Scheherazad
Shehrazat is a young tiefling, ram-horned and of a blue-violet complexion, whose forearms are roughened and cracked in a manner that betrays some grave affliction. Wrapped in what clothing she owns and a thin blanket besides, she shivers still — a frail creature, and plainly a sick one. When Sidra entered her modest lodging she found the girl upon a cushion bed, feverish and scarcely able to stir, yet grateful past all measure for the food and warmth she was offered. She had been ill, she said, for a little under a fortnight, of a malady she named "blood rot," which had come upon her after an involuntary surge of her own innate magic. Her Grandmama brought meals and saw to the laundry, but kept her distance for fear the sickness might rebound upon her; and though the girl had been counselled to seek out Dr. Feuerbach at the Pera Palace Hotel, she could by no means make her way above ground.
After receiving healing spells from Jean-Zera and Ahmet, she suffered a rebound that set her briefly convulsing before her breath settled deep and steady, and she came at last to rest with a healing paste laid upon the afflicted places.
Of late she has confided a deep unease at her own unstable magic, likening it to a closet of the mind stocked with dangerous workings that she knows she must never open. She would have Alexander for a mentor, one who might teach her to govern her difficulty; and when Sidra al-Najjar called upon her — invited in to help her eat — she owned that, whilst she could so order her surroundings as never to reach for the perilous magic, she would rest the easier for knowing how to master it properly. More recently still she was looked in upon by the company together with Alexander, and remains safe beneath a strong concealment ward, further contact arranged through the good offices of a calico alley cat.