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Baroness Gaia Sinclaire
Baroness Gaia Sinclaire
Sometimes the best action is an indirect one.
The Headmistress of Crossroads Academy, (adoptive) mother of Avalon Sinclaire, and all around Living Legend. Having begun life as a medieval peasant, Gaia Sinclaire is now somewhere around nine hundred years old and is one of the most famous Heretics around. Before being known as Gaia Sinclaire, she went by the name Scathach, after a figure from Celtic Mythology. And before that, she was Morgan le Fay.
Her Heretic aura is gold.
- Affectionate Nickname: Calls her daughter Valley.
- Big Brother Is Watching: While it's nowhere near complete, she has a method of watching almost anything that can happen at Crossroads.
- Big Entrance: The Baroness knows how to enter a room with style. What would you call commandeering alien teleportation tech on another planet and calmly stepping into their control room before anyone realizes what's happening if not stylish?
- Deadpan Snarker: At times. She's a bit more gentle about it than most snarkers.When I said that there are many things we need to discuss, I did not mean that each of those discussions should take place simultaneously within the next thirty seconds.
- Death Seeker: For a time following the death of her son centuries ago, all Gaia wanted to do was join him.
- Divided We Fall: Gaia believes that any serious conflict between Heretics will render humanity defenseless. This is why she's so careful about her reformist intentions.
- Friend on the Force: Was a complicated version of this for Joselyn within Crossroads during the revolution. Gaia was not actively working for or with them, but was willing to be a silent ally at times. Especially after Joselyn was imprisoned.
- Good Is Not Soft: Do not anger Gaia Sinclaire. She will not hesitate to leave you to suffer an agonizing death if she thinks you deserve it.
- God help you if Gaia thinks you're an existential threat to humanity. She wiped a state off the map to save humanity once.
- Internal Reformist: Doesn't agree with the overly traditionalist stance of the Crossroads Committee and is actively working to change the way things are run within the bounds of the system.
- Locked Out of the Loop: She's not supposed to know the identities of Joselyn's twins, but managed to find out anyway. She also doesn't know the real reason Joselyn was "captured" until Asenath angrily tells her.
- Despite them knowing of her efforts to reform Crossroads, Gaia was also excluded from the anti-Seosten faction Gabriel Prosser is part of on the recommendation of her brother's wife Guinevere, who doesn't trust her not to go too far.
- She has no idea what Deveron is doing because he no longer trusts her.
- Mama Bear: Don't mess with any of her students. Ever. But especially don't mess with Avalon.
- Don't even mess with the children of her former students. She'll go out of her way to protect them too. That's why she worked so hard to ensure that Flick would be able to attend Crossroads.
- Meaningful Name / Meaningful Rename: Gaia Sinclaire is not her original name, but the one she chose for herself. Sinclaire is in honor of the Scottish Clan Sinclair that took her in and kept her alive when she was a Death Seeker (with an e added in recognition that she was not born to the clan). Gaia is a reference to the Greek Mother Earth, which she chose to remind herself that she can care for anyone who may need her.
- Before that she went by Scáthach, after a teacher who trained Cú Chulainn in Celtic Mythology. But even that isn't her original name. She picked it for herself after becoming a Heretic. Her original name is Morgan le Fay.
- Mentor Archetype: Gaia considered teaching her most important duty in life long before she officially took a job as one. She eventually decides to personally give Flick private lessons.
- Necessarily Evil: This is Gaia's opinion of Crossroads' current methods. She knows full well that not all Strangers are monsters, but is also keenly aware that there are plenty of Strangers that really are as bad as the propaganda says. As far as she's concerned, a flawed defense of humanity is better than no defense at all.
- She's also willing to resort to some pretty manipulative tactics in her quest to reform Crossroads. Namely, her compliance with Joselyn's ultimate plan requires her to basically gamble with the lives of innocent part-Alter students.
- Outliving One's Offspring: At one point in her life, Gaia had a son. He was taken from her and died before she was able to save him.
- Pay Evil unto Evil: When sending Hannah Owens away to be saved from the mortal wound dealt to her by Fahsteth, Gaia made a point of leaving Hannah's abusive and similarly wounded father Reggie behind to die slowly. This backfired when a vampire saved Reggie's life and he then dedicated it to murdering Hannah/Avalon.
- Plausible Deniability: Will not hesitate to punish her students in order to mitigate the attention they would otherwise get from her more authoritarian colleagues.
- Pragmatic Hero
- Properly Paranoid: Gaia is extremely cautious about who she trusts, which is fully justified by the fact that Ruthers has inserted people into her staff and she's not sure who they all are. Furthermore, the Seosten have been trying and failing for decades to get their spies close enough to her to find out what she's hiding.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Had absolutely no problem letting Seller take Hannah Owens to Eden's Garden in order to save her life. She personally asked him to do it. And she's the only Heretic Joselyn Chambers told her daughter Felicity that she could trust.
- Gaia privately admired and supported Joselyn, her pupil when she was still at Crossroads, doing everything in her power to shield said student from the attention of the much more hardline Headmaster of the day. Things got a lot more complicated when Joselyn left school and started rebelling openly, which is exactly what Gaia was trying to convince her not to do.
- Secret Secret-Keeper: Gaia knows a lot of things that people are trying to hide, without their knowledge. She knew that Shiori and Vanessa are half-humans when they thought nobody knew, and was also aware that Sebastian Gerardo's boyfriend Mateo is a werewolf despite their best attempts to hide it as well.
- Technopath: Gaia's original power as a Natural Heretic.
- Trickster Mentor: When she has to be. Gaia doesn't totally trust most of her staff because she knows that some of them are spying for Ruthers, so she has to be extremely careful when helping students that are part-Alter or show reformist tendencies to avoid giving them or herself away.
- Vindicated by History: Her actions regarding a Fomorian invasion got her reviled for a long time, but the other Heretics eventually got over it.
- Weather Manipulation: She can call in storms.
- Weapon Specialization: Her weapon is a whip that glows crimson when she's using it.
Faculty
Virginia Dare
A teacher of American history, fencing and martial technique at Crossroads Academy as well as the adviser for the Investigation Track, Virginia Dare was born in Roanoke in 1587. Yep. She's that Virginia Dare. She is also Flick's grandmother, a fact that was kept secret for very good reason. For more information, see the entry for Joshua Atherby's wife on the Spoiler Characters page.
- Animorphism: The ability to transform into a wolf is one of her original powers, obtained from the amarok that turned her into a Heretic.
- The Apprentice: To Tiras, Asenath's father, who protected and trained her for a decade, until she left him at the age of twenty-three.
- Badass Teacher: Basically a job requirement to teach at Crossroads Academy.
- Big "WHAT?!": Upon realizing some members of the Committee believe Flick is behind the attempts to murder Avalon.
- Blatant Lies: She annually tells her students that Tiras was a natural vampire-Heretic. Which is true, but leaves out the fact that all natural vampire-Heretics are themselves vampires.
- Brutal Honesty: She's ironically very blunt to her investigation students about how they're going to end up lying (a lot) to Bystanders over the course of investigating Stranger attacks.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Dare has not had an easy time of it, she had to watch her entire family die when she was twelve, then spent a year on her own living in the woods, and eventually abandoned her second father figure because she was afraid she'd get him killed. And every year she has to describe the entire thing to her students.
- Dating Catwoman: Has a thing going on with Hisao, an Eden's Garden Heretic.
- Defeating the Undefeatable: Dare has gotten the better of Fossor at least twice, a fact witch shocks Flick when she first hears it.
- Flaming Sword: One of the many things she can make her sword do with magic.
- Historical Domain Character: She's the very same Virginia Dare that was born in Roanoke in 1587, the first English child to be born in the Americas.
- She even teaches Bystander History, and her own birth is on the curriculum.
- Internal Reformist: In the same vein as Gaia.
- It's Not You, It's My Enemies: For much of her early life, Dare avoided people because she was being hunted by a dangerous enemy and was afraid of getting them hurt as a result. Considering that this "great evil" wiped out the colony of Roanoke to torment her, it's kind of hard to blame her.
- Long-Lost Relative: Dare considers Tiras her second father, and thus could be considered Asenath's adopted sister.
- Magic Knight: Dare's combat style is all about her sword, and using magic to keep her enemies from defending against it properly.
- Mama Bear: Fiercely protective of her students. Her relief when she comes to Wyoming after Ammon's attack to find that Flick is (more or less) okay is almost palpable.
- Master Swordswoman: Dare teaches the fencing class for a reason. She's very, very good with a sword, to the point that her Heretic weapon is just a sword with hammerspace magazines for one-shot spell sticks.
- Offscreen Teleportation: First introduces herself to Flick by appearing behind her while she's testing whether the portal in front of her is real.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Virginia quickly sees that Flick is hiding parts of what happened when she went home, but doesn't press the issue because she recognizes that Flick has understandable reasons to be distrustful. Also, she doesn't actually need Flick to tell her because she has a pretty good (though not perfect) idea of the situation.
- Secret-Keeper: Is one for Gaia who, among other things, tells her about Flick's relation to Wyatt Rendell and Koren Fellows when neither of them are supposed to know.
- Wolf Woman: Dare originally became a Heretic after falling into a pool of amarok blood.
- Younger Than They Look: This usually goes without saying for Heretics, but Dare gets a special mention because her birth-date is a matter of historical fact (August 18, 1587), so we can actually calculate her exact age. She's 430 (Heretical Edge starts in September, 2017) and looks four centuries younger.
Ulysses Katarin
Hunter Track Adviser and combat instructor, Professor Katarin is a no nonsense teacher responsible for teaching a bunch of teenagers how to properly handle their (incredibly dangerous) Magitek weapons. Poor bastard.
Banished by Manakel over Christmas vacation. Killed by Issac Acosta in Rendezvous 30-04
- Badass Teacher
- The Big Guy
- Dark and Troubled Past: When he was a teenager, his family was tortured to death by Fomorians.
- Drill Sergeant Nasty: How he runs the Introduction to Combat class.
- Internal Reformist: Part of Gaia's camp and one of the few people she trusts implicitly.
- So Proud of You: Is absolutely ecstatic to find out Flick and co killed Charmeine.
- Stern Teacher: His class involves weapons. Lots and lots of weapons. As can be expected, he has a strict no-tolerance policy for anyone who messes around too much. Or at all.
Risa Kohaku
Head of Security at Crossroads Academy, which includes advising the Security track, and also an art teacher.
She's actually Manakel's host, and he used her to kill Professor Pericles.
- Action Mom: Kohaku has had eight children, five daughters and three sons.
- The Dog Bites Back: Manakel might have escaped to fight another day if Kohaku hadn't told Flick and Sariel where he put his escape hatch.
- Intergenerational Friendship: Kohaku and Columbus Porter end up with a unique bond with each other over their shared experience as Seosten hosts.
- Internal Reformist: She's part of Gaia's camp.
- Outliving One's Offspring: Twice. Her daughter Kiyomi was killed in the Fomorian invasion of earth, and her son Yuuto died in an accident a few years before the start of the story when he was a teenager. Her grief over his death causes her to withdraw enough to make it easier for Manakel to impersonate her.
- The Mole: She spends much of Flick's first year as Manakel's host, a Mole in Charge situation that allows him to control the investigations into the attempts to murder Avalon.
- Reasonable Authority Figure
- Walking Spoiler: As Pericles's killer, even if she wasn't in control of herself at the time, Kohaku is the answer to one of the oldest driving questions of the series. Her being Manakel's host since before the story started only compounds her status as this.
- Walking Techbane: A flashback in one of Nevada's interludes reveals that Kohaku had a lot of problems with technology when she was first appointed head of security, although she seems to have gotten better with it over the years.
Zedekiah Pericles
A very old Heretic, both in age and appearance. Professor Pericles is the Development Track adviser as well as teaching the class on Strangers. At least until he's murdered a week into the beginning of the school year.
- Cool Teacher: Most of his students think he's awesome. He was also Josleyn Atherby's favorite teacher.
- Elderly Immortal
- Internal Reformist: Pericles was one of Gaia's people.
- Killed Off for Real: He's murdered within days of the beginning of the school year.
- Posthumous Character: We learn quite a bit about Pericles after his death.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: He's the only teacher Shiori and Gordon could trust with the knowledge of their Stranger ancestry. Too bad he was killed before they had the chance to tell him.
- Renaissance Man: And not just because he was alive during the Renaissance. Over the course of his very long life, Professor Pericles picked up a lot of skills. He's well versed in various scholarly disciplines, and he teaches the Development Track.
- The Scapegoat: Accidentally became this and died because of it. Zekediah Atherby, now known as Wyatt Rendell, placed a spell to keep enemies from murdering Avalon. However, the Atherby family name had been erased by a memory spell, so The Mole only heard the first name Zekediah when performing a divination spell to learn who protected Avalon, and thus killed Pericles so the spell would fade after his death.
Benji Carfried
A young looking, chipper teacher that's filling in for Professor Tangle, who had an accident over the summer. To that end, he teaches Heretical Magic and advises the Explorer track.
He's actually the host of the Seosten Amatiel.
- Department of Redundancy Department: He spends a lot of time pointing out that Heretical magic is not fast. You got that? Do you understand that Heretical magic is not fast? I can repeat it if you need to. Once more, Heretical magic is not fast.
- Improbable Age: Carfried is really young by the standards Crossroads teachers. He graduated a year before he got his job. Granted, he's supposedly just filling in for another teacher, but still.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Is very understanding when one of his students has a Freak Out in the middle of class. He takes her aside, sends her off to the therapist, and reprimands the one guy who mocked her for it.
Liam Mason
An English Literature teacher, and Sands and Scout's father. He's raised them on his own since his wife Larissa's disappearance, and the three of them are very close.
He's the reason Joselyn's revolution was fought openly, as he exposed it back in the twenties.
- Black-and-White Insanity: Get this guy talking about Strangers or Joselyn and you will see exactly where Sands got it from.
- Everyone Went to School Together: His classmates in his year at Crossroads Academy were Tribald Kine and Klassin Roe, and also Joselyn Atherby and Deveron Adams.
- Foil: To Sands. Both of them were confronted with the truth about Alters. Liam turned away because he couldn't cope with Heretic society being built on a lie. Sands didn't, largely because she couldn't bear to turn on Scout.
- Good Parents: He's very close to his twin daughters, who he raised on his own since their mother was lost in a Stranger attack when they were young.
- Though he loses a lot of points later on when Sands and Scout both realize they can't trust him. They still love him, but finding out about his past and realizing he wouldn't have trusted Sariel to save Scout like Larissa did destroys their faith in him.
- Hot for Teacher: Liam's wife, Larissa, was one of his students in the nineties, although they didn't actually enter into a relationship until after she left school.
- Hypocrite: He becomes increasingly uncomfortable with having his daughters on the same team as Avalon and Flick because of all the danger it puts them in... after he sent them to school for a life of extraordinarily dangerous monster hunting, and with full understanding of the fact that moving Sands and Scout to a different team would just put their replacements in that same danger.
- This is pointed out in-universe as him being irrational about his daughters' lives after his wife's disappearance.
- Hypocrite Has a Point: He's not exactly wrong to think that Avalon, Flick, and those around them are in greater danger than most students.
- May–December Romance: He was around 99 and his wife was 25 when their daughters were born.
- Never My Fault: Liam refuses to take responsibility for his role in starting Joselyn's war, instead blaming it all on Joselyn herself for being "naive" and "insane."
- Parental Obliviousness: Liam doesn't really notice the growing distance between him and his daughters. He misses the way Scout basically ignores him when he thinks he's comforting her after Sands's disappearance.
- Turncoat: Joselyn and Deveron trusted Liam back in their school days. He in turn ratted them out to Ruthers, turning what was supposed to be a quiet Underground Railroad into a guerrilla war that lasted nearly a century.
Nevada
A teacher who looks like "Patient Zero for the epidemic of ditzy blonde cheerleader types in pretty much every movie ever." She takes over Professor Pericles' responsibilities after his death.
She was originally a Djinni created by Denuvus in 1615. After spending centuries being passed along to different masters (and often reclaimed by her creator), she was recruited by Deveron to modify the Heretical Edge to affect part-Alter students in 1986. She then turned herself into a human and became a Heretic to help Gaia reform Crossroads.
- Bag of Holding: Nevada's "weapon" is a large metal crate that collapses into a metal bracelet she wears on her wrist. Inside the crate is an armory of her actual weapons, designed by her.
- Benevolent Genie: What she used to be. She wasn't happy with it.
- Chainsaw Good: Owns a massive chainsword.
- Dumb Blonde: Subverted. Nevada looks and superficially acts like this, but she's anything but dumb.
- Gadgeteer Genius: Nevada designs and creates all her own weapons. She also teaches the development track.
- Insistent Terminology: She was not a "genie," she was a Djinni.
- Internal Reformist: Another of the people that Gaia trusts implicitly. She actually joined Crossroads specifically to help reform the Heretics.
- Her interlude reveals that she wasn't always an internal reformist - she's personally responsible for one of the revolution's greatest victories, and one that wasn't negated by the memory spell.
- Line-of-Sight Name: Chose the name Nevada when she saw an old poster for the movie Wanda Nevada and felt the second word fit her.
- Older Than They Look: This is true of most adult Heretics, but Nevada in particular looks to be the same age as her sixteen and seventeen year old students. In reality she's 402 at the start of the story, having originally been created in 1615. She's even older if you include Theda's life in her age.
- Playing with Fire: One of her powers is to send forth flickers of flame that ignite into controlled bursts of fire that reduce their targets to ash in seconds.
- The Pollyanna: All those smiles of hers are completely genuine. Nevada just plain loves life and will always look for the bright side of things.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: She warns against asking dangerous questions when one of her students privately brings sensitive topics up.
- Took a Level in Badass: Before becoming a Heretic (back when she was a Djinni), Nevada was so innocent and unused to violence that she had no idea how to fight. Now she's a total badass able to shred her way through a zombie horde without breaking a sweat.
Erica Ross
The Heretical history teacher, Professor Ross is one of the Heretics that actually looks old. Flick describes her as looking "like one of those amazing Amazon warriors if they happened to live to be about ninety."
- Elderly Immortal: As noted, Ross is a centuries old Heretic that genuinely appears old, which is something of a rarity.
Giselle Tangle
Professor Tangle is supposed to be teaching the Explorer track and magic classes, but she was injured over the summer and Professor Carfried is filling in for her while she recovers. She's a black woman who appears to be in her mid-forties.
- An Arm and a Leg: She lost a leg and part of her side to a shark attack over the summer, and for some reason the wound isn't healing.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: She presents herself as a very friendly lady, to the point where she was Deveron's favorite teacher in his first year. She's not actually that nice. Except she totally is. Flick is led to believe that Tangle is actually a malicious bitch, but the truth is that she's been manipulated and controlled to be that way by the Seosten Paschar. .]]
- Cool Teacher: She's a pretty popular and even fun teacher.
- Dating Catwoman: She's involved with someone from Eden's Garden, who eventually turns out to be the host of a Seosten that was magically inducing her obsessive crush on him.
- Geek: She's a huge gamer with a room filled with two consoles and tons of video and boards games.
- Meaningful Name: She managed to get wrapped up in a tangle of plots. Lampshaded on several occasions.
- Noodle Incident: The "shark attack" that injured her was bad enough that it's taking her months to recover despite having a Healing Factor. It turns out that the Seosten sent Fahsteth after her to stop her from telling Gaia when she realizes she's under mind control.
- Retired Badass: Not fully retired, but she hasn't been an active duty Heretic in some time.
Stephen Vandel
The Heretical Geography teacher, the guy who teaches students about landmasses, planets, and everything else that Bystanders don't know about. He tends to get a lot of questions about Atlantis.
- High-Class Glass: Dude wears a monocle.
- Limited Wardrobe: He always wears a long-sleeved black and white checkered shirt with a bolo tie and crisp blue jeans that looked brand new. Flick's not sure if he even owns other clothes.
- Tempting Fate: While lecturing his students about how the island containing Crossroads Academy exists in a pocket dimension in one of Hieronymus Bosch's paintings, he assures them the painting is well protected and couldn't possibly be placed in any danger, thus making many a reader Face Palm.
- The Napoleon: Vandel is a short dude, even shorter than Flick and just barely taller than Sands and Scout.
Professor Carver
One of the older-year teachers.
- Deadpan Snarker
- Einstein Hair: Or "Einstein-esque," as Flick puts it.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: His first appearance has him show up to disperse a crowd of rumor-mongers bothering Flick after she kills Doxer.
Other Staff
Wyatt Rendell
- Abusive Parents: Wyatt only ever received cold treatment and harsh punishments for even the slightest of infractions from his adoptive parents. It actually got to the point where he started training himself to wake up silently with electrical shocks rather than let them realize he was awake.
- Boisterous Bruiser: He's not the most subtle guy in the world.
- Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Despite his eccentricities, his skill with magic and security magic in particular is downright prodigious.
- Cool Uncle: To Koren, once they both learn that they're related.
- Crazy-Prepared: Whether he's taking students on a jungle trip, just waking up in the morning, or getting ready for combat, Wyatt is ready for anything with magical and mundane back up plans.
- Cynicism Catalyst: Eavesdropping on his parents to discover that they never cared about him and are prepared to murder him if ordered. As a result, he doesn't trust anyone.
- Heroic Self-Deprecation: Despite his genius at security magic, Wyatt's utterly convinced that the first time he doesn't perform perfectly he'll be fired for cause, regardless of the actual circumstances. He's convinced he failed after the cruise ship ambush and offers to resign, but Gaia states that his security measures were actually the only thing that kept the attackers from just teleporting Avalon away to kill her and commends him for forcing the attackers to use a contingency plan that could be defeated.
- I Just Want to Have Friends: Wyatt wants to be able to trust people, but his intense paranoia and the weirdness that results prevents him from doing so. He's never had a real friend in his life. He's overjoyed to learn of his relation to Flick, Koren, and Deveron because it means he's finally found people he can trust.
- Knight Templar Big Brother: Wyatt is fiercely protective of his sisters and niece, to the point where he comes very close to starting a war with Eden's Garden after learning what Pace almost did to Flick (and did do to Roxa).
- Large Ham: When he's acting the hilariously jumpy security guy, Wyatt makes an incredibly production out of stopping people.
- Locked Out of the Loop: Crossroads didn't let him know anything about his biological family even before they started using memory magic. Consequently, he has no idea why spies have been following him around all his life.
- Long-Lost Relative: Wyatt is the son of Joselyn and Deveron, making him Flick and Ammon's older brother, Koren's uncle, and Seller's descendant.
- Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: As it turns out, leaving a child with Abusive Parents and sending spies after them for their entire life isn't a good way to build loyalty. Who knew?
- My God, What Have I Done?: He's not happy to realize that he's killed a number of innocents when he learns that not all Strangers are evil.
- The Napoleon: The five foot, four inch tall Flick mentions that he's only about an inch taller than her.
- No Social Skills: A lifetime of not letting himself get close to anyone has left Wyatt with a distinct lack of understanding how to interact with others.
- Obfuscating Stupidity: He often exaggerates his overenthusiastic personality to keep people from noticing when he becomes suspicious of them.
- The Paranoiac: His interlude reveals that Wyatt is even more paranoid than he seems. His morning rituals consist of elaborate checks to ensure that he's alone and he doesn't trust anyone because he's convinced that spies are always trying to get close to him. Every so often he uproots his life and moves on to avoid anyone that might be reporting on him. Tragically, this is completely justified. His life really has been filled with people spying on him on Ruthers' orders. As the tags put it:It’s Not Paranoia When They Really Did Kidnap You To Force Your Mother To Surrender And Erase All Memory Of Her From Existence.
- Tell Me About My Father: Once he learns the truth about his family, he becomes very curious to learn more about his real mother.
- Too Good to Be True: To Wyatt, even something as simple as meeting someone who's nice to him is too good to be true. Inverted when he finds out about his family. He believes Flick, Deveron, and Koren in part because the complicated and dangerous circumstances they describe are not too good to be true.
- Separated at Birth: From his twin sister Abigail Fellows in order to hide them from their father and the rest of the rebellion.
- Sins of the Father: To an even greater extent than his little sister. Being Joselyn Aterby's son has led Ruthers to turn his life into a nightmare of paranoia.
- Spanner in the Works: The security magic he places on Avalon is the chief reason none of the attempts on her life have succeeded. Even when they manage to block one of his spells, another functions well enough to prevent The Mole from kidnapping her.
- Straight Gay: His interlude casually reveals that he's gay and has a bit of a crush on Reid Rucker. Most people wouldn't guess it from interacting with him.
- Weak, but Skilled: Due to his reclusive lifestyle, Wyatt hasn't been able to rack up as many powers as other Heretics his age. He makes up for this with his incredible skill with magic.
- "Well Done, Son" Guy: Wyatt was desperate to earn his parents' love when he was young, only to give up when he realized that he was never going to get it. He's overwhelmed to the point where he can barely form coherent sentences when he finally meets his real father, who wastes no time telling him how proud he is of him, and that he loves him.
Reid Rucker
Professor Kohaku's Number Two of the school's Security staff. He looks to be in his early twenties and reminds Flick vaguely of Captain America.
- Nice Guy
- Number Two: To Professor Kohaku.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: He's a pretty easygoing guy, very understanding to both students and his staff.
Chef Escalan
The school's... rather intense chef. He takes his job pretty seriously. Fossor zombified him and turned him into his mole.
- Chubby Chef: Described as squat and rotund.
- Funetik Aksent: Has a thick Russian accent.
- Supreme Chef: His meals are delicious. All three of them, every day.
Klassin Roe
Crossroads Academy's on-staff therapist who helps students (particularly Bystander-kin) deal with traumatic experiences and the stress of the life they're embarking on. Professor Dare sets up an appointment with him for Flick after her visit home.
Klassin Roe isn't his original name, Jonathon Ruthers is. He changed it in an effort to disassociate himself from his father.
- Calling the Old Man Out: More or less his entire life for the last two decades.
- Engineered Public Confession: Klassin lures Liam Mason to his office and then goads him into argument about his betrayal of Joselyn when he knows Flick can overhear them.
- Everyone Went to School Together: He was a classmate of Tribald Kine and Liam Mason. Which also makes him a classmate of Joselyn and Deveron.
- Foil: To Flick, as they both renamed themselves in an effort to affect their parents. The difference is that Flick was a young child lashing out in confusion to hurt her Missing Mom, while Klassin was a full grown man who knew exactly what he was doing by changing his name in protest of his father's uncompromising and irrational actions.
- Greaser Delinquents: How he dresses. Leather jacket, slicked back hair, jeans, a t-shirt, the whole nine yards.
- Heel Realization: Jonathon was his father's son, until a family of Alters saved his life and then gave theirs to protect his.
- Internal Reformist: Joselyn eventually brought him around to her line of thinking, which eventually placed him in Gaia's camp (although he's not one of Gaia's most trusted people).
- Meaningful Rename: He renamed himself Klassin Roe after rebelling against his father. Roe sounds like row, a word for a heated disagreement.
- The Mole: He spent the entire revolution being a mole for Joselyn.
- Reformed Bully: One of his classmates described him as having been a bully when he was a student. Not so much anymore.
- Romantic Runner-Up: It's implied that he eventually developed feelings for Joselyn over the course of the rebellion.
- The Shrink: For the student body of Crossroads Academy. He takes his job seriously, going out of his way to learn the names of every new student.
- There Are No Therapists: Roe is Crossroads' living Subversion of this trope.
- You're Not My Father: The reason for the Meaningful Rename up there. Klassin basically disowned himself in protest of Joselyn Atherby's banishment.
Peterson Neal
Crossroad Academy's Head of Student Affairs, he's generally a serious guy and doesn't show up very often. He reports directly to Counselor Ruthers, and Counselor Davis Neal is his older brother.
- Hero-Worshipper: Towards Gabriel Ruthers. Although it's not to the point where he won't question the man's decisions.
- Hidden Depths: Initially presented as a stooge, it later comes out that Peterson has good reasons for being so loyal to Ruthers and doesn't just mindlessly obey the man.
- The Mole: Not the one trying to kill Avalon, but one who works for Ruthers.
- Secretly becomes an unknowing mole for Wyatt when he and Koren switch out his watch for one enchanted to serve as a listening device.
- You Killed My Father: Implicit. Peterson is a hardliner who was introduced to the supernatural when a group of Nocen murdered his parents.
