Nino is a narrow-shouldered young woman with the poised stillness of someone accustomed to listening for a page turning in another room. She moves in small, economical angles, pivoting around furniture rather than brushing against it. Her hands are quick and permanently dusted at the nail beds with gray-black ink, while the rest of her skin is kept almost unnervingly clean. She wears a brass measuring chain around her left wrist, its links polished bright except for one flattened section where it repeatedly catches against the edge of her writing desk. Within a minute of meeting her, most people notice her teeth: the front two are slightly broad and square, and when she laughs, which is rare, her jaw opens with an unexpectedly wolfish breadth. The contradiction is striking: her presence is soft, sterile, and almost delicate, yet her smile suggests someone who could bite through thread, leather, or a lie.