Caravel — Car to anyone who knows them — is nineteen, Venturia-born, and finished with secrets. The child of the family that keeps the Covenant Archive, raised beside a twin sister their parents preferred and a family business they left behind — the trade, not the family, whom they still see a few times a month — Car found their own road into the city's masks and music as an apprentice of the Masquers' Sodality. The reason they hate secrets is simple and unhealed: Alessia Rossetti — Car's best friend, a daughter of the family that runs the Burnt Quill's press floor — died the night after a quiet bargain, and Car found the body.
Concept
A custom Masquerade Bard, born and raised in Venturia.
Family
Car's parents — their father is Loren, their mother Sabina (née Salvi, of a dockside family; her brother Matteo "Teo" and sister Lucia "Luc" still work the harbor crews) — run The Covenant Archive, the house where the city's deals are sealed and kept. There's a twin sister, Maris — the "perfect" one, the favored one, who stayed and became one of the Archive's archivists — and a long family friendship with the Rossettis, the family that runs the press floor at The Burnt Quill. Car rejected the family trade but not the family: the relationship is tenuous but holding, and they still see each other a few times a month. Car has not visited the Rossettis since Alessia died, despite telling them they would — the only lie Car will admit to.
The Masquerade
Car watched the Rossettis strike a bargain with someone they didn't know. The following night, at the Autumn Masquerade, Alessia was dead — a porcelain half-mask nobody could identify lying beside her. Car's parents call it "betrayal" and refuse to say more. Car has been categorically opposed to secrets ever since — and, perhaps in spite of that, was drawn straight into the Sodality's world of masks, theater, and performance.
Ties
- Roxanya "Roxy" — An unlikely friendship, given that Roxy collects the very secrets Car despises.
- Celina Cross — Alessia's elder sister; still performing at the Amaranth, and still the only other person who lost her. Car has never once called her Cross.
- Maris Asteri — Car's twin, now an Archivist. Mutual respect, mutual distance, and a standing agreement never to ask each other for anything.
- The Tragedy of Vallombrosa — Growing up around the theater with Alessia, Car has heard old company arguments that the earliest prompt-books stage the di Errante household differently than any modern telling does.
- The Masquers' Sodality — Car's apprenticeship and entry into the city's mask-and-theater world.
- The Covenant Archive — The family business Car was raised in and rejected.
- Celina Cross — Names this character in its connections.
- The Autumn Masquerade — Names this character in its connections.
- The Covenant of Silver Scales — Names this character in its connections.
The Blank Mask and Loren's Favor
From Beyond Relief.
Car carried the Masquers' Sodality's blank mask up to the Overlook for Maruk Grommarg's rite — unpainted, no features, weighing almost nothing — put it into Noname's hands because the form requires a face to be handed over rather than delivered, took it back when she returned it, and hung it on the peg beneath Maruk's slate facing outward, because there was no body.
That same morning Loren Asteri called in a favor: a stack of contracts needing review, most of them Aurelio Volante's. Car has not opened them.