Sidra’s Mother holds no small sway over her daughter's life and choices. She loves Sidra's father, who is a human man — which is to say the girl is of mixed blood. Her manner is wary and yet supportive at once: when Sidra sought her counsel touching the Undercity, she fell at once to suspicion of her daughter's purposes and her company. For all that, she pressed upon Sidra a large coin pierced by a hexagonal hole at its centre — a toll token good for one person's passage into the Undercity — bidding her keep it safe, and suggesting she secure it upon a chain.
In their talk of the Undercity it grew plain that Sidra’s Mother knows the place well, and has her connexions among those who dwell there, a woman easy amidst its ways. She had told Sidra before now of a house where she might seek refuge should trouble find her — proof of a protective heart and a mother's care, and no less of her own caution before the dangers of the world they move in.