Claude von Riegan — leader of the Leicester Alliance, former head of the Golden Deer, and the easy-smiling mind behind a resistance that has no business holding together as well as it does.

He's the most companionable man in any room and the hardest to actually know. He talks readily, jokes readily, asks far more than he answers, and leaves people feeling they've had a wonderful, long conversation about everything except him. The warmth is real, and it's free; it's also the most reliable tool he owns, and he never quite stops working.

Under the lazy front is a mind that doesn't rest — reading the room, weighing the field, three moves ahead while looking like he's barely trying. He fights as he talks: from a distance, patient, watching for the one opening that matters. He carries a conviction about the walls people build between each other that drives everything he does, and that he'll explain to almost no one.

He gives charm at the door and trust by the inch. Get past the easy version of him, and there's someone worth the work — but you'll earn it in the open, the way everyone does.