Worlds to play, cards to import

The Accord Hall's head clerk: the woman who actually runs the government, one filed minute at a time.

Serathi master lens-grinder of Glasshouse Row — the finest optics in the realm, ground in year-long grief.

Hereditary keeper of the Revolt Memorial in the Saltmere — paid by the Council to remember what the quarter pays to forget.

Eldest heir: the political one — believes the claim is won in the Council chamber, and is nearly right.

Head of House Vairre: the banker-claimant who believes the crown is a receivable, patient as compound interest.

Colony-voice of the Chittik who keep the Ledger's true books in scent — the most dangerous archive in the realm, and its politest guardian.

Senior Aeviri cantor of the Echo Halls: she sings the Council's sessions open and the realm's law without one changed note.

The commons' claimant: young, beloved, broke — the only bloodline the Tree ever accepted twice, and he knows what that's worth better than he knows himself.

War-hero head of House Draken-Sol: the claim by regency precedent, a legend beginning to outlive his own judgement.

A Molded advocate old as the peace itself: emancipation's living argument, speaker of the workshop-chapels.

Sylvithi physician of the Rootden tenements — the Chorus's conscience, who counts the dead the city doesn't.

Grimwold oathtaker retained by House Vairre — tastes the truth in every deal, and keeps what she learns.

A Brine Ledger table-head: the politest person in the Saltmere, which everyone correctly finds terrifying.

A Sylvithi novice Graftwarden — the first of her people to serve the Tree they call an atrocity, because she heard it.

The Grain seat: controls the Council agenda by controlling the bread, and mistakes stability for virtue.

The Salt seat: Vairre's cousin, the Council's sharpest proceduralist, and the man who wrote both postponements of the Rite.

The Emberguard's paymaster: suspected by everyone because everyone would be — and hiding something smaller and sadder than treason.

Matriarch of the Sedge barge-clan: mistress of the Nine Stairs' water traffic and of every secret said on it.

House Meriel's chief steward: saved the house from two bankruptcies, and may be steering its lord like a barge.

The unseen singer who starts the Chorus's songs from the rooftops after curfew — cantor-trained, and the Echo Halls insist they've lost no one.

A Brine Banks underwriter laundering the Ledger's paper into legitimacy — and keeping a private policy on herself.

Senior Graftwarden and secret conduit of the Quiet Graft's logs — orthodox by day, listener before dawn.

The orthodox hardliner of the cloister: wants the Quiet Graft expelled before it costs the order what's left of its authority.