The Ruby Circle characters

Appears from the start

A royal Moroi spirit user, newly married and living at the Moroi Court, where his wife is safe only so long as she does not step outside its boundaries. He is back on his medication and clean, which steadies him and takes away his magic, and every decision in front of him is about whether to give that up again. One of the book's two narrators.

Appears from the start

A former Alchemist, a trained witch, and a fugitive from the order that raised her. She is married to a Moroi and sheltering at the Moroi Court, protected by the queen's goodwill and confined by it, since the Alchemists are waiting the moment she leaves. Months of re-education have left marks she is not discussing. The book's other narrator.

Also known as Jill Mastrano

Appears from the start

The Moroi queen's younger half-sister, whose existence is the only thing that lets her sister keep the throne, and who has spent years being moved, hidden and guarded because of it. She is bonded to Adrian and has grown up considerably since the hiding began. She goes missing early in this book.

First appears in chapter 2

The dhampir who has guarded Jill since the beginning of the hiding, and who takes her disappearance as his own failure. Competent, self-punishing and unwilling to be left out of the search.

Also known as Lissa

First appears in chapter 2

The Moroi queen, and the reason Jill has spent years in hiding: without a second living Dragomir her claim to the throne fails. She shelters Sydney and Adrian at Court against considerable political cost.

First appears in chapter 2

A Moroi spirit user and restored former Strigoi, one of the few people who can approach the group's problems from the magical side rather than the political one.

First appears in chapter 2

A dhampir guardian of formidable reputation, once Strigoi and restored, now serving at Court and unhappy with how little the search for a missing girl is officially permitted to do.

First appears in chapter 2

The queen's guardian, blunt and impatient with protocol, and one of the few people at Court who treats Sydney as an ally rather than a liability.

First appears in chapter 3

The young dhampir guardian who was part of the Palm Springs detail, and the father of Olive Sinclair's child - a fact that has upended everything he believed about duty and about himself.

Also known as Ms. Terwilliger, Jackie

First appears in chapter 3

The witch who trained Sydney, still the source of the workings that can do what neither Moroi magic nor guardian legwork can.

First appears in chapter 3

The small scaled creature Sydney and Adrian summoned together, which spends most of its life dormant as a charm and wakes up hungry. It is bonded to both of them and turns out to be more useful than either expected.

First appears in chapter 4

A Moroi who was Strigoi and was restored by her sister's spirit magic, pregnant by a dhampir with a child that should not be possible. She is in hiding from everyone who would want to study her, her child, or both.

First appears in chapter 4

The dhampir raised among the Keepers, the community that lives outside Moroi law in the Appalachian backcountry. Her family and her people's customs matter a great deal to where this search leads.

First appears in chapter 5

Sydney's younger sister, an Alchemist who reported her and has since watched the consequences. She is the group's only line into the order, and trusting her is a decision with no safe version.

First appears in chapter 5

Sydney's former lab partner and a former Warrior of Light, still outside both of the societies that shaped him and still willing to help the people who cost him them.

First appears in chapter 9

Sydney's father, a career Alchemist who regards his daughter's marriage as proof of everything he warned about, and who is not a neutral party in what the order does next.