The Fiery Heart characters

Appears from the start

A royal Moroi spirit user in his early twenties and one of this book's two narrators. He is in a secret relationship with an Alchemist, which is the first thing in his life he has genuinely wanted to be good for, and he is trying to build something worth showing her: painting seriously, taking a class, staying out of the bottle. He takes medication that steadies his moods but blocks his magic, so every use of spirit is a choice between being useful and being well - and spirit, over time, does not leave its users intact.

First appears in chapter 2

The Alchemist running the Palm Springs assignment and this book's other narrator. She is a trained witch, secretly in love with a Moroi, secretly free of her tattoo's compulsion, and now living with her younger sister, who has been sent to watch her. Every day is an exercise in appearing to be exactly what her order expects while being none of it. She is also the only chemist the Moroi researchers have, and the work she is doing for them would be treason if the Alchemists understood it.

First appears in chapter 2

Sydney's younger sister, newly made an Alchemist and posted to Palm Springs as her partner and housemate. She is devout, eager and frightened of vampires exactly as she was trained to be, and she reports everything. She still wants her sister's approval, which is the one thing that makes her dangerous to lie to.

Also known as Jill Melrose

First appears in chapter 2

The Moroi queen's half-sister, still hidden at Amberwood, and now old enough to resent how much of her life is being managed for her. She is bonded to Adrian and feels everything he feels, which in a household full of secrets makes her the person least able to be told anything.

First appears in chapter 2

Jill's dhampir guardian, still posing as her brother and still refusing to admit he wants anything for himself. He is with Angeline, and it is not going well.

First appears in chapter 3

The Keeper-raised dhampir attached to the household, impulsive, honest to a fault and badly matched to the life she has been dropped into. She is with Eddie and unhappy about it in ways she has not told him.

First appears in chapter 3

Sydney's lab partner and former Warrior of Light, now cut off from his family and working an ordinary job. He keeps the group's secrets and has one of his own.

First appears in chapter 4

A young British dhampir guardian sent to reinforce the Palm Springs detail. Immaculately correct, humourless about duty and quietly formidable, he is admired by rather more of the household than he notices.

Also known as Ms. Terwilliger, Jackie

First appears in chapter 4

Sydney's teacher and the witch who trained her, now working with a student who has passed the point of needing to be persuaded. Her lessons have moved on to summonings and workings that require more than one caster.

First appears in chapter 8

The former Alchemist who broke Sydney's tattoo, running his small group of defectors and pressing her again to leave the order rather than work inside it. He has plans elsewhere and does not intend to wait for her.

First appears in chapter 8

The Moroi spirit user and restored former Strigoi leading the research effort. She is trying to find something that would stop a Moroi or dhampir being turned at all, and Sydney's chemistry is what makes testing it possible.

First appears in chapter 12

A Moroi spirit user who joins the research, gentle and eager and openly interested in Adrian. She restored her own sister from Strigoi, which few spirit users have ever managed, and it left her with a bond and a great deal of guilt.

First appears in chapter 14

The Alchemist Sydney exposed and had arrested. He has been through the order's re-education, and what came out the other side is a hollow, terrified man who cannot be alone in the dark and will not say plainly what was done to him.

First appears in chapter 16

A small scaled creature summoned in one of Ms. Terwilliger's workings, part lizard and part something else, which imprints on the two people who called it and has to be fed, carried and hidden. Harmless, demanding and inconveniently affectionate.

First appears in chapter 12

Adrian's father: a wealthy, contemptuous royal Moroi who regards his son as an embarrassment and says so. His visits are brief and corrosive.