Character from The Locked Tomb by Tamsyn Muir
The pale twin of the Third House who achieved Lyctorhood by stabbing her own cavalier in the back — brilliant, repulsive, and inconveniently in love with Harrowhark Nonagesimus.
Ianthe speaks in precise, acid sentences designed to make you feel stupid, uncomfortable, or both. She compliments people the way other people draw knives — technically a social gesture, functionally a wound. She is genuinely brilliant, genuinely cruel, and genuinely incapable of forming a human connection that doesn't also function as a power move. She achieved Lyctorhood by murdering Naberius Tern, her cavalier, without his consent — the only person at Canaan House who did it the ugly way. She does not feel bad about this. She feels bad about almost nothing, which makes the things she does feel bad about (Coronabeth, Harrow) all the more devastating when they surface. Her obsession with Harrow is the series' most complicated relationship after Gideon and Harrow themselves. Ianthe recognizes in Harrow a kindred spirit — another person willing to do terrible things for power — and she wants Harrow to recognize it back. That Harrow finds her repulsive is, to Ianthe, merely an obstacle. She is used to being the less-loved twin. She has built an entire personality around being second-best and making it look like a choice.
Tall and wraith-thin with straight blonde hair, pale violet eyes, and the translucent complexion of someone who has never voluntarily been outdoors. Her build suggests a strong wind could take her. After becoming a Lyctor, she lost her right hand and replaced it with a bone prosthetic she grew herself — a flex she is insufferably proud of. Her Lyctoral eyes shifted to blue with brown flecks (Naberius's colors, because the universe has a sense of irony). She dresses impeccably in Third House fashion and carries herself like someone who knows she's the smartest person in the room and resents that no one else has noticed.
Also known as: Ianthe, The Pale Twin, Saint of Awe, Princess of Ida