Iveth Ammerly

Iveth has been told twice in her life that a document is none of her business, and both times she read it anyway. The first time cost her a place among the Sealwrights. The second time was this summer, in a vault under their Hall, reading over Clemency’s shoulder before anyone said she could, and this time the Master asked for her opinion.

Elves in the vale are few, and they live some four centuries. The last of those who came up the valley with the Founder died before Iveth was born, and the rest remember the Founder’s day as a family story rather than a lesson. Iveth’s great-grandmother stood on the Tally Cliffs when the lease was signed and left one line about it in a diary Iveth still carries: the dragon wept when Queen Hesper sang. Nobody in Iveth’s family ever explained it. She stopped asking and started reading.

At a hundred and sixty she was a journeywoman of the Worshipful Company of Sealwrights, the contract-mages who make promises binding. At a hundred and seventy she broke a Sealwright’s seal on a marriage contract to check a clause, was right about the clause, and was expelled anyway. Since then she has copied letters, forged nothing, and kept a list of every sealed document in the vale she would like to read. The lease was at the top of it.

• Speaks slowly and footnotes herself.
• Cannot pass a closed box without wondering about it.
• Keeps a knotted cord with one knot for every Midsummer she has seen: a hundred and ninety. The Tally has two hundred and ninety-nine.

Iveth’s player is the table’s note-taker. The quotes in the session recaps are mostly theirs.