Miklós is a lean human man with a weathered, thoughtful face and a long pale scar that circles both wrists like old bracelets. The scar tissue is smooth and silvery, but faintly warm when someone nearby lies. His lower jaw is slightly too broad for his narrow face, and his square front teeth show whenever he eats, smiles, or speaks with unusual enthusiasm. He chews slowly and carefully, as if listening for messages inside the food. He rarely stands flat-footed. While waiting, he rests his weight on the balls of his feet and rocks almost imperceptibly, giving the impression that he is balancing on the edge of an unseen boat. His hands are ink-stained, his nails neatly trimmed, and his clothing smells faintly of juniper smoke and rain. The contradictory impression is that of a tired, scarred wanderer who moves with the delicate courtesy of a dancer.

Miklós is tender toward strangers in distress but impatient with people who make avoidable suffering sound noble. He can be charmingly attentive in a quiet room, yet becomes cold and exacting when someone tries to command him. He craves companionship but distrusts anyone who claims to understand him quickly. In safety, he enjoys gossip, sweet pastries, and absurd jokes. Under pressure, he becomes ritualistic and controlling, arranging objects into precise lines as though order could hold back the future.

Miklós was born in a riverside village where people left bowls of milk beneath the windows for wandering spirits. As a child, he dreamed events one day before they occurred, but his visions were symbolic and often misunderstood. At seventeen, he foresaw a bridge collapse and convinced the village ferryman to delay a wedding procession. The bridge fell that night, killing no one, but the rescued families blamed him for frightening them and drove him away. He joined the Collegium of Quiet Hours, where an elderly diviner named Orzsi taught him to distinguish prophecy from fear. Years later, a noble patron demanded that Miklós dream the location of a rebel leader. He refused, so the patron's mages bound him to a chair and forced a vision through him. The ritual tore open his wrists and left him scarred, but Miklós deliberately fed the mages a false dream. The rebels escaped, though Orzsi was captured in their place. Miklós now travels from town to town, selling honest readings, protecting vulnerable dreamers, and quietly searching for the prison where Orzsi is held. He has recently begun seeing the same black door in every dream, always opening from the other side.