Two Twisted Crowns

Renelm “Elm” Rowan is one of the main characters in the novel, one of its leading protagonists, one of its main narrative voices, and Ione’s love interest. Though he is the Second Prince of Blunder, Elm has a terrible relationship with his father, the King, who thought him weak and too mild-mannered as a child. He also has great disdain for Hauth, who brutalized him as they grew up together and whom he refuses to call his brother. His chosen family is, instead, the Yews, to whom he is related through Morette, his aunt, and who accepted him as he was. He is Ravyn’s right-hand man and often the voice of caution in their schemes to gather the remaining Cards. Described as a handsome man with auburn hair, Elm is known as too committed to his own freedom to make a good prince or a good Destrier.

When Hauth is incapacitated, Elm reluctantly becomes heir to the Rowan throne, in part to help Ione retain a measure of freedom and retrieve her hidden Maiden Card. Despite a painful childhood, Elm retains his desire to be better than his family’s legacy and have “it said, loud enough so everyone hears, that [he is] nothing like Hauth” (102). He becomes engaged to Ione in part as a ploy to out-trick his father’s schemes, but mostly because he has genuine feelings for her. A trickster and a lover of games, Elm proves himself cunning in his own cautious ways. By the end of the novel, he and Ione complete the Deck of Providence Cards by stabbing Hauth and dooming him to a mindless life in the alderwood. After the mist recedes and all are healed, Elm is crowned King of Blunder as King of the Elms, first of his name.

Formerly the creature in Elspeth’s mind and now the main occupant of her body, the Nightmare is also a main character in the novel, an anti-hero for most of the narrative, one of its main narrative voices, and a self-proclaimed father figure to Elspeth. The Nightmare is the soul of the former Shepherd King, Aemmory Percyval Taxus—or simply “Taxus”—who sacrificed parts of himself in barters made to the Spirit of the Wood 500 years ago to create the Nightmare Providence Card. He is the ancestor of the Yew family, making him a distant relative to Ravyn and his family, though his relationship with Ravyn is mostly antagonistic. When he was alive, he was married to his wife Petra, with whom he had six children: gray-eyed Bennett, who’d had Ravyn’s magic before him; Ilyc; Afton; Fenly; Lenor; and Tilly, who had healing powers. When Brutus enacted his coup d’état, he captured all Taxus’s children, save Benett, and killed them by burning them alive in the stone chamber.

In this sequel to One Dark Window, the Nightmare’s relationship with Elspeth remains, at its core, parasitic: The Nightmare and Elspeth have traded roles, with her as the voice in the darkness of their shared mind. Though he maintains a fatherly affection and protectiveness toward her, the Nightmare still retains his cunning and wickedness: The Nightmare has known all along how to reinstate her control over her body and chose to wait until his reckoning against the Rowans was complete before doing so. Throughout the narrative, Elspeth and the others come to understand how his barters have eroded his soul and left him burdened by guilt and grief at having had to lose his family and sacrifice his beloved sister, Ayris, to create the Twin Alders Card. By the end of Two Twisted Crowns, he has kept his promise to Elspeth to help the Yews in all their endeavors and has completed his mission to leave her a better Blunder than she has known.

Elspeth Spindle is one of the novel’s main protagonists and one of its main narrative voices. She is the daughter of Iris Whitebeam and Erik Spindle, the former Captain of the Destriers, and half-sister to Nya and Dimia. She is also Ravyn’s love interest and was a member of his Deck-collecting group prior to her final confrontation with Hauth in One Dark Window. At age nine, she was infected, and rather than submit her to the Physicians, her father chose to save her life and hide her with her mother’s relatives, the Hawthorns. There, she encounters the Nightmare Card and unwittingly absorbs the soul of the Shepherd King with her magic.

After the events of One Dark Window, the Nightmare has fully subsumed her and now controls her body. While floating in the darkness of their shared mind, Elspeth eventually reclaims herself and her memories and explores the Nightmare’s mnemonic seashore. While there, she witnesses his personal history, and after a time, she begins to share their mind in earnest and becomes capable of viewing the outside world through the Nightmare’s eyes. Though her relationship with the Nightmare is a complicated one, she nevertheless feels true affection for him as a surrogate father figure and finds herself at a loss by the end of the novel when he decides to move on beyond the veil of life. At the end of the narrative, she reunites with her family and friend, fully in control of her body, after Ravyn destroys the Nightmare Card she touched as a child.

Hauth is the novel’s main antagonist and its most straightforwardly villainous character. Formerly the first-born Crown Prince of the Rowan family, his encounter with the Nightmare-as-Elspeth at the end of One Dark Window left his body broken and incapable of retaining consciousness. As a result, he loses his position as heir to the throne to Elm. Through an arrangement made by their fathers, Hauth is betrothed to Ione Hawthorn, Elspeth’s cousin, whom he forced to use the Maiden Card on a perpetual basis to make her heartless and, according to him, easier to handle. He tries and fails to kill her twice, once by throwing her from a window and once by stabbing her through the heart. Like Elm, he is also related to the Yews but has a comparatively bad relationship with them. He is particularly antagonistic toward Ravyn, as he is jealous of his position as Captain of the Destriers, and he nearly kills him when he stabs him at the end of the narrative. Hauth is known for being a brute who enjoys forcing others to do his bidding through his Scythe Card, but his brutality was especially acute toward Elm, whom he despises. Hauth is able to heal himself with the help of his trusted Destrier, Linden, and the Maiden Card. Believing himself invincible and the rightful king of Blunder, Hauth poisons his father, Quercus, and compels everyone to ignore him as he dies. In his final confrontation with Elm and Ione, Hauth becomes infected, and his blood is used to complete the Deck of Providence Cards. Compelled by the mist to run to the alderwood so that the alder trees can feed on him, Hauth is deemed the mist’s last victim.

Ione Hawthorn is a secondary character in the narrative and Elm’s love interest. She is Elspeth’s cousin and the daughter of Tyrn and Opal Hawthorn (née Whitebeam). The eldest of her family, she has two younger siblings, Lyn and Aldrich. Through an arrangement made with the King in One Dark Window, her father was able to have her betrothed to Hauth, the First Prince, in exchange for Tyrn’s Nightmare Card, though she had always noticed Elm more than Hauth. Her desire to become queen, it is revealed, stemmed from her hope to change Blunder into a safer place for people like Elspeth.

Upon her betrothal, Hauth forcibly makes her inebriated by using his Scythe Card. He compels her to use the Maiden Card, then has her hide it away so she cannot halt its progressive effects. He alone knows where it is hidden, and he never reveals its location despite her insistent pleas. As the Maiden robs her of her feelings, Ione desperately tries to retain her sense of self by making the decisions she believes she would have made had she still felt the full spectrum of her emotions. Though she is branded a traitor by Quercus for her association with Elspeth, an infected, Ione is nevertheless able to retain a measure of freedom in the castle with Elm’s help. Bold and cunning in her own way, she and Elm develop an attraction for each other over the course of their search for her Maiden Card. In the final fight, she helps Elm overcome Hauth and complete the Deck of Providence Cards. By the end of the novel, she marries Elm at Hawthorn House and becomes queen of Blunder.

Quercus Rowan is a secondary character in the narrative and one of its main antagonists. He is the father of both Hauth and Elm, and his wife died while Elm was still a child. His relationship with his children is one that endorses the Rowans’ legacy of pain, one in which sons are taught young to endure intense physical abuse to “prepare them” to use the Scythe Cards and for the throne. Under his command are the Physicians and Destriers whom he uses to police the citizens of Blunder and capture all the infected. Despite his expressed hatred toward them, he proves himself a hypocrite and often kept any infected with magic he deemed useful under his command, like Orithe and Ravyn. Though grief-stricken by Hauth’s incapacitation, Quercus nevertheless proves himself inept in fatherhood as he sees his children not as people but as objects that serve the royal family line. As king, he is more concerned with his court reputation than anything else, giving Elm an easy loophole to manipulate him and protect Ione from his wrath. Despite his ineptness for kingship, Quercus is nevertheless adamant about freeing Blunder from the mist, which is why Hauth kills him with poison. In his final moments, he gives Elm the means to escape his brother.

Erik Spindle is a secondary character in the novel and Elspeth’s father. The former Captain of the Destriers, Erik presents himself as an austere man who does not know how to smile. His first wife—and Elspeth’s mother—Iris died of the infection, and when Elspeth is infected, he fears losing her too and hides her with the Hawthorns. When Tyrn admits he brought Elspeth to Hauth, Erik tries to kill him for putting his daughter in danger. Though his relationship with Elspeth remains uncertain by the end of the narrative, Erik nevertheless shows that he deeply cares for her and actively participates in subduing the Destriers in the final confrontation with Hauth.

Tyrn Hawthorn is a secondary character in the novel, Ione’s father, and Elspeth’s uncle. For 11 years, Tyrn and his family have looked after Elspeth and her infection. In the dungeons, Tyrn admits to Erik and Elm that he murdered a highwayman for the second Nightmare Card and pushed Ione to become queen to justify the action. While he loves Ione and ostensibly Elspeth, he betrays both by leaving them both at Hauth’s mercy—Ione when she was drunk and Elspeth when she was still convalescing. At the end of the novel, he, too, takes up arms against Hauth in the final confrontation.

The Spirit of the Wood is a secondary character in the novel and the narrative’s main deity figure. Neither antagonist nor ally to the main characters, the Spirit seeks to ensure its unfettered magic and a sense of balance in Blunder—regardless of the cost. She is described as “a creature with claws and pointed ears and silver eyes” (285). Owner of the alderwood and creator of the mist, the Spirit considers humans to be of little consequence, given their fleeting mortality, but nevertheless engages with them through barters, as magic in Blunder is paradoxical; should she sever her connection to humans, it is implied she would lose her power. She only communicates and barters, therefore, with Taxus and his descendants. It is through her power that the Providence Cards are created, and through her barter with Ravyn, the Deck of Providence Cards is complete.