Verka is a lean, middle-aged woman with a narrow face, long wrists, and the deliberate balance of someone who expects every floor to give way. Her skin is dark copper mottled with pale scars from chemical burns. Her hair is iron-gray, shaved close on one side and braided into a stiff cord on the other, with tiny washers threaded through it. She moves in sudden, economical jerks, then becomes eerily still when listening for danger. Her hands are permanently stained blue from salvage dye, yet she keeps one fingernail painted with a delicate spiral of gold dust, an unexpectedly elegant detail amid her ruin-caked appearance. People remember the faint smell of rainwater and hot metal that follows her.