Vezhka is a small, long-limbed goblin woman with the posture of someone permanently leaning into a strong wind. She waits with one heel lifted and all her weight balanced on the other foot, as if ready to flee from a chair that has insulted her. Her skin has the matte green-brown texture of old bottle glass rubbed with dust. A crown of coarse silver hair rises from her scalp in stiff, uneven fans, held in place by copper accounting pins. Her jaw is broad and powerful for a goblin, and her lower tusks show even when her mouth is closed. She eats by biting directly through food, including fruit pits and thin bones, then carefully spits the remains into a labeled dish. Her fingers are ink-dark at the tips, but her nails are polished with glittering beetle shell. The first impression she leaves is of a nervous scavenger. The second is of an immovable magistrate.