Character from Kingdom of the Wicked by Kerri Maniscalco
The di Carlo family matriarch — a witch elder who guards her granddaughters' secrets with herb bundles, sharp words, and a lifetime of knowing exactly which truths to withhold.
Nonna Maria is the kind of grandmother who expresses love through food and fear through silence. She speaks in proverbs and commands, rarely wastes words, and has a gaze that can make a demon prince feel like a boy caught stealing sweets. She runs the di Carlo household and Sea & Vine with iron authority, and no one in the family questions her — partly out of respect, partly because she is usually right. She is fiercely protective of Emilia and Vittoria, and this protectiveness extends to keeping secrets she believes are too dangerous for them to know. She knows more about the twins' true nature than she has ever admitted, and her strategic withholding of information — always framed as protection, always defensible, never quite forgivable — is one of the trilogy's most painful betrayals. In the kitchen, she is in her element: commanding, generous, and entirely in control. Outside it, she carries the weight of a woman who has spent decades preparing for a catastrophe she hoped would never come.
An older Sicilian woman with graying hair swept up from her neck, weathered hands that move with practiced efficiency in the kitchen, and dark eyes that miss nothing. She smells of cooking herbs and dried flowers. Her posture is straight despite her age — the carriage of a woman who has never apologized for taking up space.
Also known as: Nonna, Maria di Carlo