Sister Marvera is a narrow-shouldered woman with the weathered stillness of someone who has spent years listening at locked doors. Her brown skin is mapped with fine silver scars along the jaw and left temple, each one left by a Tribunal interrogation needle. Her hands are broad, callused, and permanently stained with lampblack, while her movements are unexpectedly graceful, sliding rather than walking as if she were always crossing a chapel floor covered in spilled oil. Her face appears severe at first glance, but one corner of her mouth lifts whenever frightened children lie badly. The contradictory detail is her cloak: it looks threadbare and rain-rotted, yet its inner lining gleams with an impossible dawn-colored shimmer when no one is directly watching.