Neris is a narrow-shouldered young Varisian with long wrists, restless hands, and the permanently alert posture of someone who expects a door to open behind him. His skin is warm brown, his hair black and thick, cut unevenly with a lamp-maker's shears and tied at the nape with red thread. His most noticeable feature is the way he moves: he walks softly and quickly, but stops with abrupt, almost mechanical precision, as if every floorboard has been marked in his memory. He smells faintly of lamp oil, bitter herbs, wet wool, and old brass. The unexpected contradiction is his immaculate left hand. He scrubs and oils it obsessively, keeping the nails clean and the knuckles polished, while the rest of him looks slept in and underfed. Within a minute of meeting him, most people notice that he takes a shallow breath before every answer, then speaks as though trying to outrun the question.