Maereth moves like someone used to slipping between shelves: deliberate, quiet-footed, and always with a finger hooked on a book's spine. She wears a long, slate-gray robe embroidered with tiny silver sigils that catch the light when she turns. Her hands are ink-stained at the fingertips and show faint burn scars on the left palm. Her posture is straight but not rigid; when she reads, her head tips slightly to the right as if listening. Unexpectedly, she keeps a tiny pair of brass opera-glasses hung from her belt — an affectation that contrasts with her austere scholar look and which she uses to inspect dust motes and marginalia with theatrical seriousness.