The Lost Sisters characters

Appears from the start

The narrator of this novella, which takes the form of a long letter she writes to her twin sister. A mortal raised in the High Court of Faerie by the fey general who killed their parents, Taryn concluded early that the way to survive among the fey is to give them nothing to push against: to be pleasant, to be quiet, to be chosen rather than to fight. She sets out her own account of their childhood, her courtship, and the choices that put her and Jude on opposite sides, defending herself and accusing her sister by turns.

Appears from the start

Taryn's twin, the person the letter is addressed to. As Taryn describes her, Jude answered Faerie's contempt by arming herself against it, refusing to be small, and courting danger in pursuit of a place at court, which Taryn regards as both admirable and reckless enough to have endangered them both.

Appears from the start

The fox-haired fey lord who courted Taryn in secret while courting her sister in the open. He treats the people around him as material for a story he is arranging, enjoys the tensions he creates, and asks Taryn to keep their attachment hidden, which she does.

Also known as Vivi

Appears from the start

The sisters' half-fey eldest sibling, Madoc's own daughter, who despises Faerie and keeps one foot in the human world. In Taryn's telling she is the one who could always leave, which is exactly why her advice to leave was never much use to the twins.

Appears from the start

The redcap general who killed the sisters' mother and her human husband and then raised all three girls as his own. Taryn describes a childhood of comfort and swordwork under a father who was indulgent, unrepentant and impossible to refuse.

Appears from the start

The sisters' mother, who had once been Madoc's wife, fled Faerie with their half-fey elder sister, and made a second life and a second family in the mortal world. Taryn returns repeatedly to what her mother's choices set in motion.

Appears from the start

The High King's youngest son, the cruellest of the young gentry, and the ringleader of the group that made the mortal twins a target. Taryn recalls his hostility as a fact of daily life at court, and her own strategy of never giving him a reason to look at her.

Appears from the start

The princess of the Undersea fostered at the High Court, one of Cardan's circle, and a former sweetheart of Locke's. Her contempt for mortals is part of the atmosphere Taryn describes learning to live inside.