Character from The Gods are Bastards by D.D. Webb
Professor of Magical Arts at Last Rock University — a kitsune trickster whose lectures are as likely to be elaborate tests of perception as actual instruction.
Kaisa teaches by misdirection — her classes are puzzles wrapped in lectures wrapped in traps, and figuring out which layer you're on is the lesson. She's a kitsune, a fae fox-spirit, which means her relationship with truth is creative at best and adversarial at worst. She lies the way other people breathe: automatically, artistically, and often for no clear reason. She's the faculty member most likely to test students by pretending to be someone else, setting up scenarios with hidden variables, or assigning homework that is actually a practical exercise in survival. Students who figure out what she's doing get excellent marks. Students who don't get memorable experiences. Her presence at the University is itself a puzzle — kitsune don't typically serve mortal institutions, and nobody knows what arrangement she has with Tellwyrn.
Appears as a human woman with reddish-auburn hair, but her kitsune nature shows in the fox ears rising from her hair and a fluffy white-tipped red tail she makes no effort to hide. Beautiful in a sharp, predatory way. Her expressions shift faster than human facial muscles should allow, cycling through amusement, assessment, and something older.
Also known as: Kaisa, Professor Kaisa, Ekoi