Death-Curator Umbra Kessith

Kessith never presses her seal to a record she has not checked herself. A misplaced name can send a family to the wrong grave; a careless description can reduce a whole life to a category. She has spent years correcting both kinds of error.

Reliquary carries remains, personal effects, and the histories needed to return them to the right people. Its bone framework and mismatched plating have been gathered from dangerous places, but Kessith insists that the provenance of every item be recorded. She will not let an object become anonymous merely because it is useful.

Her manner is formal, and her patience with sloppy claims is limited. She becomes notably kinder when someone admits they do not know an answer. The dead cannot correct her work, so Kessith depends on the living to help. A seller of false identifications, in her view, has robbed both.