Sister Marrow Vale is a narrow, waterlogged woman whose movements are slow, precise, and unnervingly graceful, like a corpse remembering how to dance. Her skin has the gray translucence of river ice, with fine black veins visible around her throat and wrists. Her fingers are long and soft, the nails pearly and cracked like mussel shells. She smells faintly of cold iron, lamp oil, and rain on stone. Her garments never appear fully dry, yet they leave no puddles. The unexpected contradiction is her face: despite the drowned pallor of the rest of her body, she has warm, rosy cheeks that make her look briefly maternal when she smiles.