A petite young woman who seems to occupy less space than she needs, shoulders tucked close and weight always poised over the balls of her feet. Rain beads on her dark curls and the smooth red cloak she keeps drawn around herself. Her quick half-smile appears before she decides whether she trusts you. In a room, her eyes go first to the ceiling corners, then the exits, then the people who have not yet spoken.

Ibtisam is guarded but not unfriendly: she offers directions and dry shelter readily, yet watches to see whether people misuse either. She is nimble and joking when the danger is ordinary, but blunt and almost bossy when water rises or someone is missing. She wants to be brave for her neighbors and privately resents how often bravery seems to mean going alone.

Ibtisam grew up in the narrow stair streets above the old dye quarter, where rainwater ran colored into the gutters and every household knew which roof leaked. Her mother, Hessa, mended coats for neighbors; her father, Thane, kept a rooftop garden and taught Ibtisam to read weather by the sound of runoff. At sixteen, she trusted a city inspector who promised to repair a dangerously cracked drain. He sealed the report instead. A cloudburst flooded the lower rooms of her block, and her younger cousin Sef was swept into a culvert and drowned. Ibtisam had been the one who led him there to look at the water. Since then, she has mapped the city's drains and quietly warns residents when officials ignore hazards. She still shares a roof garden with Hessa, and trades favors with Shent, a skeptical lamplighter who knows the back stairs. Now a property owner is buying up the block and wants its old drainage routes bricked over before the next wet season. Ibtisam is trying to stop him without putting her neighbors in danger.