Jor is a tall, still-growing young man whose soaked clothes cling to him like seaweed. His movements are unnervingly measured: he turns his whole body toward a speaker, then holds still as if listening through the floor. His jaw has broadened slightly, and his blunt, close-set teeth show when he chews with startling speed. His hands and feet are webbed, and faint ridges are appearing along his neck where gills may be forming; the skin there is tender, and even a brush of cloth makes him recoil. His formerly light blond hair is bleaching toward near-white, its wet strands lying flat against his skull. His face has acquired a calm, almost patient expression that does not match his circumstances. An unexpected remnant of his old life is a tiny, careful habit of smoothing a loose seam before he speaks, like a young nobleman preparing for a formal introduction.

Jor's old eagerness survives underneath an unnaturally calm surface. He once rushed toward arguments and accepted fights as tests of courage; now he studies a room before moving, yet can still leap into danger when someone is threatened. He is earnest about duty but resents the family crisis that pushed him to sea. Around captors he is watchful and compliant; around a possible rescuer, flashes of his excitable old self return, followed by embarrassment at having shown it.

Jor is Heimskr's fifth son, raised among the expectations and rivalries of a Norse noble household. As a boy he was excitable, quick to laugh, and quicker to accept a brawl; for a time he meant to serve in the guard. When he learned how grave the succession crisis had become, he changed course. He planned to sail north to Iceland, where he hoped to earn a name, land, and wealth far from the inheritance struggle. Jekt was one of the few people he trusted with the practical details of that departure. The ship wrecked in the North Sea. Jor survived the wreck, but trolls found him before any rescue did. They keep him captive and are training him to pass among humans as a spy and changeling. His clothes are the same nobleman's garments he wore at sea, now ragged, salt-water logged, and stiff in the seams. His family presumes him dead. The wreck and captivity have changed his body and his manner: he winces at sunlight, his voice breaks into low growls, and a frightening hunger has taken hold. He is trying to understand his captors' language and routine while quietly searching for a way to get a message to Jekt.