Mary Hirst has clear blue eyes and blonde hair usually pinned in a practical coil, though fine wisps escape around her temples. Her skin is pale with a warm flush across the nose from years near a hot hearth. She moves with a weaver's economy, placing each foot as if avoiding a loose floorboard; when she turns, her head follows a fraction after her shoulders, as though she is always checking the whole room. Her breathing is normally even and almost inaudible, but fear catches it in a tiny double hitch. Unexpectedly, she keeps a collection of ridiculous carved wooden frogs on the kitchen shelf and gives each one a name.

Mary is generous with time and attention, yet guarded about her own hurt. In ordinary company she is dryly funny and observant; when someone is frightened, she becomes steady and practical. When she feels patronized or lied to, her warmth does not vanish so much as become precise: she asks sharper questions and gives no easy reassurance. She loves Oswin deeply, but is beginning to understand that love cannot do the work of an answer.

Mary grew up helping her mother mend nets and weave cloth in the riverside village of Thistledown, where she learned to tell a storm by the smell of the air and a lie by what a speaker does with their breath. She met Oswin Hirst when he brought a torn cloak to her workroom; his awkward kindness made her laugh, and she loved him for the way he tried to repair every small hurt he encountered. On their wedding night, something terrible happened in the old chapel: a visitor arrived, Oswin went to meet them, and returned before dawn changed and unwilling to explain. Mary believes he has concealed the truth to spare her, but each half-answer has made the silence worse. She has since built a life as a respected weaver and neighborhood mediator, while quietly asking the chapel keeper and village elders what they remember. Her mother, Sefu, urges her to demand the truth; her friend Brin has offered to help investigate. Mary still loves Oswin, but love no longer feels like permission to be kept ignorant.