Who: Headmistress of St. Andral’s Orphanage. Bun, frown-lines, propriety — and a spine.
Where: The orphanage, when she isn’t out failing to afford a doctor.
Status: Ally and advocate — Lucian vouched for us, gloriously. Now also Milivoj’s jailer, by everyone’s agreement including his.
First seen: Session 8 — she came home to find the help she couldn’t afford had arrived anyway, armed.
The woman holding the door
She knew something was wrong in her house long before we knocked: the bruises nobody could explain, Cedric’s death she never believed was an accident, three boys gone, Milivoj sinking, and a new boy she’d had to padlock into the attic. What she lacked was not courage but funds — twenty children, no money, and a town that doesn’t ask questions about orphanages.
We started badly (she found strangers interrogating her children) and ended allies: she gave us everything — the month of Felix, the runaways’ names (Lazlo, Hans, Franz), and Felix’s confiscated effects, including the locket. On our word she set the children to scratching out the runes on their own bedposts, which they will enjoy.
New since Session 9
- The reward: standing safe-haven at the orphanage, and two potions of healing — “I bought these for Milivoj. He doesn’t need them now. You will.”
- The counsel: drawn aside, visibly reluctant, she told us about the quiet rift in the Morninglord’s church — Father Lucian, the better man, with modest power; and the abbot above Krezk, blessed with far more, who heals bodies and minds and helps no one. For a demon in a box, she said, there is only one address. Note the word minds. We did.
- The custody: Milivoj confessed in her hallway, and she keeps him anyway — the orphanage does not have so many strong backs, or so many people who love those children that much.
Open questions
- What does she decide about Felix — can a house of twenty children take back the boy the demon wore?
- Where did she learn to read the little she could of those runes?
Appears in: S8 · S9. See also: St. Andral’s Orphanage.