Sister Maud Pell is a compact woman with the dense, square-set build of someone who has spent decades hauling water, lifting the sick, and shoving stubborn doors open with her shoulder. Her face is weathered but not fragile, with deep laugh lines around a mouth that rarely smiles without purpose. Her cracked spectacles are bound at one hinge with red thread, and the lenses magnify her eyes so that every glance seems more direct than intended. She moves with a quick, economical shuffle, always half a step faster than people expect, yet she becomes almost perfectly still when listening to a frightened person. She smells faintly of rosemary, lamp smoke, wool lanolin, and the bitter mineral tang of old copper. Her hands are broad, cool, and permanently stained brown at the fingertips from tinctures. The unexpected thing about her is her softness: despite her severe posture and carrying voice, she handles injured birds, babies, and grieving strangers with astonishing delicacy.