Layfor moves with a small, quick-bobbing gait—like someone used to darting between racks and sweeping piles of flour and sawdust. Her face is round and freckled, usually lit by an earnest, slightly too-wide smile that sometimes fades into a distant stare. Her hands are callused at the bases of the fingers from brooms and basin scrubbers; her nails are perpetually stained a pale gray from river-silt. She keeps a battered copper locket tucked beneath her collar; when anxious she rubs its hinge with her thumb. Unexpectedly, she wears a tiny ribbon of deep blue braided into the underside of her hair braid—a remnant of a river festival that seems at odds with the soot-smudged smock and mop she always carries. When she laughs she tilts her head way back and her whole body relaxes, but when she’s thinking she chews the corner of her mouth and bounces on the balls of her feet as if eager to be anywhere but still.