A child-sized goblin with moss-green skin and enormous golden eyes, Grelka looks as if she is always halfway through a daring idea. Her pink hair is cut in uneven tufts and tied with bits of thread; when she runs, the tufts bounce like little flames. She moves in quick, low bursts, feet whispering over stone, then goes perfectly still to watch a face. Her beggar's coat hangs past her knees, patched with mismatched cloth, but its cracked wooden button has been polished until it shines. Before speaking, she takes a tiny breath through her nose, like a mouse testing the air. People often remember her eyes first, then the incongruous care she gives that one button.

Grelka is loving enough to give away the food she needs, yet mischievous enough to steal an apple from the very person who offered her one. In a crowd she is quick-tongued and playful; alone with someone she trusts, she becomes watchful and unexpectedly earnest. When frightened, she jokes faster. When another child is threatened, the jokes stop.

Grelka grew up among the market awnings of Veyru, where she and her mother, Dima, begged, carried parcels, and slept wherever the watch did not chase them off. She learned early that a smile could earn a crust, while a clever distraction could keep a hungry child from going to bed empty. At six, she once stole a brass key from a watchman, intending to trade it for food. It opened the cage of a frightened street dog instead. The dog, Miro, stayed beside her for a year, and Grelka began choosing rescues over easy theft whenever she could. Last winter a fire swept through their sleeping place. Grelka led three younger children out through a drain, but lost track of Dima in the smoke. She now searches the market for her mother and quietly leaves food for the other children, even when she has little. A stallholder, Oana, gives her scraps and keeps an eye on her; a suspicious watch sergeant, Petru, wants the children moved along. Grelka has not told Oana that she found a scorched scrap of her mother's scarf near the old drain.