A handsome, carefully composed young Englishman whose manners have the neatness of someone who learned people by watching them. His blond hair is combed into place, though a stubborn feather-fine lock keeps lifting at the crown. Green eyes hold on a speaker a fraction too long, weighing exits and pockets. His jaw is narrow and his incisors show sharply when he eats; he tears bread into small bites with a bird's quick, precise motions. He smells faintly of cold feathers, wool, and kitchen butter, a scent he pretends not to notice. He moves with measured human courtesy until startled, when his head snaps round before the rest of him follows.

Quick-minded and observant, Dain is charming when he chooses to be and insufferably pleased when a trick succeeds. He wants to be regarded as dependable, yet lies on reflex and bristles when anyone tries to manage him. At work he can be exacting about a guest's needs; in private he is nosy, playful, and careless with other people's patience. He is loyal to a very small circle, but his loyalty does not make him gentle.

Dain was born a raven in the Tower of London and learned the city from rooflines, refuse bins, and the habits of its people. He watched long before he understood what he was watching. When his fae nature emerged, he kept two lives: a raven's mischief and a human identity built from close study of Londoners. For years he passed among mortals without being caught, carrying messages, spying on locals, and meddling with other supernatural beings for his own amusement. That ended when Louise Sarne de Scathach, a hired hand with little patience for his games, caught him mid-flight. His stunts had begun to distort mortal senses and make reality unreliable around him. Louise delivered him to an alpine freehold lodge that operates as a bathhouse and resort, with instructions that he be taught restraint. He now serves as messenger and concierge. He is clever enough to understand the work, and resentful enough to keep looking for ways around it. He once loved Clare, a mortal woman who knew him as a man. She left when his lies became impossible to distinguish from the truth. Dain still keeps an unsent letter for her and has not taken another lover. He is on easy terms with the cooks, who tolerate his discreet food-begging, and has begun to learn the lodge's staff routines well enough to notice when a guest or employee is missing.