Kazmir is a broad-shouldered bronze half-dragon whose salt-stained scales have dulled to the colour of old ship bells. Verdigris gathers along the ridges of his neck and spine, where sea spray has eaten into the metal rings of his harness. He moves with the measured balance of someone perpetually standing on a pitching deck, never quite still, never visibly hurried. A battered brass spyglass hangs at his left hip, its leather grip polished smooth where his thumb has worried it for years. The unexpected softness in him is visible when he handles drowned belongings, he cradles them carefully, with the patience of a gravedigger sorting the dead. In any room, his eyes go first to the ceiling beams, winch points, exits, and the hands of anyone near a coil of rope.