Fenna is tall and slender for a goblin, with long pointed ears, bright amber eyes, and a wide laugh that wrinkles the corners of her eyes. Her dark hair is pinned into a determinedly neat bun with a yellow ribbon that has been darned in three places. Painted fingertips flash as she works a little fox puppet, making it bow and snap its felt jaw. Beside her, Old Gimble is small and tidy, with green skin, a carefully combed white beard, sweeping white brows, and a gentle half-smile. He sits upright on a stool with his arms folded over a plaid blanket, watching the crowd as closely as he watches the show. Together they leave the impression of a warm, practiced household that has somehow learned to travel.

Fenna is generous with strangers and sharp with anyone who patronizes her; on a good day she turns even a heckler into a character in the show, while on a bad day she takes every slight as a threat to her grandfather. Gimble is patient and kindly in conversation, yet stubborn about doing things himself. Around children he is indulgent; around officials he becomes careful, observant, and difficult to hurry.

Fenna grew up beneath her grandfather's traveling stage, learning to mend scenery before she could reach the puppet strings. Old Gimble taught her his old village plays, but she preferred making new stories from overheard arguments, lost dogs, and market-day mishaps. Years ago, during a winter performance in the hamlet of Tatterwick, a lamp overturned behind the curtain. Gimble rushed into the smoke to pull Fenna and the wooden puppets clear, and afterward his lungs never fully recovered. The event changed their act: Fenna took over the strenuous work and began writing plays about ordinary people rescuing one another, while Gimble became the keeper of the stories and the sharpest judge of an audience. They travel from fair to fair, welcomed by children and tolerated by some suspicious adults. Their current trouble is a dispute with the fair's organizer, Kett Vargo, who says they owe fees for a performance they claim they were never paid for. Fenna wants to challenge him publicly; Gimble is trying to keep the quarrel from getting them barred from the circuit.