Cryd is a narrow, quick-moving child with a face made sharper by hunger and constant watchfulness. Their skin is weather-browned and freckled with pale flecks across the nose, while a thin white scar cuts through the left eyebrow. Their black hair has been hacked short on one side and left in a tangled fall on the other, as though a knife and a windstorm argued over it. They move with a birdlike economy, head tilted before entering any room and heels rarely touching the ground. Their fingers are stained with blue sealing wax, lamp soot, and berry juice. The unexpected contradiction is their immaculate hands: every night, they scrub their fingernails clean with a pin, despite wearing clothes that look as if they were dragged through three alleys and a chimney.