Pekko is a two-foot-five gnome with a long, smoke-gray beard braided into five narrow cords, each tied with a different colored thread. He moves with a cautious forward lean, as though perpetually listening for something beneath the floorboards, and when he waits he balances on the balls of his feet instead of standing flat. His enormous red pointy hat droops over one shoulder, its felt patched with scraps of funeral banners and stitched with tiny silver bells that never seem to ring. His hands are small, square-knuckled, and perpetually dusted with pale grave chalk. The unexpected thing about him is his warmth: despite the corpse-lanterns, bone charms, and smell of old soil clinging to his clothes, he has a bright, almost domestic presence, like a kindly baker who happens to keep his ingredients in coffins.