Marxan looks like a courtier preserved at the instant before a portrait painter began working. His pale skin has the faint bluish cast of old porcelain, but the skin around his knuckles is unusually warm and flushed after he feeds. His dark hair is cut close at the sides and combed back with severe precision, though one stubborn lock curls over his right temple whenever he becomes angry. His narrow goatee is braided with a single black silk thread, which he checks between his fingers whenever someone lies to him. He moves with economical grace, never quite walking in a straight line, as if every step is part of a fencing pattern. The unexpected contradiction is his smile: it is broad, almost boyish, and disarmingly sincere, despite the rest of him giving the impression of a sealed crypt. He leaves behind the smell of clove oil, cold iron, and rain on stone.