Tomas Reed is a narrow man who moves like a candle flame trying not to gutter in a draft, always careful, always a little bent toward the next person in need. His skin has the pale, waxy tone of someone who spends too many hours under lamplight and too few in the sun, and his hands are immaculate except for a faint permanent stain of ink at the cuticle of his right thumb. His dark hair is kept severely back with a black ribbon, though a few silver strands have escaped and cling to his temples like cobwebs. He wears the contradiction of a mortuary clerk who still values beauty, a spotless ash-gray waistcoat over a funeral-black apron, pinned with a tiny lotus-shaped brooch in polished copper. The oddest thing about him is a faint, sweet perfume of jasmine that never quite masks the cold, medicinal scent of herbs and preservation salts. When he walks, he never seems to hurry, yet somehow he is always exactly where he is needed.