Fenna is a grown woman with a long, narrow face, high cheekbones, a firm jaw, and narrow almond eyes edged with faint laugh lines. Her knowing smirk makes her seem to have spotted the punchline before anyone else. Bright green skin is matte as old leaf leather, with fine creases at the knuckles and throat. She moves in quick, measured sidesteps, planting her weight on the balls of her feet as if the ground might become a stage. She stands beside a very tall puppet booth, stretching one arm straight up to push a knight puppet with a bee shield through its stage opening, which sits far above her head. A plain cottage door and its high iron latch, and a rain barrel as tall as her shoulder, make her tiny stature unmistakable. Her unexpected tell is her grooming: every stray hair is pinned into place, and her yellow ribbon is always knotted precisely, even after a muddy road.

Fenna is playful and inviting onstage, but wary of anyone who offers help too quickly. She can be generous with an audience and prickly with a creditor in the same breath. When she feels safe, she laughs at her own jokes; when frightened, she becomes brisk and practical, fussing over ropes and props rather than admitting she is afraid.

Fenna grew up in a roadside hamlet where her mother repaired carts and her father made toys from scraps. At nine, she began helping an itinerant puppeteer whose shows made the local reeve laugh at himself. When soldiers came to seize the puppeteer's booth as unpaid tax, Fenna hid beneath its stage and watched the villagers quietly carry it away piece by piece. The puppeteer was caught buying them time and never returned. Fenna kept the bee-shielded knight puppet from that show, then taught herself to build a booth tall enough to make her stories visible over a crowd. Now she travels between hamlets, earning supper with comedies and collecting rumors that might reveal what happened to her old mentor. She has an uneasy arrangement with the reeve's clerk, who lets her perform in the market in exchange for passing along gossip. She is also trying to repay a winter's lodging debt to a patient thatcher, though she resents being reminded of it.