The Iron Knight characters

Appears from the start

The narrator of this book: the youngest son of Mab, exiled from the Winter Court and now sworn knight to the Iron Queen, who ordered him out of her realm because its iron was killing him. He is precise, formal and extremely dangerous, has spent centuries as his mother's weapon, and keeps what any of it cost him strictly to himself. He has set out to acquire the one thing no fey possesses, a mortal soul, because without it he cannot stand where Meghan now has to stay.

Also known as Robin Goodfellow

Appears from the start

The trickster, Oberon's servant, who invites himself along on a journey he was not asked to join and jokes his way through every part of it. He and Ash have a blood feud Ash swore long ago to settle in a killing, and both of them know that the only reason it is still unsettled is Meghan.

First appears in chapter 2

The cait sith, who turns up as a guide at his own price and disappears the moment a situation becomes tedious or lethal. He knows where the party is going and rather more about why than he is prepared to say.

Appears from the start

Oberon's half-human daughter, now Queen of the Iron Realm, which she took the crown of to stop it destroying Faery. Ash swore himself to her as her knight and cannot reach her: the iron of her realm would kill any ordinary fey, and she used her authority as his queen to send him out of it.

Appears from the start

Queen of the Winter Court and Ash's mother, who cast him out for putting Oberon's daughter above his own court. She raised her sons as instruments of Winter and has never forgiven one of them for choosing anything else.

Also known as The Big Bad Wolf

First appears in chapter 4

An enormous grey fey grown out of every retelling of the wolf in human stories, who attaches himself to the party uninvited. He is entirely honest about being a predator and about having reasons of his own for wanting to see how this journey ends.

First appears in chapter 9

A girl of the Winter Court who was Ash's first love and who died years ago on a hunt Ash has blamed Puck for ever since. She appears on the road alive and unchanged, joins the journey, and says only that she was taken out of her death and kept away from the world for a reason she is not ready to explain.

First appears in chapter 18

The keeper of the trials at the far end of the world, an ancient thing that decides whether a fey may be given a mortal soul and sets the tests that settle the question. It is neither cruel nor merciful; it simply requires that anyone asking be shown exactly what he already is.