Edrin is a very small fairy-touched dwarf with a doll-round face, a button nose, a small bust, and a broad, cheeky smile that makes his next decision difficult to predict. His large golden eyes catch light like polished amber, matching the long golden hair braided loosely into two low, perpetually unraveling plaits. Long pointed ears angle through four translucent dragonfly wings, whose fine veins flash green, violet, and copper as he moves. He wears a short black dress with a petal-shaped skirt that opens into a flower when he twirls, leaving the impression of a dark blossom caught in a gust. His long pointed white boots look absurdly pristine at first glance, but each toe is polished smooth from years of tapping against stone. He smells distinctly of crushed mint and forge smoke, a combination he insists is pleasant. He moves in quick, buoyant darts, then stops with the absolute stillness of a perched moth.

Edrin can be buoyant and teasing in company, yet becomes plainspoken and unsparing when someone is in danger. He loves spectacle and makes a theatrical entrance, but dislikes being treated as a novelty. When relaxed he invites questions; when ashamed he fills every silence with cleverness. He is tender toward the frightened and impatient with the comfortable who mistake caution for cowardice.

Edrin was born among the deep halls of Kharum-Dal, a dwarf settlement where his family made delicate brass mechanisms for miners. As a child, he was small even by dwarf standards, and his wings first appeared during a fever after a cave-in released a pocket of ancient fey magic. The clan called it a blessing in public and a liability in private. At seventeen, he tried to prove his worth by guiding a rescue party through a collapsed crystal gallery. He heard trapped miners tapping from behind a wall, but followed his foreman's orders to shore up the safer passage first. The delay cost his older sister, Hessa, her right leg. Edrin left the deep halls in shame, then spent decades learning magic and precision fighting so nobody could ever again dismiss a warning because it came from someone small. He later saved the village of Sedgewick from a blight by bargaining with its fey source, and now serves as a roaming mediator between settlements and the old wild places. He sends money and carefully drafted letters to Hessa, who runs the family workshop and answers only when she needs something repaired. His current trouble is that the blight's source has begun calling in the price of their bargain: a living name, freely given.