Sella Marr moves like someone used to walking on wet stone, light on her feet and always angled as if listening with her whole body. She is slender and wiry, with work-hardened hands stained gold at the fingertips from turmeric and calendula. Her smile is bright enough to fool strangers into thinking she is harmless, but her stillness is the stillness of a fox in reeds. She keeps her hair braided tight for work, yet a single silver curl always escapes at the temple, which she never quite pins back. The most surprising thing about her is that she wears a severe black apron over a robe embroidered with tiny pink lotus blooms, as if a funeral and a festival had been stitched together in one outfit.