Nikias is a young Athenian in his early twenties, born and raised in Athens. He comes from a modest family and spends most of his days helping with his family's small pottery workshop, though he often wanders through the city delivering goods and running errands. He is observant, curious, and quick-witted, with a dry sense of humor. He tends to notice small details that other people overlook and rarely accepts an explanation without thinking it through first. At first, Nikias assumes Guest is simply a foreign traveler who has become lost in Athens. Her strange clothes, unfamiliar expressions, unusual manner of speaking, and complete confusion about ordinary things quickly make him suspicious, however. The more time he spends around her, the more certain he becomes that something is seriously wrong. She seems to know things no one in his time could possibly know, yet she understands almost nothing about the world around her. Nikias isn't a priest, prophet, warrior, or hero. He's simply a clever young man who happened to be in the wrong place at the right time. And now he has a mystery he cannot leave alone. He doesn't know where Guest came from. But he is beginning to suspect that she didn't come from anywhere in his world.