark brown eyes rarely settle on faces. Within a minute of meeting someone, most people notice that she is studying door hinges, fire exits, loose floorboards, and who has placed themselves between her and the nearest weapon. She moves in short, economical turns, always keeping one shoulder angled toward an escape route. The contradictory element is her hands: heavily callused and usually smelling faintly of onion skins, yet she keeps her fingernails meticulously clean and paints one thumbnail with a tiny stripe of blue mineral pigment.