Maelis moves like someone who has measured every inch of a room and found the pattern in its cracks. She is often half-turned, as if listening to the architecture. Her robes are layered like carved ice — translucent linen over wool dyed the blue of glacier shadow — and always dusted with a light riming frost that does not melt. Her fingers are stained faintly silver from powder and old inks; nails file-smooth, each with a tiny runic nick at the base. An old, clasped chain of hammered steel sits around her throat, from which hangs a flat shard of pale glass that traps a faint inner glow. When she smiles it is quick and precise, as if adding a signature. Unexpectedly, she walks with a light, nimble step more like a dancer than a scholar of weathered northern estates.