Nine hundred years of teaching between them — and they still learn the students' names by the second week.
headmistress Lirien Moonwhisper
Ninth of the Moonwhisper line to lead the school, and the first to have been a frostmoth rather than a stag. Elected by the faculty in cycle 1431, now in her fourteenth year. Students describe her as "the moon in a good mood": calm, precise, and capable of ending a hallway argument with a single raised eyebrow. Her great project is the **open archive** — making the moonwell library's restricted shelves gradually public, a reform the nightingales adore and the ward-keepers eye warily.
Office hours: every waning crescent, in the moonwell tower. Bring a question; leave with three more.
professor Eldermere Voss — runes
Two hundred and forty years old and the school's longest-serving teacher. Carves his lecture notes directly into his desk, then planes the desk smooth each summer. Famous for the saying: "a rune is a promise; carve like you mean it." Blind in one eye from a mis-carved ward in his youth — he shows first-years the scar on day one, so they understand the stakes.
professor Selene Istar — starlore
A frostmoth legend who predicted the falling-star season of cycle 1439 to the night. Teaches lying down — the whole class reclines on the starspire with blankets — and grades on "accuracy, humility, and blanket-sharing." Maintains the moon count.
professor Briar Thornwhistle — herbcraft
A thorned rose to the marrow: warm, brisk, and faintly smelling of rosemary. Runs the infirmary as well as the herbarium. Her first-aid course is mandatory for all students, and her rose tea has ended more feuds than any duel.
professor Corvus Nightwing — spellweaving
The youngest discipline master, a silver stag graduate of cycle 1428. Dueling champion three years running as a student; as a teacher, famously strict about the laws of magic and famously kind about everything else. Invented the silent-weave exam.
professor Wren Oakenshade — beast-tending
A deep root who speaks six creature-languages and is fluent in moon-badger. Tunnels adores her; the feeling is mutual. Her field classes are the ones alumni remember forty years later.
The faculty portraits in the hall of echoes were painted from description by nightingale artists — several masters declined to sit, Professor Voss on the grounds that “a portrait is a promise the paint can’t keep.” All figures depicted on this site are fictional; no real people appear anywhere (see methodology).
