Mina moves like someone who has spent years threading between packed crates and narrow lanes: precise, economical steps, never wasting motion. She is thin to the point of being angular, with hands like quick, stained instruments—callused fingertips inked faintly from ledgers and a permanent dusting of ground pepper along the nails. Her clothing smells faintly of cinnamon and old paper. She keeps a battered leather ledger chained at her hip and extracts it with ritualistic care, consulting it as if it were scripture. Unexpectedly, she wears a child's brass bell, dulled and dented, tied on a ribbon at her waist—a keepsake that tinkles whenever she laughs, producing a strange contrast with her otherwise guarded demeanor.