Worlds to play, cards to import

Pageant-writer of the Tuning House: composes flattering civic masques for whoever pays, and carries greenroom talk to the censors' office at a fixed and dishonourable rate.

Aeviri archivist of sung law at the Echo Halls — Liriel Ovea's niece, keeper of the old enclave spelling her aunt dropped, and the Letterhold's most courteous enemy.

A junior clerk at the Brine Banks with an Oathseat uncle, ferocious shorthand, and a growing file of things he was not supposed to notice.

A young Chittik mender of the Tidegate Arcade and Latch's favoured hands in the quarter — she fixes the Saltmere's locks and carries its scents home to Weir-Under-Salt.

The Chittik press-mechanic who keeps the Marle Press's Grandmother running — and who carries, in scent-mark and memory, every job the press has ever run.

Dowager Saltcote's companion and the best-informed woman in the Saltmere — old-money manners, no money, and a sideline selling the difference.

The Brine Banks' Molded chief teller: a Longwar quartermaster-construct who has weighed the quarter's coin for ninety years and never once been wrong.

The Ondrel scene-mover of the Garland Terraces — a living crane who swings whole set-pieces between stages, counts his life in decades, and has watched the repertoire come around three times.

Stone-mason of the Revolt Memorial and Keeper Onnora's nephew — he re-cuts the fading names by day and rents a room over the Grey Cellars by night.

A law-chantling copying precedents at the Letterhold by day and selling the Chantling Stairs' talk to the Emberguard by night — good at a trade he hates, and padding his reports to protect his friends.

Sexton of the Fallowfield — the man who buries Coronal's unclaimed dead by number, and keeps their names anyway.

The Bryony Yards' sharpest human gatherer — under contract to Fern Duskwell in the capital, out of debt to her by two more seasons, and counting.

Alderhollow's pathwright and Mirren Alderleaf's father — he keeps the marked ways true, and reads his distant daughter's health in the leaves of her bond-tree.

Brya Whitegall's younger brother — the dutiful child who stayed, and who secretly greets his sister's bond-tree with the name the grove closed.

A rake-hand at the Greyling Pans — quick with a tally-song, saving for a pan-bed of her own, and in love with a grey-trade pilot she pretends not to know by daylight.

A Maru grey-trade pilot of the Eel barge-clan — the best fog-runner in the Hushwater, famous for never once giving her word on water.

Grove-elder of the Whitegalls and Brya's mother — keeper of nine generations of standing, pruning her family's shame one unsaid name at a time.

First speaker of Alderhollow's elders — the old voice arguing that the Rootwild's silence toward Coronal has become indistinguishable from hiding.

Senior elder of Farthingdeep's Stilt Moot — keeper of the tide-book that maps every drowned roof, and of the town's habit of saying nothing twice.

Hollis Tallow's daughter and heir to the brine-table — a young Grimwold oathtaker whose gift is too sharp for village peace.

House Vairre's rent-factor for the Saltmarches — punctual, correct, universally unloved, and keeping a private tally of every door shut in his face.

The one human forester the Rootwild tolerates on the marked paths — twenty years walked without a single strayed step, which is exactly why he's watched.

A Dvergani miner of the failing Deepworks, coughing out her lungs in a Bramblestack court — too proud to beg, too honest to lie about why she left, and taking the Iron rot like a family accusation.

Grimwold head of Tallowfen Steading and the marsh's most trusted oathtaker — elder brother of Morwen Tallow, whose name he has not spoken since she took Vairre coin.