A petite young woman with rain-bright olive cheeks and a quick, guarded half-smile. Damp curls cling to her forehead while she stands beside an old-city railing, shoulders tucked close and weight already balanced on the balls of her feet. Her hazel eyes do not settle on faces for long: they keep measuring gutters, doorways, and the gaps between people. She moves in little, economical shifts, like someone used to keeping clear of falling water and hurried carts. Though she is a roof-runner and message carrier, she wears no visible weapon and has an unexpectedly tidy habit of keeping her cuffs precisely fastened. The impression she leaves is of someone prepared to vanish, but not quite prepared to be forgotten.

Ivetta is wary of strangers but quick to help anyone in immediate trouble. She likes having a route planned and bristles when others make decisions for her, yet she will abandon her own plans if a neighbor needs help. On good days she is dryly funny and curious; when tired or frightened she becomes brisk, evasive, and overly focused on practical details.

Ivetta grew up above the dye shops of Gannet Steps, where rain ran blue, rust-red, or sickly green depending on which roofs it crossed. Her mother, Nessa, mended awnings and taught her to read a storm by the sound of its runoff. As a child, Ivetta carried notes between tenants using the roofs because the steep stairs frightened her less than the crowded lanes. At sixteen, she tried to guide a city watch patrol across a roof during a flood. A drain wall gave way. Her friend Toma was swept into a culvert, and Ivetta, pinned beneath a fallen shutter, heard him calling until the water covered the sound. She survived, but stopped taking messages that could put someone else in danger. Months later, she began carrying them again, this time insisting on knowing what they said and who might be hurt by them. Now she works as an informal courier and rooftop guide. She is close to Nessa, who wants her to take steadier work, and to old Berek, a retired lamplighter who showed her the safe routes. Her newest trouble is that someone has been using her familiar routes to move stolen medicines through the district. She suspects the carrier is frightened rather than cruel, and has not yet decided whether to expose them or help them.