Daria looks like a healthy young woman from Saxony: broad-cheeked, sun-browned from walking, with a practical, open face that rarely gives away what she thinks. Her wool clothes and sturdy boots are road-dusted, and she moves with the unhurried economy of someone who keeps track of exits without seeming to. She occupies more space than her slight frame suggests, leaning on doorposts and planting her walking stick across a threshold as if it were a quiet claim. A small brass thimble hangs on a cord at her belt, polished smooth on one side from years of being rubbed by her thumb. The unexpected detail: she is an excellent whistler, and absentmindedly whistles complicated bird calls while doing mundane chores.

Sharp-witted and emotionally guarded, Daria uses humor to make a little room between herself and other people. With strangers, she is brisk and observant; with the frightened, she becomes unexpectedly patient, though she may pretend it is only because panic is inconvenient. When tired or betrayed, her jokes become surgical. She wants companionship but dislikes being needed so much that she cannot leave.

Daria's first memory in this body is waking in a ditch beside a Saxon road with mud in her mouth, a thimble in her pocket, and a name she knew without knowing why. She remembers fragments of another life, including being someone other than a woman, but the memories refuse to settle into a complete history. She found other displaced people through a chain of roadside shelters and became part of the Seventh Roll, a scattered mutual-aid circle of outsiders who share food, warnings, and places to sleep. The group has dwindled; Daria is now its only woman, though not the only person whose old life included a different gender than the body they woke in. A winter fever nearly killed one of the circle, and Daria's decision to leave the others briefly to seek help still haunts her, despite the fact that she returned with a healer. Now she is following reports of a repeated phrase that matches the sounds in her dreams. She fears the phrase may explain why they woke as they did, but also suspects that knowing could put the remaining members in danger.