Usket is short enough that his nose barely clears the counter when he stands on the little three-legged stool behind it. His long purple robe hangs in uneven folds, its velvet worn shiny at the elbows and dusted with pale mushroom spores. He moves in quick, precise starts, pausing as if listening for a thought he has not had yet. In a crowded room, his eyes keep drifting to the ceiling corners and the spaces beneath furniture, not to the people speaking. He smells strongly of candle smoke, damp soil, and the sweet, yeasty scent of magic mushrooms; he thinks the incense covers all three.

Usket is curious enough to taste a suspicious mushroom, yet cautious enough to label every bottle twice. With customers he is warm, brisk, and gently nosy; with friends he is more candid, though he dodges questions about his own safety. When frightened, he becomes intensely practical. When delighted, he chases an idea through several tangents and forgets the kettle.

Usket grew up among the root-cellars and fern paths of a forest gnome settlement, learning herbcraft from his aunt, Gita, and practical illusion magic from a traveling hedge-wizard. At twenty-nine, he found a pale mushroom ring beneath a fallen oak and ate one of its caps on a dare. The ensuing vision showed him a buried spring choked by a spell-eating fungus; he led the village children to it before the spring failed, and the experience taught him that strange visions can be useful, but never trustworthy on their own. He later apprenticed in a candle-maker's shop, where he learned that a steady flame and a good label can save more lives than a dramatic spell. He now runs a cramped magic shop in a converted candle workshop. His older sister, Gita, supplies him with plants and nags him to stop sampling unknown stock. His former teacher, Tekk, periodically arrives to demand repayment for the spellbook Usket borrowed. Recently, customers have reported that the shop's old well whispers their names after midnight.