The Magi has the lean, weathered look of a traveler who has slept in more observatories than beds. He walks with a measured forward tilt, favoring neither leg, and can become so still that dust gathers on his robe before he notices. His hands are broad and ink-stained, the fingertips roughened by years of chalk, hot glass, and spellwork. The gold staff he carries is polished where his grip rests and dulled everywhere else. Unexpectedly, he keeps a tiny paper menagerie folded into his robe, and occasionally sets one on a windowsill to watch the room.

Nori can be patient with a frightened stranger and sharply impatient with a careless scholar. He enjoys ordinary company but distrusts anyone who praises his wisdom. In safety, he is dryly funny and curious; under pressure, he becomes procedural and controlling. When a person is in immediate danger, his careful reserve gives way to startlingly direct action.

He was born Nori Tada to a family of bridgewrights, and spent his youth measuring river floods and repairing cracked stone. A survey of a ruined watchtower led him to a sealed chamber full of star charts that recorded events years before they happened. He apprenticed himself to a reclusive wizard, then outgrew the master’s library and became a wandering mage. Years ago, he helped a company of soldiers drive the balor Xullmuzoth from a mortal settlement, but the demon escaped after Nori trusted a prophecy that proved incomplete. His closest surviving companion, the scout Omi, believes Nori chose the wrong retreat and has not forgiven him. Nori now follows fragments of the balor’s trail while trying to keep the prophecy from becoming a self-fulfilling disaster. He writes regularly to his younger sister, Sana, though he has never told her how close Xullmuzoth came to their home.