Merrin Vale looks like a person who has spent years in candlelight and paper dust, yet moves with the alert precision of a cat. Their skin is warm olive with faint freckles that gather across the bridge of the nose like spilled sepia ink. Their hair is dark chestnut, usually twisted into a practical knot, but a single silver-streaked lock always escapes to hang over one eye. Their eyes are amber-brown and unusually bright, as if they are always measuring the weight of a room. They stand a little under average height, lean and long-limbed, with delicate hands that have the callused fingers of someone who repairs bindings, counts coins, and occasionally defends them. They wear a neat shopkeeper's coat of deep blue wool with hidden pockets, brass toggles, and cuffs darkened by vellum glue. The unexpected detail is the silver chain at their throat, from which hangs a tiny glass vial of seawater, a keepsake they never explain.