Maerith is a lean human woman with a scholar's narrow shoulders and the weathered hands of someone who has spent years sorting paper, climbing archive stairs, and traveling under assumed names. Her face is long and composed, with a small scar crossing the bridge of her nose where a dueling cane once broke it. Her dark hair is threaded with premature silver and pinned in a practical coil that loosens strand by strand whenever she is tired. She moves with quiet economy, never wasting a gesture, yet her left hand sometimes reaches toward an empty space beside her as if expecting a student's shoulder or a missing book. Her appearance suggests an austere academic, but the soles of her boots are reinforced for rooftop pursuit and her fingers carry the faint brass smell of hidden mechanisms.