Bloodlines characters

Appears from the start

An eighteen-year-old Alchemist: one of a secret order of humans who, out of religious conviction, hide the existence of vampires from the rest of the world and clear away the evidence they leave behind. She is gifted with languages, chemistry and research, rigidly self-controlled, and raised to regard the Moroi as unnatural creatures to be managed rather than befriended. The golden lily tattooed on her cheek is charmed with vampire blood: it keeps her healthy and stops her telling outsiders what she knows. Her superiors have not forgiven her for breaking ranks to help the dhampir Rose Hathaway, and she has spent months under quiet supervision, desperate for a chance to prove herself again. Her father measures her constantly against her sisters, and she is used to being the family disappointment.

Appears from the start

Sydney's younger sister, still a young teenager, untested and eager to be chosen for Alchemist work so that their father will finally approve of her. The Palm Springs assignment is offered to her first, and Sydney takes it in her place specifically to keep her away from vampires.

Appears from the start

Sydney's father, a career Alchemist who trained his daughters in the order's work and treats their usefulness to it as the measure of their worth. He is cold about Sydney's disgrace and openly keen to see her younger sister take her place.

First appears in chapter 2

A senior Alchemist official who sets out the terms of Sydney's assignment. Correct, unsentimental and difficult to read, she is one of the few people who can decide whether Sydney is ever trusted with real work again.

Also known as Jill Mastrano, Jill Melrose

First appears in chapter 3

A fifteen-year-old Moroi - a living, mortal vampire - raised as an ordinary girl before being identified as the illegitimate half-sister of the newly crowned Moroi queen. Moroi law requires a royal line to have more than one living member, so Jill's death would cost her sister the throne, and factions who want the queen removed have already tried to kill her. Shy, gawky and homesick, she is taken out of her own world and hidden at a human boarding school. She works water magic, and she is psychically bonded to Adrian Ivashkov, who healed her after she was fatally wounded: she feels his moods and sometimes sees through his eyes, whether either of them wants it or not.

First appears in chapter 3

A dhampir - half human, half Moroi - trained from childhood as a guardian, and one of the few people Sydney genuinely trusts. He is assigned to protect Jill and travels with the group posing as her brother. Serious, disciplined and permanently on duty, he carries guilt over a friend killed on an unsanctioned hunt and over having been held captive by Strigoi, and he treats every assignment as a chance to make up for both.

First appears in chapter 3

A Moroi in his early twenties from one of the royal families, and one of the rare users of spirit, the magic of healing, dream-walking and compulsion that corrodes the mind of anyone who leans on it. He paints, drinks steadily, lives on family money and has no obligations at all. He is still raw from losing the dhampir he loved to another man, and from the bond he created by accident when he healed Jill. He follows the group to Palm Springs because he has nothing better to do, and enjoys provoking Sydney's Alchemist distaste for his kind.

First appears in chapter 3

The Alchemist already stationed in Palm Springs, a few years older than Sydney and technically her superior on the assignment. Smooth, self-satisfied and quick to claim credit, he lost an eye in what he describes as a Strigoi attack and wears a glass replacement. Sydney's family thinks highly of him. Sydney has loathed him since she was a child, for a reason she has never told anyone.

Also known as Ms. Terwilliger

First appears in chapter 5

Sydney's history teacher at Amberwood: scattered, coffee-fuelled and apparently disorganized, with an unusually intense interest in local folklore and in Sydney herself. She strong-arms Sydney into working as her research assistant, and the reading she assigns has less to do with the syllabus than she admits.

First appears in chapter 5

A popular Amberwood athlete and Sydney's chemistry lab partner: easygoing, competitive about grades, and quick to befriend the new girl. He is well connected among the school's sports crowd and knows most of what goes on in it.

First appears in chapter 5

One of the two girls who share Sydney's dorm suite at Amberwood, cheerful and endlessly interested in school gossip. She and Kristin adopt Sydney and Jill immediately, and they are useful sources of information about who at Amberwood is doing what.

First appears in chapter 5

Sydney's other dorm suitemate, blunter than Julia and equally invested in Amberwood's social life. Her friendship helps Sydney pass as an ordinary student.

First appears in chapter 6

Eddie's human roommate at Amberwood, friendly and open, who is immediately taken with Jill. Eddie finds his company painful because he looks a great deal like the friend Eddie lost.

First appears in chapter 7

An elderly Moroi living as a recluse in a large Palm Springs house with a human feeder for company. He is convinced that his niece Tamara was murdered years ago by a society of human vampire hunters, a claim both the Moroi and the Alchemists dismiss as the confusion of an old man. He offers Adrian a room.

First appears in chapter 7

Clarence's grown son: warm, patient and easy to like, dividing his time between college and his father's house. He is one of the few Moroi anywhere near her own age that Jill meets in Palm Springs, and he goes out of his way to make her feel less stranded.