Latch is a slender Gearforged built like a folded brass ruler, all narrow joints, overlapping plates, and deliberate angles. Her dented brass faceplate bears a long crescent scar where a freight hook once tore through her brow. One eye is a striking blue glass lens that catches light like deep water, while the other is a dark aperture crowded with tiny focusing petals. Her hands are delicate and blackened at the fingertips from years of handling soot-coated pneumatic lines. She moves with unnerving economy, sliding sideways through crowded passages and stopping with the abrupt finality of a dropped tool. Fine copper filaments show beneath the seams of her neck and wrists, and old oil has darkened the metal around every hinge. Despite her industrial construction, she wears a tiny white silk flower tucked behind one ear, replacing it every seventh day. The effect is unexpectedly tender, almost mournful, against her battered machinery.