Worlds to play, cards to import

Halbren factor-mistress of the Long Larder: the finest grading palate in the Saltmere, running the exchange like a granary before a siege.

The Brinehall Chambers' head notary: a guild man who drafts the Saltmere's contracts so cleanly that both sides think they won.

A Brine Ledger collector on Nedda Coyle's rounds: polite, punctual, and the last reminder before the impolite ones.

Songspire's most celebrated living playwright — author of 'The Iron Promise,' banned two nights into its run, and now the loudest banned man in Coronal.

Chief Lector of the Letterhold Archive: keeper of the realm's written law, seller of certified precedent to all three claimant houses, and Oathseat Pell Grieve's oldest quiet friend.

Under-clerk of seals at the censors' office who stamps writs by day and slips condemned proofs to Inkrow Lane by night — the leak Odile Merrick doesn't know she employs.

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.