The characters of The Ancient Magus' Bride.
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Elias's Household
Chise Hatori
Chise Hatori
The protagonist and titular character.
- Adaptation Dye-Job: Downplayed. Not her hair or eyes, but the dress she wears after the incident with Joseph. In the anime, which briefly Overtook the Manga, it was a white dress
◊, while in the manga it was colored black, or at least a dark color. - All of the Other Reindeer: She used to be bullied by other children in the past, who thought of her as a freak. Sometimes it got physical, to the point she would find herself covered in scrapes and bruises when she got home.
- Ambiguously Human:
- It's heavily implied that sleigh beggys are some derivative of The Fair Folk, to the point that the fae try to lure Chise into their world permanently early on because "she belongs there." The fact that her green eyes and red hair are noted in-universe to be rather implausible for a Japanese girl strongly hints towards mixed-blood ancestry, as well.
- Red hair and green eyes in general has been associated with fairies in contemporary folklore in Ireland and the UK. Witch hunters also associated both traits as a mark of witchcraft or lycanthropy. As steeped in western myths and legends as the series is, this is probably not a coincidence.
- The fact that Titania considers Chise "her child" a status given to all faeries in the British Isles is also suspect.
- Animal Motifs: Birds, specifically the red robin and the phoenix: she is called "robin" by the fae and her Magic Staff has a bird carving at its tip. The robin evokes the idea of freedom and sky-high potential, but is also a tiny, vulnerable creature. To top it all off, the kanji making up her family name mean "wing" and "bird".
- The Apprentice: Chise is Elias's magical apprentice, not to mention his bride.
- Asian Speekee Engrish: Averted. Chise is Japanese and has only been learning English for a few months at most when the series begins (she is specifically said to be conversant but not yet fluent, and carries a Japanese-to-English dictionary with her in case of difficulty), but her English is never implied to be anything less than grammatically and phonetically correct (though most likely with a strong accent). Obviously also averted in the anime, where everyone just speaks whatever the dub language is.
- Asleep for Days: A common occurrence for her, particularly early on, due to overexerting her body.
- Beast and Beauty: The Beauty to Elias's Beast, especially when he takes a monstrous form.
- Because You Were Nice to Me: While people have tried to talk her into leaving Elias because he only values Chise out of curiosity about human beings, and not because of genuine affection, Chise responds that she doesn't care about that. Why? Because Elias was the first person to actually welcome her into his home and call her "family".
- Belated Injury Realization: She ends up with a cut on her neck after breaking herself out of a Hostage Situation, but doesn't notice until Elias licks the wound.
- Beneficial Disease: More like beneficial curse, two of them in fact. Neither is beneficial on its own, but each helps counteract the other, with Cartaphilus's curse preventing her from dying too soon to the dragon's curse, which in turn prevents her from suffering eternally bearing Cartaphilus's curse, while also giving her a stronger body and enhanced senses.
- Beware the Nice Ones:
- Cartaphilus is one of the few people Chise has been genuinely furious at, and when exposed to his depravity long enough, she decides to take him down herself, in order to prevent him from injuring anyone else.
- Alice also found out personally that you don't threaten those around Chise lightly. The first time, she flatout ignored the knife to her throat and broke herself out of a hostage situation to protect Ariel. The second time Alice held her up, to try to take a chuch grim, Chise near-immediately hits her with a sleeping potion to the face so she could disarm and interrogate her safely.
- Even Elias, whom Chise adores, isn't safe from her wrath when he really does something wrong. When he tries to sacrifice Stella to save Chise, having chosen to put her on the chopping block out of jealousy that she was close to Chise, she smacks the shit out of him and leaves, refusing to come home until he promises to change his behavior and never pull that again. While she does later apologize for hitting him, she also makes it clear she's not letting him off the hook for that one anytime soon.
- Blood from the Mouth: Happens occasionally after overusing magic, due to the stress it causes on her body. It also happened after she was Impaled with Extreme Prejudice.
- Cast from Lifespan: Being a sleigh beggy gives her the potential to be a powerful magus or wizard, but with a drastically shortened lifespan.
- Character Development: At the start, Chise was so despondent to life that she was about to commit suicide before deciding to auction herself, not caring what abuse she would endure. Meeting Elias and making numerous friends not only helps Chise grow in assertiveness, but it also helps her develop the will to live.
- Comforting Comforter: Takes the time to cover Cartaphilus, once he starts living in the well in Elias's residence.
- Conspicuous Gloves: Chise starts wearing a glove over her left arm after the dragon's curse in it recedes, returning the arm to its normal shape, but leaving it completely blackened from the shoulder down.
- Cooldown Hug: She hugs Elias to stop his rampage in the cemetery, which started when he thought Chise had been killed. Chise also gives one to Joseph, of all people, during their final confrontation while singing to him a lullaby from her childhood and telling him that You Are Not Alone. It works, as Joseph is later shown sleeping peacefully on Elias's property, not interested in causing trouble anymore.
- Creepy Loner Girl: How she was regarded back in Japan, due to seeing and interacting with things that, to most people, weren't there.
- Cursed with Awesome: Chise was born a sleigh beggy, a human with an unrivaled source of magical energy within her body. Uncommonly for a sleigh beggy, she was also born with the True Sight to be able to see magical fae and the abnormalities of the world around her. This combination makes her capable of pursuing any type or method of magic, in theory, and a very potent mage. Unfortunately, it's also Blessed with Suck, due to the fact that just about every other wizard, witch, magus and fae in the world seems to have an eye on her, for good or bad purposes.
- A very downplayed example is her dragon's curse, which turns her arm into a massive claw. The negatives far outweigh the benefits (the curse reduces Chise's lifespan to less than a year), but having a giant claw with some measure of Super-Strength can have its uses, as seen when she grapples Joseph, and later (in the anime) manages to overpower an attack from one of his mutated limbs.
- Absorbing Cartaphilus's curse becomes this for her due to the Dragon's Curse, as the two balance each other out.
- A very downplayed example is her dragon's curse, which turns her arm into a massive claw. The negatives far outweigh the benefits (the curse reduces Chise's lifespan to less than a year), but having a giant claw with some measure of Super-Strength can have its uses, as seen when she grapples Joseph, and later (in the anime) manages to overpower an attack from one of his mutated limbs.
- Dark and Troubled Past:
- Her father, Yuuki, left with her little brother Fumiki, her mother, Chika, committed suicide, no relatives would take her in for long, she was bullied by her classmates, she contemplated killing herself, and then sold herself into slavery just so she wouldn't have to worry about anything. Yeesh.
- Chapter 42 finally gives the details, and holy hell does it take it to the extreme. Due to their innate magical nature, neither Chise nor Chika, who is implied to have been a sleigh beggy herself, were able to leave their small apartment much, due to the spirits who wanted to attack or eat them, and at least in the apartment Yuuki's energy created a sort of barrier that protected them from said entities. One night however, Fumiki awoke crying, prompting Yuuki to take care of him. At that time, he sees a cat-like silhouette outside the apartment and decides to leave with Fumiki. He never came back, despite promising Chise he would.
- Chika was forced to pick up the slack, but without Yuuki's protection she was constantly hounded by the spirits, who would also whisper how she was forsaken by her husband. Eventually, and after being manipulated by one particular spirit to do it, she snaps and tries to strangle Chise. When she realized what she had been doing, she committed suicide as a form of apology. All in all, the Hatori family was basically bullied into breaking apart.
- Deadpan Snarker: Although she doesn't usually say it to people's faces, Chise tends to have these moments. When Elias is having another Manchild moment, this specially elicits this sort of reaction.
- Death Seeker: A peculiar case of this as years of abuse have made her apathetic to life in general. Gets better as time goes on.
- Delicate and Sickly: Being a sleigh beggy typically means that, whether due to dangerous fae, or overexerting their own body since they can't handle all the magical energy flowing through them, they die young. Even early incidents of using magic can potentially knock Chise out for days at a time, and moderate overuse without watching her output mangles her internal organs. Taking the dragon's curse into her body has not only transformed her left arm into a gigantic, misshapen husk of an arm, but also reduced her estimated lifespan to less than a year until she also takes part of Cartaphilus's curse of immortality into herself. This curse keeps her alive, while the dragon’s curse keeps her strong. This has resulted in Chise overcoming most of her sickly tendencies for the time being, though she is also trying not to overexert herself anymore.
- Determined Expression: As she grows more assertive and expressive, she starts showing this from time to time.
- Dream Walker: Often finds herself inside the dreams and memories of other people, though it tends to be unintentional since she usually has no control over when it happens. The first person whose memories she saw intentionally is Cartaphilus, in order to understand his wish to find salvation.
- Driven to Suicide: This is actually what indirectly led to Chise meeting Elias — she was about to commit suicide by jumping from a roof, but was found and persuaded by Seth to put herself up for auction instead.
- Early Installment Character-Design Difference: Early colored art showed Chise's hair as very bright red in color. Later art changed it to a more natural orange tone.
- Energy Donation: As a sleigh beggy, she is just overflowing with magical energy she doesn't really need, which is why she has more than enough to spare for Lucy, who had her magical energy mysteriously drained during the camping trip in Scotland.
- Fiery Redhead: Inverted. Chise has bright, red hair and is quite emotionally reserved.
- First Kiss: Her first kiss was apparently with Redcurrant, who gave her a "Shut Up" Kiss when she questioned whether or not Redcurrant was in love with Joel.
- Forced Sleep: One of her talents, along with being a Dream Walker, is inducing these on people.
- Forced Transformation: Ashen Eye briefly turns her into a fox shortly after he's introduced.
- Forgotten Birthday: When asked when her birthday is, she actually had to look at the calendar to remember it was that very same day.
- Friend to All Living Things: Many magical creatures take an instant liking to her.
- Glamour Failure: The eye she got from Josef occasionally recovers its original gray coloration.
- Iconic Item: The stone pendant that Elias gave her in the first chapter is probably her most recognizable item. She wears it at all times, since it lets Elias know where she is.
- After the stone pendant is broken, she starts wearing Elias' original loop tie instead. Elias gave it to her for safekeeping, hoping that by protecting it she would start protecting herself as well.
- I'm Crying, but I Don't Know Why: Has happened twice. The first time, was right after Joel's death. The second time, it was because she was getting overwhelmed by the feelings of a rampaging dragon.
- Notably, its eventually revealed that previous to the first instance of this, she had been Unable to Cry.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Josef impales her through the gut with his transformed arm at one point.
- Intergenerational Friendship: She has developed friendships with people that are much older than her, or in the case of Stella, younger than she is.
- The Jinx: Japanese entities would sometimes go as far as hurting people close to her, like a classmate that was nice to her, or an older relative that took her in. To everyone else though, it looked like bad luck befell those that interacted with her, which contributed to her status as a loner.
- Living Battery: Is a living battery of magical energy.
- Love Confessor: After 43 chapters of having trouble communicating with each other, Chise finally confesses her feelings towards Elias...to a memory of her mother.
- Loved by All: Being a sleigh beggy, Elias notes that she is beloved of all Fae, and though their idea of helping isn't always up to human standards, she will never be without succor.
- Made a Slave: Inverted. In the beginning of the series, Chise had a broken and suicidal mindset. Thus, she willingly sold herself into slavery believing her life couldn't get any worse.
- Magical Accessory: Besides the Power Limiters mentioned below, Chise also wears a green pendant stone, which is under a spell that allows Elias to always know where it, and by extension Chise, is located.
- After her pendant stone is discarded and broken, Chise has Angelica craft a couple of magical rings for her and Elias. These rings let the wearer know when something bad happens to the person wearing its partner.
- Magic Staff: She crafts it herself in the land of dragons, with some help from Lindel. It allows her to cast her spells more easily.
- Mark of the Supernatural: After exchanging her left eye with Josef's. It becomes green after Chise gets both of the curses inside her under control, though it sometimes recovers its original coloration.
- Martyr Without a Cause: Chise is always ready to sacrifice herself at the drop of a hat, even for people she barely knows. She is more than willing to sustain any injury to protect others from harm. Elias eventually calls her out on it, and questions whether she is always hurting herself because she feels she has to, in order to "earn" her place in the world.
- It continues being a problem later on, but when she comes across Lucy, someone who is also often in harm's way, Chise starts seriously considering how her actions and sacrifices might make her loved ones feel.
- Messianic Archetype: Slowly growing into one over the course of the series thanks to Character Development. Chise manages to turn numerous people's opinions around, throws herself into danger at the slightest provocation to help others, and does a soft variant of Defeat Equals Friendship with Renfred and Alice in spite of Renfred's intense dislike for fae. This confuses the daylights out of Elias and various fae given their Blue-and-Orange Morality towards humans. She's even the only person willing to figure out the emotional enigma that is Cartaphilus.
- Mind-Control Eyes: Her eyes turn silver when Elias briefly possesses her when making a contract with Stella.
- Morning Routine: Chapter 20 shows her morning routine in detail, as she details it in a letter she writes to Alice.
- Mythical Motifs: Tying into her bird motif, she is also represented by the phoenix: When she magically travels to Elias, she takes the form of a phoenix. The phoenix symbolizes Chise's burning passion and self-destructive nature, while also implying an idea of rebirth.
- Never Had a Birthday Party: Claims that this is the case.
- Nice Girl: Although initially rough around the edges, Chise nonetheless still takes other's words at face value as she attempts to help anyone she can. Even if it's a risk to her health, she'll still put her life on the line for others.
- The Nose Knows: Since taking the dragon's curse, her sense of smell has been greatly enhanced.
- Our Werebeasts Are Different: Chise is a pelt using variant, similar to a Skin Walker without the dark ritual (though prominent in European folklore).
- Partial Transformation: The dragon curse in her body manifested in her arm taking a clawed, grotesque form. Eventually, after taking part of Joseph's curse of immortality into herself as well, her arm takes a normal shape again, though it remains permanently blackened.
- The dragon arm returns later, when a nuckelavee tries to kill Chise. As it is about to kill her, the curses inside her start reacting, and the arm suddenly transforms again. She uses it to tear the nuckelavee apart, after which her arm slowly returns to normal.
- Playing with Fire: She is associated with the element of fire due to her impulsive and passionate nature and her tendency to burn herself out with her sheer power, as well as her ability to bring light and warmth into the lives of others. This also plays into the phoenix symbolism (above). Notably, her familiar also has the ability to spit fire.
- Power Limiter: She's had two so far, both crafted by Angelica in order to prevent Chise's body from being overwhelmed when using magic.
- The first was a ring which suppressed the production of magical energy within her body, in order for her to rely more on the magical energy of her surroundings, which causes less stress on her body. The ring broke when it couldn't withstand the enormous amount of magical energy Chise's body was producing while preparing the faerie salve.
- The second was a bracelet which cut off almost entirely the production and absorption of magical energy, greatly cutting down the amount of spells Chise was able to perform. She ended up discarding it in order to absorb the magical power of the dragon rampaging through the skies of London.
- Primal Fear: She's terrified of thunderstorms as demonstrated in a bonus chapter.
- Psychic Link: Establishes one with Ruth early on. She can block him out at will though, and often does because all the information she gets from Ruth's senses can be overwhelming.
- Rubber Face: Has been subjected to this by several characters.
- Running Gag: She's quite prone to getting knocked or tossed into water with her clothes on, as Lindel lampshades in Chapter 17. It's just as frequently Played for Drama, however.
- Shipper on Deck:
- She asks Redcurrant if she is in love with Joel and when it turns out that she had been unconsciously draining his life, Chise goes out of her way and endangers herself for the sake of allowing Joel and her to meet before he passed away.
- Significant Green-Eyed Redhead: Red hair, green eyes, the protagonist, and is also a sleigh beggy. It's noted In-Universe to be unusual for a Japanese girl to have red hair and green eyes, and as a sleigh beggy it may be a hint that she's not entirely human.
- Socially Awkward Hero: As a result of years of bullying and neglect, she is not very good when it comes to dealing with people, at least initially. It becomes more noticeable when she starts hanging around people her age at the College, though she soon starts growing out of it.
- Squishy Wizard: As a sleigh beggy, her body is under constant stress from the overwhelming magical energy, but that makes her good at casting magic. No longer the case after absorbing both the dragon's curse and Cartaphilus' curse of immortality, as she gained both heightened endurance and a measure of Super-Strength.
- Stop, or I Shoot Myself!: Threatens to kill herself with a knife if Elias doesn't let go of her, as he had trapped her because of his jealousy of her relationship with Stella. It was clearly a bluff, as earlier Chise had found the resolve to live, but it was enough to make Elias release her immediately.
- Supernatural Gold Eyes: Her eyes turn yellow whenever the dragon's curse surges, as was the case when she fought off the nuckelavee.
- Super-Strength: Since she took the dragon's curse she's gotten the ability to lift around the weight of two people.
- Taking the Bullet: At the end of Chapter 10, she pushes Alice out of the way of Cartaphilus' attack and gets heavily injured herself as a result.
- Teacher/Student Romance: She is Elias's apprentice, and is also expected to marry him in the future.
- This Is Unforgivable!:
- Played with interestingly. She tells a memory of her mother she will not forgive her for almost strangling her, but instead thanks her for letting go as that allowed her to meet Elias.
- Played straight with Elias. After Elias tried to save her life by attempting to sacrifice Stella, Chise is so outraged that she runs away. Even when Elias helps rescue her from Josef, she makes it clear that while she's grateful, she's still angry about what he did and reminds Elias that he's still not forgiven. Then she forgives him, after a talk where they are able to express each other properly.
- Unequal Pairing: Discussed and ultimately deconstructed with Elias. She sells herself at an auction and lets him buy her as an alternative to suicide, and at first is content to remain in his shadow due to her depression and abandonment issues. However, most of his acquaintances are aware of the power imbalance and encourage Chise to find some happiness, magical training, and friendships outside him. Over time she slowly recovers the will to live, and gains magical training and friendships with other people besides Elias. She also starts increasingly sneaking out of the house leaving notes because she's no longer content staying by his side or needing his permission to do stuff all the time — much to his agitation. This comes to a head when Elias tries to sacrifice her friend Stella to heal Chise of a deadly curse without Chise's knowledge because he's jealous of their friendship — something that makes Chise so angry she removes the adder stone he gave her and leaves with Josef. While Chise does love him and still wants to be with him, the narrative makes it clear she needs to gain a degree of power, independence, and social support outside Elias for them to be healthy together.
- Undying Loyalty: Even after being told by several people that Elias only sees her as a toy or an experiment, and even though Elias himself has confessed to her that he doesn't feel empathy like a human, she will stick by the mage's side. He's the first one who made her feel like family, and she doesn't even seem to care whether or not it's all a lie. The only thing that manages to break that loyalty is Elias's attempt to sacrifice Stella's life to save Chise's.
- Unlimited Wardrobe: Silky makes sure to provide her with plenty of clothes to choose from.
- Used to Be More Social: She used to be rather extroverted and energetic as a kid.
- Vomit Discretion Shot: Vomits after witnessing Josef's past. It's a little more indiscrete in the manga, though not by much.
- Was Too Hard on Him: She apologizes to Elias for punching him, even though at the time, he had been trying to sacrifice one of her friends.
- Weredragon: Following Philomela revealing herself to be the one using the Testament of Carnamagos, and subsequently leaving the College, Chise is suddenly confronted by a manifestation of the dragon's curse within herself, who offers to help her reach Philomela. Chise is then transformed into a red dragon, which quickly dives into the Leylines, and through them heads to the Sargant manor.
- You Are Not Alone: Chise gives one of these to Josef during their final confrontation, after noting their similarities and how painful it is when nobody else understands you, before singing him a lullaby and telling both him and Cartaphilus to rest. It seems to work out as Josef is shown sleeping in a bed in the well in Elias's property and Ashen Eye comments that it seems Josef is content having somewhere to sleep.
- You Remind Me of X: The initial reason Ruth felt drawn to Chise was her similarity to his original owner, Isabel.
Elias Ainsworth
Elias Ainsworth
Voiced by: Ryota Takeuchi (Japanese), Sayaka Kinoshita (Japanese, Feminine form), Brian Mathis (English), Kristy Sims (English, Feminine form) Foreign VAs
The Child of Thorns. Chise's teacher and fiancé.
- Amazing Technicolor Population: His usual skin color is purple.
- Ambiguously Human: It's not clear what exactly he is, other than the fact there is something human about him. Not even Elias himself is sure what he is.
- An Arm and a Leg: Briefly loses an arm when touching Chise while her magic absorption had been kicked into overdrive. He grows it back almost instantly though.
- Asleep for Days: Chise accidentally infuses magic to a lullaby, and this is the result. Elias spent four days sleeping until Chise was able to wake him up.
- The Atoner: Downplayed. He mostly works with the Church to be allowed to continue living in peace rather than strictly make amends for what he's done in the past. He does seem genuinely regretful of his past transgressions, on some level.
- Badass in a Nice Suit: Elias's attire of choice is a black suit and Badass Longcoat.
- Beast and Beauty: The Beast to Chise's Beauty, especially when Elias takes a monstrous form.
- Bishōnen Line: Elias's human glamour looks a lot like Simon, and an author's note says this is because Elias based it on Simon's appearance.
- Blue-and-Orange Morality: Elias does not understand emotions, at least beyond the core logic of all being's emotions, and has a mindset towards Chise that takes a while to figure out. While he understands the idea of good acts, he's an Anti-Hero on a good day and a Nominal Hero at worst because he can't comprehend their point; the only thing he genuinely tries to protect with earnest is Chise, and even that's complicated when it's revealed he sees her as a curiosity he cannot understand, and only took her in as an apprentice to see the results rather than out of any compassion. Even after the two have shared genuine compassion, his urge to save her means he's perfectly willing to discard the life of another without a moment's hesitation, because they're not Chise and thus below his concern. Titana even points out that he wishes to be with humans but still loves them in the manner of a fae.
- When asked if he did anything "shady" to get Chise as his apprentice he says that he didn't do anything criminal to earn the money he used to purchase her as a slave.
- Body Snatcher: Is shown to be able to possess people by bounding himself to them as a shadow.
- Broken Pedestal: Chise is heartbroken when Elias attempts to sacrifice Stella to save her life. The fact that he willingly admits he chose Stella because he is jealous of her relationship with Chise makes her fully realize just what how horribly selfish he can be, to the point that she actually runs away from him. This is significant because before that she was devoted to him pretty much body and soul.
- Casting a Shadow: His most common ability involves controlling and hiding within the shadows.
- Character Development: While he isn't particularly happy with it, he realizes that Chise does need other people in her life other than himself, and accepts letting her attend the College (though he insists on coming along). There, he realizes that he no longer feels the same jealousy he did with Stella when he sees Chise hanging around the other students, but notes he does feel a little lonely.
- Once he starts teaching at the College, he starts learning from other people, rather than just Chise, and even makes serious attempts at making new friends.
- Child Hater: He mentions hating being around children because while they don't usually have magic, some have the ability to see through him, somehow. It has happened before. Some time after Lindel had made him his traveling companion, they were chased out of a village by a mob with Torches and Pitchforks because a kid noticed Elias's creepy silhouette skulking in Lindel's shadow.
- The Comically Serious: He's a very powerful and old mage who knows a great deal about things that would terrify normal humans... yet at the same time he's completely hopeless at normal human interactions, such as being a lousy cook, bickering childishly with Simon, and balking at being called a "shithead" by Angelica.
- Crazy Jealous Guy: Chise is his apprentice, and he gets rather stingy when others start pulling her away. This endangered Stella because of deep-rooted jealousy at not understanding the close bonds between her and Chise.
- He eventually begins to grow out of this during their time at the College. He accepts that she needs other people in her life other than himself, though it still bothers him.
- Dark Is Not Evil: He's an imposing figure that controls shadows, yet is mostly a decent, if aloof, person.
- Easily Forgiven: In the anime, Chise forgives him relatively quickly after he attempts to sacrifice one of her best friends to save her. He, admittedly, shows that he's trying to improve himself - something that in and of itself is a challenge for him due to running on a fairy-like mentality, so she may be cutting him some slack for that. Though in the manga, Chise makes it clear that she's still angry about what he did, and he's not forgiven yet.
- That being said, after they have a talk in which they are both able to express their feelings properly, and Elias agrees to hear Chise's wishes, she decides to let the topic go, and even apologizes to him for hitting him. She is still wary that he could try something like that again though.
- Chise's feelings toward her mother after the truth of her suicide were revealed may have also be how she feels toward Elias in the anime — grateful, but his recent actions are drawing the line for a long time.
- Expressive Skull: Played with. While it is usually averted (leading most people to have trouble reading his emotions), clever angles are sometimes used to show how he is feeling.
- Gender Bender: Whenever he needs a Human Disguise in a place where his normal Glamour could be bypassed, he takes on a white-haired pale-skinned Palette Swap of his Ambiguously Brown female old teacher Rahab, even replicating her voice.
- Half-Human Hybrid: It's heavily implied that he's some form of hybrid or chimera. He is definitely part of The Fair Folk to some extent, but the way a lot of magical characters refer to him as "incomplete" or "half-baked" makes it likely that's not all he is. Rahab notes that there is something definitely human about him, though she can’t pinpoint exactly what it is. It helps explain why he is able to feel human emotions for Chise (although with more than a tinge of fairy mixed in), why he does not wish to live in the realm of the fae (he doesn’t really feel like he belongs with them), and how he can be a magus in the first place (the Fair Folk are usually what mages use for their spells, not mages themselves).
- Healing Factor: Was able to grow one arm back after Chise inadvertently absorbed it into herself.
- The Hedge of Thorns: At times when using his magic, thorny brambles manifest around him. They are also his main weapon when the situation calls for it. He is often referred to as Thorn, Child of Thorns, Mage of Thorns, and such epithets. His title as "Pilum Murale" (wall spear) may also be derived from the same thorny vines.
- Horned Humanoid: Has twisted horns on the back of his head. While he notes that he could do away with them entirely, he really dislikes doing it even temporarily, since it feels unnatural for him, and it causes a phantom itch where they should be.
- Human Disguise: He doesn't like drawing attention to himself, so he disguises as a human when in public. He usually does this by using a Glamour, but he is capable of entirely reshaping his body to look human when necessary.
- Humanoid Abomination: Elias is a Shapeshifting, bipedal humanoid with the skull of a goat-horned canine in place of a head, purple skin, and glowing red beams of light in the empty sockets of his eyes.
- Hypocrite:
- Elias goes out of his way to call Cartaphilus a monster for only wanting to see results, not caring about who gets hurt in his path to see them. Chise turns this on its head when he promptly goes down the exact same route to save her without even letting her consent to it, much less caring for others. Cartaphilus himself mockingly lampshades Elias's hypocrisy.
- He often keeps secrets from Chise, or sneaks out of the house leaving only a note (if that). When Chise responds in kind by sneaking out of the house leaving only notes, he becomes upset with her. Chise more or less calls him out on this.
- Iconic Item: The loop tie Rahab gave him. Angelica notes that, no matter how many times he changes his shape, he always keeps the loop tie on. Its dear to Elias, because it is the first gift he received when he became aware of himself.
- He eventually starts wearing a different loop tie, one he received from Chise as a Christmas gift. Some time later, he gives his old loop tie to Chise, which became a replacement for her own lost Iconic Item.
- I Have Many Names: Elias (which was the name given to him by Lindel's master Rahab) has a couple; Ariel calls him "Thorn" on several occasions, he's referred to as the "Thorn Mage" a few times, and the alchemists call him "Pilum Murale".
- Immortal Immaturity: Despite his age and intellect, Chise realizes he has the emotional development of a child. This becomes extremely evident due to how dependant he becomes of Chise and his quickness to get jealous of anyone taking her attention. Mixed in with his Blue-and-Orange Morality and Chise realized that as he was then, they were a danger to themselves, each other and other people.
- In a Single Bound: He is able to jump surprisingly long distances, even in his regular form.
- Intrigued by Humanity: Despite being known as a hermit who prefers living in isolation, he actually finds humans fascinating, and believes that, despite the fact they fear him, they are also more accepting of him, compared to The Fair Folk, who pity him at best, and outright hate him at worst. He wants to learn about humanity, and desperately wishes to remain living among them.
- Simon does note, however, that despite his interest in humanity in general, he was never really interested in learning about them individually. At least, not until Chise came into his life.
- Invisible to Adults: Dislikes being around children because they are good at perceiving things and can sometimes see through his glamours.
- Lack of Empathy: Due to his peculiar nature. He can understand what emotions are and therefore fake them, but he cannot really feel them. However, spending time with Chise may be leading to him Becoming the Mask.
- Lethal Chef: The soup he made for Lindel was atrocious. Justified in that Elias had no experience cooking at that point, only having watched Lindel do it, and having Silky in the house meant that he wouldn't need to do any cooking of his own.
- Magical Accessory: Elias and Chise start wearing matching rings, which allow the person wearing it to know if something bad happens to the person wearing its partner. The first time its shown working is when a wolfman manages to injure Chise. As soon as it happens, the ring tightens around Elias' finger, and lets him know where Chise is located.
- Magic Staff: It serves him to better communicate to the fae about the spells he wants to use.
- Manchild: He's a centuries-old man, yet his emotional development is equivalent to that of a child's.
- Morphic Resonance: Both his Simon glamour and his female glamour have strands of hair shaped to resemble his horns.
- Multi Stage Teleport: He implied it would have taken him several jumps to get home from the auction house if he hadn't been using Chise's energy.
- Mysterious Veil: Which he sometimes uses to cover his face when dealing with strangers or to show distance towards others, though most of the time he keeps it behind his head.
- The Needless: He doesn't excrete. Where does the food he eats go is anyone's guess.
- Not a Morning Person: Chise notices this about him, as she usually has to go wake him up in the morning.
- Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist: His attempt to sacrifice Stella to save Chise comes off as this, since he intentionally chooses a person he's jealous of (a child, no less) to save his beloved in a selfish attempt to kill two birds with one stone.
- Obliquely Obfuscated Occupation: Chise eventually realizes that she has no idea how Elias makes money.
- Oven Logic: Chise is surprised to learn he honestly thought a higher temperature would lead to faster results in the kitchen.
- Really 700 Years Old: He has only been aware of himself for around 300 years. In reality, he cound be much older.
- Red Baron: Known as "The Thorn Mage".
- Sinister Deer Skull: Has a cervid skull for a head, but the "sinister" part is Downplayed in that he's not truly "evil", but suffers from a Dark and Troubled Past and an inhuman sense of morality.
- Sizeshifter: Showed this ability when he met Rahab for the first time.
- Skull for a Head: His head looks like the skull of a canine with the horns of a goat.
- Teacher/Student Romance: Chise is his apprentice, and he wants to marry her at some point, as mages often do.
- These Hands Have Killed: Elias does not like whatever he caused in the past, and the fact that he ate people before disturbs him on a deep enough level that he immediately wanted to erase Chise's memory when she found out from Lindel. Chise refuses and admits it doesn't really change a thing between them.
- Unequal Pairing: Discussed and ultimately deconstructed with Chise. Elias bought Chise at an auction to train as his apprentice and eventually make her his bride. While he does treat her as family rather then property, nevertheless most of his acquaintances are aware of the grave power imbalance between them, and encourage Chise not to be too content living in his shadow, and offer her training, outings, and friendships outside him. Over time Elias becomes increasingly discontent with the life Chise develops outside him - being antsy when she's away from him, becoming jealous of the friends she makes, and annoyed with her going out without his permission or accompaniment. It comes to a head when he tries to kill her friend Stella to save Chise, but also because he's jealous of the bond they share, prompting Chise to angrily remove the pendant stone he gave her and leave with Joseph.
- To Serve Man: He himself isn’t entirely sure, but apparently in the past, he would eat people. The urge to do it still resurfaces from time to time, but he does have control over it now, and hasn't done it for at least as long as he remembers.
- Voluntary Shapeshifting:
- He can change shapes as he pleases, usually turning himself into different kinds of creatures with different uses. These creatures tend to look like Mix-and-Match Critters though.
- He can also make himself look human when a glamour just won't cut it.
- When Elias gets really angry, he transforms into giant monsters that can effortlessly tear Cartaphilus's chimeras apart.
- During the final fight with Cartaphilus he works with Aerial to boost his power to such epic proportions that he covers easily the size of a city block in thorns and takes the normally much more powerful Ashen Eye out of commission temporarily in one hit.
- Waistcoat of Style: Usually wearing one under his coat.
- Wall Crawl: Can attach himself to the ceiling without issue.
- What Is This Feeling?: Since Elias doesn't understand emotions he has a self stated difficulty empathizing and putting words to what he is feeling, and is thus prone to this trope. He, admittedly, uses Chise in order to try and answer this question whenever it comes up.
- Would Hurt a Child: Elias was willing to sacrifice Stella, Chise's 10-year-old friend to save Chise.
- Yandere: Heavily deconstructed. As mentioned in Immortal Immaturity and Blue-and-Orange Morality, Elias is emotionally stunted and can only seem to love humans as a fae does. Though Elias is affectionate to Chise (even if it's not always genuine. See Blue-and-Orange Morality)), he gets jealous when someone else has her attention even going as far as to try and kill them. When Chise starts regaining her will to live and independence, she starts calling him out on his behavior. Fortunately, he realizes how wrong this behavior is, and starts working to change himself.
Silver Lady/Silky/Silver
Silver Lady
The fairy landlady of the house Chise, Elias, and Ruth reside in. Her backstory is expanded upon in the short story Rainbow Day, Feast Day.
- A Day in the Limelight: Chapter 24 focuses on her. It reveals her backstory, including how she came to work in Elias' home before it was even Elias'.
- Bishie Sparkle: Showed this during her first few appearances.
- Boyish Short Hair: Inverted. Her hair is very short, but she is a prim and proper lady.
- Comforting Comforter: The Silky's Diary reveals that she has done this for Chise at least once.
- The Comically Serious: Silky usually keeps a straight face, which adds to some comedic moments.
- Facial Dialogue: While Silky will keep a stoic expression most of the time, she will definitely express her feelings through her facial expressions. Giving big, warm, and cute smiles when she imagines Chise praising her, giving glaring pouts towards Simon, and actually fainting Blue with Shock when she realizes that she never learned Chise's birthday to celebrate it.
- First Person Smart Ass: Special 4komas show that Silky is the master of this; expect that if she gives you a deadpan stare, she's probably thinking unkind things about you.
- Hates Being Alone: After her clan died. She is clearly dejected when Elias and Chise leave the house for months, and is overjoyed when they return.
- House Fey: She's a silky, which in this series is described as a kind of brownie. Brownies are household spirits, and she lives as a housekeeper for the home where Elias currently resides.
- Jerkass to One: She is usually cordial and respectful towards everyone, but she truly dislikes Simon, likely due to his faith. She wouldn't let him wait for Elias inside the house, and has closed the door on his face before.
- Mundane Utility: Uses her fae powers to change the decoration of the house.
- Non-Indicative Name: Silver Lady isn't silver at all, nor is she wearing anything silver.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: Her real name is Silver Lady, but other characters usually call her "Silky" or "Silver".
- Our Banshees Are Louder: She used to be one until the whole family she served died. This is somewhat of a Genius Bonus in that she is the non-hostile "fairy/spirit connected to a single family" type of banshee, so viewers used to seeing banshees as murderous ghosts whose screams will kill you may be really confused.
- Out of Focus: Since she usually remains in the house, she isn't much involved in the others' adventures. It becomes even more noticeable once Chise starts attending the College.
- The Quiet One: She's not very talkative, or expressive.
- Ship Tease: Has no small amount of it with Spriggan, though most of it can only be found in side material.
- They stay in regular contact by exchanging letters, and send each other gifts. Spriggan visits her to make sure she is comfortable in the house, while Silky visits him so they can have picnics together, and so on.
- Supreme Chef: All of the meals she makes are noted to be very delicious.
- Technicolor Eyes: She has pink eyes.
- Trademark Favorite Food: As expected of a brownie, heavy cream is hers to the point that Silky’s Diary exposits that the heavy cream atop the hearth is hers and hers alone.
- Troubled Fetal Position: Chise finds her like this when she goes inside the house to confront Elias about what he was planning to do to Stella.
- Undying Loyalty: As both a banshee and a silky, Silky will faithfully serve the residents of her home. Even before Chise arrived, Silky was already calling her the lady of the house.
- Wouldn't Hurt a Child: Unlike Ruth, she took no part in Elias' plan to sacrifice Stella to save Chise, and was clearly horrified at their actions.
Ruth
Ruth
Chise's familiar.
- Ambiguously Brown: His human form has a rather tanned skin tone.
- Anger Born of Worry: Occasionally towards Chise, whose instincts of self-preservation are lacking to say the least.
- Big Brother Instinct: Becomes a protective brother figure for Chise, and people notice it.
- Bond Creature: He can assist Chise with her magic when needed.
- Brutal Honesty: He's quite frank in his opinions, which is not unexpected for a dog.
- Canine Companion: His dog form gives this impression.
- Casting a Shadow: Tends to hide in Chise's shadow, sometimes at the same time as Elias.
- The Comically Serious: Much like Silky, a lot of humor derives from him keeping a completely straight face during comedic moments.
- Dark Is Not Evil: He's a grim, a church hound that wanders graveyards, yet is mostly calm and protective.
- Death Glare: Pulls this off in both human and dog form.
- Sports one when warning Redcurrant not to harm Chise when he leaves them to go search for Elias.
- As a dog, he has this look when scaring away some drug dealers that were harassing Alice and Chise.
- Familiar: Asked Chise to become her familiar, because he didn’t want to be alone anymore.
- Gender-Blender Name: Although he is male, Chise gives him a Meaningful Rename from Ulysse to Ruth, which is traditionally a girls name but suits his new role as her familiar.
- Heroic Dog: As a grim, it's his job to chase off grave robbers. His first scene has him killing an evil spirit that was trying to harm Chise.
- Human Disguise: Can take the form of a young man at will. According to him, plenty of faeries have two forms as well. Originally, his human form was an adult, but once he became Chise's familiar, he starts changing into a teenager instead.
- I Am Who?: In his first appearance, he initially believes that he was once human and Isabel was his sister, due to having only recently awoken as a church grim. It's later revealed that he was really an ordinary dog and Isabel was his owner.
- Intangibility: As a fae, he has been seen going through solid objects.
- Loyal Animal Companion: He was this to his master Isabel. To the point that he stayed by her grave even after she died, so that she wouldn't be lonely when she woke up, eventually dying himself and becoming a church grim. Afterwards he became Chise's familiar under the name Ruth.
- Meaningful Rename: His original was Ulysse, but now goes by Ruth after becoming Chise's familiar. Ruth means "friend," and there is a passage from the Bible about the loyalty of Ruth: But Ruth said, "Do not urge me to leave you or turn back from following you; for where you go, I will go, and where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God. Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried."
- The Nose Knows: He's a dog, so, of course, he has this.
- Playing with Fire: He can breathe fire.
- Plot-Relevant Age-Up: Sort of an inversion. When he first met Chise, his human form was a young adult. After becoming her familiar, his human form looks like a teenager. He claims he did this on purpose, so he wouldn't look too out of place hanging around with Chise.
- Psychic Link: As Chise's familiar, he has one with her.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: Has red eyes in human form, and even more prominently in dog form. He can also be extremely dangerous to those seeking to harm Chise.
- Replacement Goldfish: There are not so subtle hints that Chise might be this for him, in regards to his "little sister" Isabel. A special chapter shows he thinks of her as his second little sister.
- Super-Strength: Is much stronger than his size would indicate. The best example is probably when he was able to drag both Chise and a full-grown dragon from the bottom of the River Thames back to the surface.
- Synchronization: One of the aspects of becoming Chise's familiar is that they shares everything, up to and including time. When Chise dies, Ruth will die. Chise, knowing her time is short is initially hesitant, but she accepts to protect him from Josef and because she doesn't want to be alone any more than Ruth does.
- Tall, Dark, and Handsome: Was certainly this during his first appearance, though it is downplayed after his human form shrinks in size.
- Technically Naked Shapeshifter: His clothes just manifest out of nowhere when he takes forms. And he doesn't always wear the same set either.
- Undying Loyalty:
- Deconstructed. His loyalty towards his original owner made him despondent to the whole world after her death, refusing to leave her grave since he thought she was only sleeping and would wake up eventually.
- Justified with Chise, since he is now her familiar. Then Deconstructed once again when this loyalty led Ruth to go along with Elias's plan to pass Chise's curse onto Stella.
- Voluntary Shapeshifting: He can shift between his original dog form and a human form.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: He was also willing to sacrifice Stella to save Chise's life, though unlike Elias, Ruth isn't driven by jealousy but rather his desire to protect his master. It's also because of this that while Chise is also mad at Ruth for going along with it, she's primarily angry at Elias; and during her confrontation with Joseph, she tells Ruth that she's willing to forgive him provided he follows her instructions.
- Would Hit a Girl: Threatened to kill the Leanan sídhe if she did anything to harm Chise.
Renfred's Household
Mikhail Renfred
Mikhail Renfred
An alchemist who initially comes into conflict with Chise and Elias.
- Adaptational Badass: Not himself, but the Mix-and-Match Critters he uses during the raid on Cartaphilus's hideout are given the ability to breath fire in the anime.
- An Arm and a Leg: Gave his arm to Cartaphilius to protect Alice.
- Badass in a Nice Suit: He is almost always wearing his gray three-piece suit, and he's a talented and skilled wizard.
- Badass Longcoat: Always dons one when going out. Ever since he lost his arm, the left sleeve tends to flutter in the wind.
- But for Me, It Was Tuesday: He eventually admits that when he suggested Alice to become his bodyguard, he was merely trying to give her a sense of purpose, and was hoping she would come up with something else to do with her life at some point. He wasn't expecting Alice to keep insisting on being his bodyguard by the time she was 18.
- Combat Pragmatist: Renfred doesn't hesitate to shoot Joseph in the head when he is distracted by Elias.
- Comforting Comforter: For Alice.
- Ear Notch: The attack that left his face scarred also left a nick on his left ear.
- Establishing Character Moment: When he first appears, he and his apprentice Alice take Chise hostage when she is separated from Elias and renders a fae helpless by using a special glove with Cold Iron woven into it, showcasing his pragmatic side. However, he makes it clear he would rather not kill the fae that he has at his mercy, and he expresses genuine sympathy for Chise along with offering her the chance to be free, showcasing he is not as much of a Jerkass as he initially seems.
- Everyone Has Standards: He expresses disdain for Elias purchasing Chise.
- He also makes it very clear he does not approve of the common practice of alchemists having children with their apprentices in order to preserve and strengthen their bloodline.
- Fantastic Racism: Has been famous for disliking magical creatures since he was a student.
- Good Scars, Evil Scars: An interesting mix. The big slashes across the face are usually an evil scar, but one of those slashes goes over the bridge of the nose, which is a normally good scar. Regardless, first impressions aside, he is firmly in the side of good.
- Handicapped Badass: Just because he's missing an arm doesn't mean he has lost his skill as a wizard.
- Hidden Heart of Gold: While at first he seemed ruthless and cold, he's actually a good person who cares greatly about his apprentice, and the future of young wizards and magi.
- Keeping the Handicap: He refuses to have a new arm grown, or even use a prosthesis, as a reminder of his carelessness.
- Like a Daughter to Me: Considers Alice to be his daughter.
- Mind over Matter: Has been shown to use telekinesis from time to time, such as when making books fall from their shelves when training Alice, or when trying to destroy Chise's pendant.
- Noble Bigot: Adolf notes to himself that despite everyone saying he dislikes inhuman beings, Renfred still looks out for them.
- Parental Substitute: Has raised Alice since she was a teenager.
- Pay Evil unto Evil: Normally shooting someone in the head is not the right thing to do, but considering the monstrous things Joseph had done...
- Rugged Scar: The claw mark on his face.
- Scars Are Forever: The scars he got after Alice became his apprentice are still there years later. During their first meeting, Cartaphilus actually cut them open to further show Renfred how much he is under his control.
- Sentimental Drunk: He gets very emotional and self-deprecating after just a few drinks, causing Adolf to hate drinking with him.
- Taking the Bullet: Twice for Alice. First he protected her from a dangerous creature and got a scar to the face. The second time, he lost his arm.
- Teleportation: Developed a device capable of transporting things to a designated location.
- Trapped in Villainy: He was only involved in the incident at Ulthar because Cartaphilus was threatening him and Alice. Fortunately, they manage to break free during their next appearance.
- Traumatic Haircut: As seen on a flashback set before his first appearance, Cartaphilus removed some of his hair while he was defenseless on the ground, having just lost his arm to Cartaphilus as well. Much like Chise, his hair is constantly growing throughout the series after that.
- Tricked-Out Gloves: Once wore a glove with Cold Iron woven into it, allowing him to easily subdue the Ariel, a powerful wind fae.
Alice Swayne
Alice Swayne
Voiced by: Mutsumi Tamura (Japanese), Jennifer Green (English) Foreign VAs
Renfred's apprentice.
- Commonality Connection Bonds with Chise thanks to their similar pasts and their relationships with their respective teachers. Alice lampshades this at several points, and Chise can't help but agree when she does.
- Cutlass Between the Teeth: Briefly holds a knife in her mouth near the end of the raid on Cartaphilus's hideout.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Her father got her hooked on drugs and made her become a dealer. If it wasn't for Renfred, she would still be trapped in that life.
- Declaration of Protection: Promised to be Renfred's bodyguard after an accident that scarred Renfred. He can take care of himself, of course, but he does rely on Alice for protection.
- Following in Their Rescuer's Footsteps: She wants to be an alchemist in part because she was rescued by Renfred. When Renfred questions whether she truly wants to be one, Alice compares her situation to a kid wanting to become a fireman after being saved by one.
- Hates Their Parent: Her father was a drug-addicted lowlife who only saw Alice as a means to get a fix. The suffering she went through was so bad that she started to believe all people weren't any better than him.
- Heroic Self-Deprecation: She really has some major insecurities related to the times she has failed to protect Renfred, and is actually afraid that she might actually be useless to him.
- Hidden Heart of Gold: Like her master while at first she seemed ruthless, she shows a kinder side later on.
- I Owe You My Life: She feels this for both Renfred and Chise.
- Renfred is the one who saved her from her troubled past, as well as from Cartaphilius.
- Chise pushed her out of the way from an attack of Cartaphilus meant to kill her, which resulted in Chise getting gravely injured instead.
- My Greatest Failure: The time Renfred took the bullet for her again, this time resulting in the loss of his arm.
- My Master, Right or Wrong: Everything she does is mostly to protect Renfred.
- Odd Friendship: She develops this with Chise over the course of the series, despite being on opposite sides at first.
- Parental Substitute: Averted from her side. She doesn't see Renfred as her father at all.
- Playing with Fire: Blue Flame mentions her soul carries the scent of fire, meaning it serves well for powering its magic.
- Recovered Addict: She was initially a drug addict thanks to her father turning her into one so she could be a dealer for him. She recovered after Renfred took her in.
- Recruited from the Gutter: She was once a street urchin who dealt drugs and was an addict herself, but Renfred decided to take her in as an apprentice and bodyguard.
- Tomboyish Ponytail: Downplayed; she only wears part of her hair in a ponytail while letting the rest of it down. She's still a good deal more tomboyish than most of the other female characters though.
- She cuts her hair to shoulder length in order to make a contract with Blue Flame. He'll watch over her in exchange for being allowed to be next to her.
Mages
Angelica Barley
Angelica Barley
Voiced by: Yuko Kaida (Japanese), Janelle Lutz (English) Foreign VAs
An old acquaintance of Elias, and a technician of the magus craft.
- Anger Born of Worry: Towards Chise, specially after the incident with the dragon. Angelica even slaps her for not following her advice of not trying to do everything by herself.
- Cool Big Sis: While not related, she does take a liking to Chise and cares about her. When Chise inadvertently created a mess in her shop with her power, she doesn't blame Chise but Elias due to him not telling her about Chise's power nor giving Chise any explanations or training beforehand.
- Everyone Has Standards: She makes it clear to Elias from the start she is not thrilled he 'bought' Chise nor is she happy with how inappropriate he acted with her.
- Gadgeteer Genius: Comes with the job description.
- Gem Tissue: Her forearms are covered in crystals, due to a mistake she made while practicing her magic on a crystal when she was a child.
- Happily Married: Despite at first resisting his advances, she eventually reciprocated David's affections, the man who would become her husband, and now they are quite happy with each other.
- Mayfly–December Romance: With her as the December, as a long lived mage with a normal human.
- Parental Substitute: From their first meeting, she has shades of this towards Chise. She looks out for her well-being and even takes the time to teach her things about the magic world from time to time. According to David, she speaks of Chise at home as if she was a second daughter.
- Pervert Revenge Mode: After Chise tells her that Elias did rather "unacceptable" things to her, her first reaction is to punch him in the stomach (which causes him a great deal of pain) before kicking him out of the room.
- Really 700 Years Old: Looks the same after decades. According to the manual, she is over a hundred.
- Scars Are Forever: She covers up her arms with long gloves to hide the crystals embedded into them due to a mistake she made training as a child.
- Unknowingly in Love: According to Word of God, her First Love was Elias, but she didn't realize it until she was already over him.
- Wrench Wench: Definitely qualifies. She can get so absorbed in her work that she ends up ignoring everything around her.
- You Never Did That for Me: She takes notice of the fact that Elias gave his loop tie to Chise, which she knows is precious to him because he would never let her have it when she was a kid.
Althea Barley
Althea Barley
Angelica and David's daughter, who wishes to follow in her mother's footsteps.
- Daddy's Girl: And mommy's girl too.
- Following in Relative's Footsteps: Intends to become an artificer like her mother, Angelica. For this reason, she has Angelica teach her the ropes.
- Green-Eyed Monster: Seems to feel a bit of this regarding Chise, who tends to take up her parents' attention.
- Spoiled Brat: Downplayed; Angelica believes she shows signs of becoming one, but Althea's just a little kid who dislikes sharing her parents' attention.
- Strong Family Resemblance: She looks a lot like her mother when she was a kid.
- Wizards and Witches: Intends to become a mage like her mother, and hates it when she postpones their training.
Lindel
Lindel
Elias's oldest acquaintance, who taught him the ropes of magecraft.
- Animal Eyes: His eyes have slits that resemble a dragon's.
- Badass Long Robe: Most notably when he gets serious.
- Dragon Rider: Catches Chise and flies her to his dragon reserve on dragonback.
- Ethnic Magician: Based on his lifestyle, he appears to originally belong to the Sami folk.
- Fantastic Nature Reserve: Has been given the task of guarding the last dragons.
- The Gadfly: He loves getting a reaction out of people, specially Elias.
- Good Is Not Soft: Jovial and laid-back most of the time, but won't hesitate to kill anyone who attempts to poach the dragons under his care.
- Healing Hands: He can cure any injury as long as its not fatal.
- Magic Music: His more powerful spells are actually songs.
- Master-Apprentice Chain: He was Elias's teacher to a degree, and has given advice to Chise too.
- Mr. Exposition: Explains Chise several of the basics for a mage that Elias neglected to mention.
- Parental Substitute: Lindel acted as a father figure to Elias when they first met and refers to himself as Chise's "grandfather".
- Seeing Through Another's Eyes: Is capable of doing this with Merituuli.
- Wizards Live Longer: Looks the same even after several centuries.
Rahab
Rahab
Lindel's teacher and the one who named Elias.
- Ambiguously Brown: Has a dark skin tone, but the only thing known is that she is from somewhere in West Asia.
- Deep Sleep: She enters these regularly enough that she doesn't know what era she's in when waking up for a moment.
- High-Class Glass: Wears a monocle.
- Labcoat of Science and Medicine: She is usually wearing a labcoat.
- Master-Apprentice Chain: She's Lindel's teacher, who in turn became Elias's mentor.
- The Older Immortal: By virtue of being older than Lindel and Elias, she's the oldest mage seen so far.
- Parental Substitute: She was this to Elias, who came to her following an unspecified incident, wishing to learn how to be like her in order to be able to live among humans. She spent the next few decades teaching him important knowledge needed to function in human society. Its implied that she played a similar role for Lindel as well.
- Place Beyond Time: She resides in one such place.
- Really 700 Years Old: While looking no older than 30, she was already older than Lindel when she met Elias.
- Small Role, Big Impact: Due to staying in a Place Beyond Time, she doesn't get directly involved in the story very often, but the way she raised Elias made him who he is in the present, and her absolutely terrible way of explaining to him the concept of "marriage" is what caused him to eventually buy Chise as his apprentice and "bride", bringing her into the world of magic and helping change her life for the better.
Alex/Ashley
Alex/Ashley
A young magus. Protagonist of the short story Defender and Ash.- The Atoner: The guilt of her actions causes her to go to great lengths to save Ashley's soul from the swamp.
- Covered in Scars: As a result of not having someone to teach her, she was involved in plenty of accidents when practicing her magic, resulting in scars all over her body.
- Death Seeker: Believes that dying is the only way to atone for what she has done.
- The Drifter: She doesn't have a home. All her worldly possessions are crammed in the old rucksack and the gunny bag she always carries.
- Good Scars, Evil Scars: Her most visible scar is a burn mark that goes from her right eye to her ear, an evil scar. She isn't such a bad person, but what she did to her sister might have made her earn that scar.
- Green-Eyed Monster: Felt this way about her sister, who was better at magic, at tending herbs, had beautiful red hair, and was ultimately chosen by the Black Widow to be her apprentice.
- Even after sending her to her death and having a My God, What Have I Done? moment, she couldn't help but feel some joy that her perfect sister failed for once. This realization just makes her feel even worse about herself.
- Healing Factor: Downplayed. As a magus, she heals quicker than a regular person, but she doesn't have a "healing gift" that would allow her to treat most injuries almost immediately.
- Incompletely Trained: Was only taught a few of the basics by Doris, and has been given some pointers by fellow magi, but with no one to officially train her, Alex is very lacking as a magus.
- Locked into Strangeness: Has locks of white hair as a result of her failures using magic.
- Magic Staff: Her staff broke down after a few seconds in the cursed marsh. Fortunately, she ends up receiving her sister's.
- Meaningful Rename: Decides to go by Ashley after giving the gancanagh her own name. The name serves as a constant reminder of her guilt about what she had done to Ashley.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Sends Ashley a letter, pretending to be a woman whose sister died in the cursed marsh, and asking her to go release her soul from it. She sent this letter hoping Ashley would fail and become a victim to the swamp herself. Which is exactly what happened. Alex has a breakdown when the Black Widow sends her a letter confirming Ashley's death.
- The Runaway: A winter after Ashley leaves with the Black Widow, Alex leaves home with only an old magic book, some herbs, and the clothes on her back. Not that her mother (or her father and step-father for that matter) cared at all.
Chise's Classmates
Philomela Sargant
Philomena Sargant
A student at the College, whose clan pledged loyalty to House Rickenbacker.
- Afraid of Blood: She really abhors violence, even fighting a simple familiar results in her fainting afterwards. Probably a result of trauma, due to her participation in the Webster massacre.
- Always Someone Better: Whether it is studies, alchemy, or even games, she has always been more skilled than Rían.
- Combat Tentacles: The vines growing from her body once she fuses with the cursed book have this function. They allow her to defend herself, Neck Lift enemies, and absorb other's magical energy.
- Comforting Comforter: She is shown in April's room, covering her and May with a blanket after they've fallen asleep.
- Delicate and Sickly: She has a nasty pallor, prominent eye bags, and tends to pass out.
- The Dog Bites Back: She finally gets one up on Lizbeth when the latter tries to possess her, rebuffing her last attempt to put her down and using the Thorn rune she received from Chise to electrocute her.
- Exhausted Eye Bags: All the time.
- Extreme Doormat: She outright claims that she has no power to refuse people.
- Fingore: Her fingers, with the exception of her thumbs, start breaking off due to the stress caused on her body after being transformed by the Testament. Even after she returns to normal, her limbs remain blackened and her fingers missing.
- Heroic Self-Deprecation: Her grandmother's unpleasable and abusive attitude towards her has left Philomela with terrible self-esteem issues, and the belief that nothing she does is ever good enough.
- Legacy of Service: Her family serves House Rickenbacker, and Philomela in particular serves as Veronica's aide. She actually was chosen by Veronica herself, who preferred having another girl as her aide, as opposed to the boys Lizbeth wanted her to choose from.
- Mystical White Hair: Her hair is white, and there is clearly more about her than meets the eye.
- Power Floats: After merging with the Testament of Carnamagos, she moves around by floating.
- Raised by Grandparents: Following her parents' deaths, she ended up under the care of her grandmother, Lizbeth.
- Shrinking Violet: She's very timid, and very nervous around people, so she tends to have trouble speaking her mind.
- Stealth Expert: Her clan specializes in espionage, as such Philomela has grown adept at hiding her presence. She has problems hiding from Chise though, which Alcyone theorizes is because some magi and witches are able to sense the scent of the soul.
- Super Smoke: Appears to turn into some sort of gas when hiding her presence.
- Technicolor Eyes: Her eyes are pink.
- Tentacle Hair: After fusing with the cursed book, her hair is replaced with the same vines that seem to compose the entity inside it. Her ribbons can even be seen tied around two of them.
- Transflormation: When all the energy she absorbed through the book became too overwhelming, she transformed into a huge, bleeding tree right in Lizbeth's office. She transforms back soon after, following a stroll through a Mental World shared with Chise, Isaac and Lucy.
- Unable to Cry: Chise realizes that Philomela couldn't cry even if she wanted to, much like she herself used to be until recently.
- Used to Be More Social: She was a playful child before Lizbeth forcibly took her in. Even after years under Lizbeth's abusive upbringing, she still occasionally played games with Rían. However, Lizbeth's less than gentle discouraging of such "useless" things resulted in Philomela not being interested in partaking much in social activities in the present. Not without some prodding from Veronica at least.
- You Are Better Than You Think You Are: As they start bonding, Isaac takes the time to praise Philomela, telling her she is incredible enough as she is.
- Rían feels pretty much the same, but his harsh way of trying to make her realize it just backfires more often than not.
Lucy Webster
Lucy Webster
Chise's roommate in the College, a girl with a sharp tongue who tends to keep to herself.
- Asleep for Days: She spends 10 days asleep after her magical energy was drained in the camp at Scotland.
- Berserk Button: Seeing others being ignored.
- Boomerang Bigot: Downplayed. She claims to hate alchemists, despite being a student in the institution where future alchemists are trained.
- Comforting Comforter: Does this off-screen for her brother, who fell sleep during his Unbroken Vigil over her.
- Dark and Troubled Past: She experienced major past rauma through the Webster family being all but wiped out when she was younger.
- Defrosting Ice Queen: Slowly starts warming up to Chise and the others the longer she spends time with them, though she prefers not showing it.
- Don't You Dare Pity Me!: Likely why she refuses to even touch all the money her brother sends her way.
- Eating Lunch Alone: She eats alone, in contrast to the other students.
- Heroic RRoD: She isn't very good when it comes to physical activities, and gets tired rather easily.
- Hypocritical Humor: Was annoyed when Chise left her hanging on what was the thing she needed to do, despite the fact that earlier that same day Lucy left her hanging on the reason she was at the College despite claiming to hate alchemists.
- I Didn't Mean to Turn You On: Asks Zoe to let her pet his snakes which, given Zoe's reaction, is a very intimate thing to do in Gorgon society.
- I'm Not Here to Make Friends: She's very to the point in that she doesn't really expect to be friendly with Chise, though not really hostile either. She believes that eventually everyone will end up betraying one another so she doesn't want to be too involved.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: She has an abrasive personality and tends to be rather rude to people, but she can also be surprisingly caring with others, and apologizes when she goes too far.
- Not a Morning Person: She hates being up earlier than needed.
- Replacement Sibling: According to her own father, she was created to replace her brother, who was very much alive, but had no talent for alchemy whatsoever.
- Sole Survivor: The tragedy of the Websters saw her entire clan slaughtered with the exception of her and her disinherited brother, Seth.
- Strong Family Resemblance: She looks practically identical to her brother Seth face-wise, with the only differences being slightly softer features and their bangs parting at different angles.
Rían Scrimgeour
Rían Scrimgeour
A boy learning from Torrey.
- A Glass in the Hand: Isaac suddenly asking him if he likes Philomela causes him to accidentally snap the pen he was holding.
- Always Someone Better: Isaac feels this way towards him.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: He wanted Philomela to open up to him so he could understand her better, but when she finally does, her mind and body had been corrupted by the Testament of Carnamagos, so she only tells how worthless he makes her feel and that she always hated him.
- Blood Magic: Can use his own blood to cast spells.
- Blue Blood: House Scrimgeour is one of the Seven Shields, which are the houses that founded the College following the Great War. He mentions that he intends to leave the house though.
- Brutal Honesty: A defining characteristic of his. Unfortunately, it makes him seem insensitive at times.
- He states some dark things he's heard others say about Alice to her face, though he doesn't seem to be malicious.
- Go Through Me: Puts himself between an each-uisge and a lake Chise was in, to prevent it from entering it and eating her. Though given what Chise had just done to the nuckelavee that tried to kill her, he might have actually saved its life.
- Gravity Master: He can change the way gravity affects him to make himself lighter.
- Heroic Self-Deprecation: He has a rather low opinion of his own skills.
- This is actually one of the reasons for his attitude towards Philomela. He believes that if even someone like him can do something then someone like Philomela, who has always been better than him at everything, should have no trouble at all. Yet while he intends to leave his family, Philomela is still tied down to hers, despite the fact it makes her miserable.
- High Hopes, Zero Talent: He really wanted to learn magecraft, as he thought it would please Torrey. However, at its core magecraft depends on having an affinity with faeries, which he doesn't possess because the scent of rust in his blood causes them to reject him. He manages to take it in stride though.
- Innocently Insensitive: Because of his lineage and skill, Rían has a hard time putting himself in other people's shoes, which can make him come across as arrogant and full of himself, specially when trying to lecture his classmates to be better. Narcisse points out how Rían himself is unaware of the feelings of envy and resentment he causes on other people.
- In the Blood: He carries the scent of rust in his blood, which makes him undesirable to fae.
- Jerkass to One: He is very harsh towards Philomela, having no patience for her lack of assertiveness.
- Morph Weapon: Shows himself to be skilled in the use of these, transforming the key Isaac lent him into a halberd.
- Not So Stoic: When his friends find him, after being drained of his magical energy Philomela and left laying on the ground unable to stand, he expresses embarrassment at letting them see such an unsightly side of himself, and even more at having to be given a piggyback ride to the infirmary by Torrey.
- Rejecting the Inheritance: Makes it clear to anyone who would listen that he has no interest in remaining with the Scrimgeour family, as he no longer wishes to live as one of them. He intends to leave them and create his own path in life.
- Single-Target Sexuality: He's not entirely sure if it's love, but he's sure he only has feelings for Torrey.
- Spell My Name With An S: Rían, Liam and Lian are all valid translations of his name. The official release decided to use Rían, while fan translations prefer to go with Liam.
- The Stoic: Noted as the most levelheaded of the students, and usually keeps the same neutral expression on his face.
- Teacher/Student Romance: He hopes to start one with Torrey, especially after he learns that Chise and Elias are also romantically involved.
- The Worf Effect: Probably the best fighter among the students, he is quickly dispatched by Philomela once the latter has been transformed by the Testament of Carnamagos.
Isaac Fowler
Isaac Fowler
One of Chise's classmates, and friends with Rían.
- The Blacksmith: Hails from a family of them, and has crafted weapons for Rían before. However, he is considered subpar by the standards of his family.
- Commonality Connection: He tries to get Philomela to open up to him a little by appealing to the fact both of them come from families that serve the Seven Shields, and both of them have to deal with the thick-headed but good-natured Rían. He succeeds.
- Constantly Curious: Befitting for a Mr. Exposition, he is also really interested in learning new stuff, specially about his classmates.
- Heroic Self-Deprecation: Has a slight inferiority complex around Rían, since he was always better than Isaac at everything, and is always the first to take action in any situation, often leaving Isaac to just explain the situation to others.
- I Have Sisters: As pointed out by Word of God, growing up with both an older and a younger sister has made him good at dealing with girls.
- In the Hood: Which casts a shadow over half his face, covering his eyes.
- Legacy of Service: His family makes weapons for House Scrimgeour, and he is expected to be Rían's blacksmith in the future.
- Mr. Exposition: He is very knowledgeable about various topics, and provides information about such things as the Seven Shields and the College's activities.
- Swiss-Army Weapon: Has one in the form of a key, which can take the form of any weapon he requires.
- Why Can't I Hate You?: Despite Rían being better than him at everything, with his own parents even favoring Rían over him, Isaac can't bring himself to dislike his Childhood Friend. He does find his straightforwardness infuriating at times though.
Zoe Ivey
Zoe Ivey
A new student at the College much like Chise, whom he initially tries to avoid due to feeling something wrong about her.
- Freakiness Shame: He was afraid of what would happen if his classmates found out about his heritage, believing he would be shunned and rejected. When some of them do find it, it turns out they really don't mind (he is far from the strangest thing in the College anyway), with Lucy even considering his snakes to be beautiful.
- Friendless Background: He was something of an outcast in his hometown. One of the reasons his father sent him to the College was so that he would find friends who would accept him.
- Half-Human Hybrid: His father is a human, his mother is a gorgon.
- Medusa: He is half-gorgon from his mother's side and, unless he wears his earmuffs, his hair turns into snakes against his will.
- No Brows: Lacks eyebrows completely.
- The Paralyzer: Gorgons are capable of freezing others in place by looking at them with their snakes.
- Sensory Overload: Suffers a minor version of this at all times, forcing him to wear earmuffs and goggles.
- Taken for Granite: Subverted. Gorgons being able to turn people to stone is merely a legend, they are only able to paralyze them. Double Subverted later, when Zoe willingly uses his power on one of the alchemists in the Tower of Remnants and, unbeknownst to Zoe himself, turns his hand to stone.
- Whale Egg: His classmates were shocked to hear that he hatched from one of these.
Veronica Rickenbacker
Veronica Rickenbacker
A classmate of Chise's and Philomela's mistress.
- A Birthday, Not a Break: How did she meet Philomela? She happened to be Veronica's food taster for her ninth birthday, during which she tried cursed food meant for Veronica.
- Ambiguously Evil: She is very hard to read, and there's no way to tell whether she actually means well or is scheming behind everyone's back. She has no problem describing herself as a villain though.
- Her actions towards Philomela in particular are rather puzzling. Making her her personal aide and making her participate in class events can all easily be seeing as either her attempts of letting the abused and socially awkward Philomela have a more fulfilling life, or just means to cruelly mess with her; Philomela herself has no idea what she is thinking.
- Blue Blood: A member of the Rickenbacker family, one of the Seven Shields that founded the College.
- Conditioned to Accept Horror: Even when compared to the other students, all of whom are used to the disturbing occurrences going on in the shadows of the alchemists' world, Veronica comes across as particularly nonchalant about the horrible things that happen around her, taking everything in stride.
- Everyone Has Standards: While she was already used to that sort of thing and quickly gets over it, she is taken aback momentarily when she learns someone actually tried to have her poisoned on her birthday.
- Hidden Villain: Her appearance at the end of Chapter 93 implies she had some involvement with the massacre of the Websters, as the familiar that stole the book appeared to be communicating with her.
- Ojou: As expected from a potential heiress to the Rickenbacker Family, she is a refined lady with unflappable composure.
- Spoiled Sweet: A pretty blonde girl from an influential family and with her own posse, she has all the makings of an Alpha Bitch, yet she is a gentle, soft-spoken girl who cares about her friends and followers.
- Somewhat Subverted later on, when she is shown to be quick to exert her authority over her followers when they attempt to refuse her orders. She does appear genuinely fond of her clique though.
- That's an Order!: Is quick to remind both Lizbeth and Philomela that, no matter what objections they might have, ultimately, they have to do as she says.
- Wise Beyond Their Years: After easing Chise into speaking freely around her, Chise notes she comes across as very mature for her age.
Jasmine St. George
Jasmine St. George
A classmate of Chise's, and member of the St. George family.
- Ambiguous Gender: To a greater degree than Violet. While both of them are very androgynous, Chise seems to identify both of them as male when they are introduced, thanks to her dragon senses. However, the Volume 11 afterword confirms she is female.
- Blue Blood: House St. George is one of the Seven Shields, the seven great houses which created the College to educate wizards and preserve their knowledge. Rían, a member from another great house himself, praises the St. Georges as having the noblest blood running through their veins.
- Family Honor: Despite believing the St. Georges no longer have a place in the world, she still refuses to even consider walking away from her family when Violet suggests it, because they are the scions of St. George, and they can’t just abandon their responsibilities.
- This is in contrast with Rían, whose family is thriving, but who still wants to separate from them and forge his own path in life.
- Half-Identical Twins: Jasmine and her twin brother, Violet.
- Outdated Hero vs. Improved Society: Laments this is becoming the case for House St. George. While they have protected mankind from dangerous beasts since time immemorial, in the current world it is becoming increasingly rare to find creatures threatening mankind, as most have either disappeared or become assimilated into humanity. As such, House St. George is becoming increasingly obsolete, and one of the Seven Shields that “has no future”, as Jasmine puts it.
Violet St. George
Violet St. George
Voiced by: Daiki Yamashita (Japanese), Lexi Nieto (English) Foreign VAs
Jasmine's twin.
- Blue Blood: A member of House St. George, just like Jasmine.
- Gender-Blender Name: Which, coupled with his Wholesome Crossdresser tendencies, gives way to Viewer Gender Confusion.
- Half Identical Twin: With Jasmine, his twin sister.
- Long-Haired Pretty Boy: Very pretty, with hair much longer than his own sister.
- Metaphorically True: When convincing his classmates to participate in the test of courage, he warns them that he didn't tell the teachers about it, so they should stay quiet. In truth, he had asked Elias to tell the teachers, so they wouldn't interrupt the test and ruin the atmosphere.
- Wholesome Crossdresser: Usually prefers wearing female clothing.
Beatrice Byrne
Beatrice Byrne
Voiced by: Hana Sato (Japanese), Megan Shipman (English) Foreign VAs
Sofia's roommate.
- Alliterative Name: Beatrice Byrne.
- Childhood Friend: With Sofia.
- Freaky Is Cool: She expresses a desire to have Elias model for her upon first laying eyes on his true form.
Sofia Healy
Sofia Healy
Voiced by: Mayumi Tsukishima (Japanese), Mallorie Rodak (English) Foreign VAs
Beatrice's roommate.
- Childhood Friend: With Beatrice.
- Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: She is mildly afraid of animals but is working to get over it.
Roy Truman
Roy Truman
Voiced by: Seiyu Fujiwara (Japanese), Philip Annarella (English) Foreign VAs
Chise's classmate.
- Big Eater: He quiet enjoys food. When the College is in lockdown, his biggest sorrow is that he can't eat food from the outside.
- Eyes Always Shut: Not that he has any trouble moving around.
Martin Chandler
Martin Chandler
Voiced by: Kosuke Onishi (Japanese), Davon Oliver (English) Foreign VAs
Chise's classmate.
- Token Minority: The only Black person in Chise's class. Notably not the only one in the College though.
Lazarus McGovern
Lazarus McGovern
Voiced by: Takumi Takiguchi (Japanese), Ben Balmaceda (English) Foreign VAs
A classmate of Chise's.
- Smart People Wear Glasses: One of the most academically gifted students.
April Atwood
April Atwood
Voiced by: Miki Natsutani (Japanese), Lindsay Seidel (English) Foreign VAs
One of the Atwood siblings. She is May's sister.
- Half Identical Twin: Subverted. It initially looks like this is the case, and they are even referred to as twins by their classmates, but they are actually one year apart in age.
May Atwood
May Atwood
Voiced by: Mari Uchiyama (Japanese), Brittney Karbowski (English) Foreign VAs
The other Atwood sibling, April's brother.
- Gender-Blender Name: May is male.
- Half-Identical Twins: Subverted. One of them is 12, while the other is 11.
College Staff
Adolf Stroud
Adolf Stroud
Voiced by: Kenichi Suzumura (Japanese), Seth Magill (English) Foreign VAs
Lindel's former student, currently employed at the College.
- Belated Love Epiphany: Non-romantic example. He only started to really appreciate his hometown, and everyone in it, after everything was destroyed during World War II.
- Career-Ending Injury: Failed to become a magus, since his magical core broke down. Because of that, he couldn't become a proper wizard either.
- Comforting Comforter: For Renfred, when he passes out drunk in his office.
- Constantly Curious: Not himself, but he does encourage this sort of behavior to Elias, who still has much to learn about humanity, and about himself.
- Disability Immunity: Since the part of him that produces magic broke down long ago, he is unaffected when the dragon starts absorbing magic from its surroundings during the auction, unlike his companions who felt their energy being drained away.
- Heroic Self-Deprecation: While he doesn't show it too often, he has some self-esteem issues regarding his failure to become a magus, and believes he wouldn't be worth anything at all if not for the work he does for the College.
- I'll Pretend I Didn't Hear That: When visiting Chise and Elias to personally ask Chise to join the College, Chise starts wondering if he would tell the College about Cartaphilus, who is currently residing in a well in Elias's residence. Adolf assures her that he would only have to report it if he hears about it.
- My Greatest Failure: Deeply regrets not being able to become a magus, as he wasn't able to help Lindel as much as he wanted.
- Older Than They Look: Likely as a result of his training as a magus. He was born some time before World War II.
- Overworked Sleep: Suffers from this when overworking himself, which happens occasionally. At one point Lindel, through Merituuli, helps him get a good rest.
- Put on a Bus: Midway through the College Arc, Adolf decides to leave for a six month vacation at the Dragon's Aerie.
Torrey Innis
Torrey Innis
Voiced by: Katsuyuki Konishi (Japanese), Dave Trosko (English) Foreign VAs
A wizard employed at the College, with an unhealthy obsession with magecraft.
- Big Eater: Downplayed, but Elias once finds him about to eat enough food for several people.
- Comically Small Bribe: Played with, as it would only be small for a magus like Elias, but all it takes for him to smuggle Elias into the College and into the forbidden section of the library to read a dangerous book is the promise to show him a display of magecraft, no matter how small. Torrey even lampshades that Elias only came to him because he knew he would be easy to bribe.
- Covered in Scars: Not immediately apparent, given that his clothes tend to cover them, but he has scars all over his body.
- Do Not Call Me "Paul": His given name is Tristan, but he doesn't like being called that anymore, thus his irritation when Narcisse insists on using it.
- Extreme Omnisexual: Downplayed, but by his own admission he's into men, women, and even non-humans. He does draw the line at his own student.
- Glasgow Grin: Half of one.
- Good Scars, Evil Scars: His most prominent scar is his partial Glasgow Grin, a decidedly evil scar, and he is noticeably less moral than his colleagues.
- Keet: He is very excitable, and enters a childlike state of glee when seeing magecraft.
- Messy Hair: Has very long, unruly hair. He only uses a hair tie to keep it back.
- No Sense of Personal Space: As Chise can attest to, he tends to get rather touchy-feely with people he just met.
- Not a Morning Person: Describes himself as this. Rian usually has to go wake him up.
Liza Quillyn
Liza Quillyn
Voiced by: Mami Koyama (Japanese), Linda Leonard (English) Foreign VAs
The vice-chancellor at the College.
- Big Good: The highest authority at the College, she has the students' best interests at heart.
- Comic-Book Fantasy Casting: She is modeled after Tilda Swinton.
- Power Hair: Subverted. While this may appear to be the case when looking at her from the front, closer inspection reveals she has a long mullet.
- Sweet Tooth: Carries around a mountain of chocolate bars with her. She says she needs them to replenish the energy she loses from the flowers growing on her body.
- Transflormation: Flowers grow around her neck. She even gives one to Chise as a present.
- Would Hurt a Child: Tries to have Philomela killed once the latter has fused with the Testament of Carnamagos and started openly threatening everyone at the College.
Gregory
Gregory
Voiced by: Takuya Masumoto (Japanese), Gabe Kunda (English) Foreign VAs
The deputy vice-chancellor at the College.
- Comically Serious: When dealing with Narcisse.
- Number Two: Serves as this for Liza.
- Our Werebeasts Are Different: With Liza's help, he can become a huge bear with spikes protruding out his back.
- Perpetual Frowner: He is always shown scowling.
- Two-Faced: The whole right side of his body appears to be scarred.
- Would Hurt a Child: He and Liza attempt to kill Philomela once it becomes clear she had been using the Testament of Carnamagos to absorb the students and teacher's magical energy.
Narcisse Maugham
Narcisse Maugham
A linguistics professor, who shares a past with Torrey.
- Cool Teacher: He is certainly passionate about teaching his students, and makes it a point to treat Chise just like any other student, something she clearly appreciates.
- Dare to Be Badass: There is an element of this in his introductory speech to the students, as he asks them to be willing to make mistakes, learn from them, and use the knowledge gained to forge their own paths in life.
- Due to the Dead: He makes it very clear that the dead are to be respected, regardless of how they lived their lives. He
- Exact Eavesdropping: Accidentally ends up listening Adolf advising and telling his backstory to Elias.
- Necromancer: A sympathetic example of one, as he ensures that the remains and the spirits of the deceased are treated respectfully and with care. He is able to commune with the dead by preparing their remains and summoning their spirit into the living plane.
- Lecture as Exposition: During the first day of class, he speaks of the nature of alchemy and its origins.
Alexandra Heath
Alexandra Heath
The College's nurse, and a level 3 muryan.
- Amazing Technicolor Population: The parts of her that look human are green in color.
- Artificial Hybrid: Was born as a human, but her experiments resulted in her looking like a fusion between a human and a caterpillar.
- Extra Eyes: The upper half of her head is a caterpillar's, eyes and everything.
- Motor Mouth: Slips into this while analyzing Chise's arm.
- School Nurse: Serves this role.
- Vertebrate with Extra Limbs: Vertebrate-Invertebrate Mix. She has four perfectly functioning human arms.
Whoopi
Whoopi
A physical education teacher.
- Affectionate Gesture to the Head: Seems to give Alice the equivalent of one, using his amorphous head, when she claims the reason she is putting in so much effort is that she wants to teach someone a lesson.
- Blob Monster: His experiments resulted in him becoming a mass of sentient liquid. He did learn how to keep a mostly humanoid shape though.
- Cool Teacher: Goes out of his way to give Alice advice regarding her recklessness, and provides the means for her to continue her training.
- Dope Slap: Hands one out to Alice when she tries to pretend to be on the shooting range for no reason.
- I'm Melting!: He felt his own body dissolve while remaining conscious the entire time. He did manage to survive and make the most of it.
Simeon Paladilhe
Simeon Paladilhe
Voiced by: Mitsuo Iwata (Japanese), Randy Pearlman (English) Foreign VAs
A professor who specializes in researching sound magic.
- Furry Reminder: He discovered the hard way that he is more dog than he thought, when he got food poisoning from eating a grape.
- I Found You Like This: He is in the receiving end of this when found by Elias in the gardens, drained of magical energy. Elias takes him to the infirmary, and even gives him some energy of his own to help him survive.
- Mana Drain: Much like Lucy, he was also a victim of this, though not to the same extent.
- Nice Guy: Makes sure to greet Elias properly when they first met, and asks him to not be bothered by his own appearance, since people in the College don’t care about that sort of thing.
- Our Centaurs Are Different: His upper body is still human, but his lower body is a dog’s, much like Shanahan’s. He also has a reptile tail, instead of a dog tail.
Sigrid Bachmann
Sigrid Bachmann
Voiced by: Shouko Yuzuki (Japanese), Erin Kelly Noble (English) Foreign VAs
The director of the College.
- Ear Ache: Pulls Fabio's ear, to force him to follow her.
- Prophet Eyes: Though her eyes are usually closed, so they aren't seen often.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Looks out for the students, and tries to keep them from overexerting themselves.
The Church
Simon Cullum
Simon Cullum
Voiced by: Toshiyuki Morikawa (Japanese), Tyler Carson (English) Foreign VAs
A priest who is in charge of keeping an eye on Elias.
- But Not Too Foreign: He was born in England, but he is actually half-Italian. When his parents divorced, he went with his mother to Italy, where he grew up. He only returned to England in his early thirties, to become Elias' observer.
- Butt-Monkey: Supernatural beings tend to make his life difficult, and he isn't that respected by others, including Elias.
- Curtains Match the Window: Yellow eyes, blonde hair.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Every single relative he had was killed because of his jinx, including his grandmother, mother, aunt, uncle, and his cousin. He turned to violence and drugs to escape the pain, but found a woman who loved him and reassured him that it wasn't his fault they died, only to end up a victim of the jinx herself. This led Simon to try to kill himself.
- Death Seeker: To some degree. He claims there is no one he wishes death upon more than himself, but Alonza convinced him that simply killing himself would not make up for the people his jinx killed, which eventually led him to his current position. One of the things Alonza told him in order for him to accept the assignment to watch over Elias is that, if the inhuman magus ever snaps and kills him, that would just be what he wanted anyway.
- Friendship Denial: He doesn't believe Elias and him could ever really be friends, since he wouldn't be able to help Elias if he needed him, and he doesn't believe Elias would feel upset at all if he were to just drop dead one day.
- Good Shepherd: A genuinely nice priest.
- Identical Stranger: Invoked by Elias when he needs to use a more human face in public, as Simon is the basis for his glamour of choice.
- Interrupted Suicide: He was going to kill himself at his fiancée's grave if not for Alonza stopping him and taking him into the Church.
- The Jinx: Played for Drama. Due to circumstances around his birth, anyone who eats the sweets he makes is cursed to die a very short time later. His grandmother and mother were the first victims, and by the time he was 18 he'd accidentally killed his aunt, uncle, and cousin. Even the love of his life died because of it. The moment he finds out it really is his fault, he immediately tries to kill himself.
- Lethal Chef: Completely played for drama. His sweets are delicious, but if you eat them you'll die soon after due to a jinx.
- Nice Guy: He's a pretty kind person despite what usually happens around him.
- Technicolor Eyes: Yellow in this case.
- Witch Hunt: A very refreshing aversion. Simon is actually on mostly good terms with Elias, and is fully aware of the existence of magic without condemning it. It is implied he's not the only one with this mindset in the Church, either, as the faction that he seems to belong to are more pacifistic. Ironically, some magical creatures do dislike him for his faith, as seen when Titania banishes him from the meeting between her and Elias.
Gabriella
Gabriella
A nun at Simon's church. Also a vampire.
- Absurdly Sharp Claws: Grows her nails into claws when fighting.
- Daywalking Vampire: Has no issue walking around under the sunlight.
- Gratuitous Italian: She is from Italy, and peppers her speech with Italian words.
- Hypnotic Eyes: Gabriella is able to put the auditor under a trance by looking directly into his eyes.
- No-Sell: Is unaffected by the auditor's eyes, which are capable of binding magical creatures. She claims to be too different from the lesser creatures they would work on.
- Nun Too Holy: She enjoys teasing Simon, and is not afraid to get her hands dirty when she has too.
- Our Vampires Are Different: She is unaffected by sunlight, and doesn't seem to have a problem with religious imagery. Her bites don't turn people into vampires either.
- Religious Vampire: She does work for the Church.
- Thou Shalt Not Kill: Downplayed. She prefers not killing if she can help it, but doesn't really mind if others do it.
- Youthful Freckles: They give her a youthful look.
Witches
Marielle
Marielle
A witch interested in getting Chise to join her coven.
- Animorphism: She can transform into a bull.
- The Baby of the Bunch: The other witches suggest the reason Marielle wants Chise to join them is so she wouldn't be this anymore.
- Curse: As a witch, she knows her way around curses. She specializes in moving them around and is the only one who knew of a way to deal with Chise's dragon curse. Unfortunately, the price to pay was too much for a human. But that wasn't a problem in Elias's case.
- Detect Evil: She was the only one able to notice that something had been done to Stella.
- Must Make Amends: Phyllis convinces her to do this once she finds out about what Marielle told Elias.
- Really 700 Years Old: Claims to have been around for the beheading of Marie-Antoinette.
- Telepathy: Calls it the "Art of Whisper". She was somehow able to use it inside the auction house, despite the fact that magic was supposed to be impossible to use within its walls.
- Wingding Eyes: Her eyes turn into spirals after crashing with a pole in bull form.
- You Remind Me of X: Invokes a variation of it. Anyone who sees her will be reminded of their mother, which makes people feel comfortable around her.
Phyllis
Phyllis
The witch who presides over Marielle's coven.
- All-Loving Heroine: She has always being a kind-hearted woman, willing to take everyone's curses and bad luck into herself. Marielle actually calls her out for always worrying about others, but never about herself.
- Astral Projection: A variation of this. While her body is trapped in a different layer of reality, she is able to send a projection of herself to the real world.
- Dope Slap: Uses the branches of the tree she is bound to in order to do this to Chise, who is about to offer her help to release Phyllis from the tree, despite her own dire circumstances.
- Mysterious Veil: She uses one in order to cover her scarred face.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: She is the most respected member of the coven, who is very strict about following the witches' ways of helping people and never hurting others. She is honest with Chise about their inability to help her instead of trying to trick her, and is furious with Marielle for causing harm to other people, even if for Phyllis's own sake.
- Transflormation: A variation. Her attempt to take a tree's curse into herself resulted in her being bound to it instead. She has accepted her circumstances though, and is content with watching the future unfold from there.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Calls out Marielle for going against their ways, by telling Elias of a way to save Chise that involves sacrificing someone else, and convinces her to make things right.
Izak
Izak
A member of Marielle's coven.
- Animorphism: He can turn into a wolf. He actually wishes he could turn into something more convenient, like a cat, but witches are restricted to one animal form only.
- The Bus Came Back: Last seen in the aftermath of the fight against Cartaphilus, he comes back in Chapter 71, as Marielle requests his help to search for the Testament of Carnamagos.
- The Empath: He can share on others emotions, even unintentionally.
- The Nose Knows: When he turns into a wolf.
- One-Steve Limit: Enforced in the official translation. When he was first introduced he was called Isaac, but it was later changed to Izak to avoid confusion with Chise's classmate.
- Wholesome Crossdresser: Like the other male witches, he also wears a dress during the coven’s meetings.
Changelings
Shannon
Shannon
A changeling that was raised by humans, and now serves as doctor for the other faeries. She's married to the human that was swapped with her, Shanahan.
- All of the Other Reindeer: She notes that her peers weren't fond of her, as a result of her lack of aging.
- Changeling Tale: The result of one of this.
- Cool Shades: Wears a pair of dark sunglasses.
- Good Is Not Soft: While normally helpful to her patients, she's not above trying to drown Chise to make her regain the will to live.
- Labcoat of Science and Medicine: Which makes her stand out among other faeries.
- Older Than They Look: As expected of a faerie, despite being over 50 years old, she looks barely 30.
- Pointy Ears: Which indicate her true heritage.
- Technicolor Eyes: Purple for her.
Shanahan
Shanahan
A denizen of the fairy world, and Shanon's husband.
- Changeling Tale: The other half of his wife's.
- Dude Looks Like a Lady: Much like Oberon, he looks almost as feminine as his wife.
- Keet: Very cheerful and childlike.
- Older Than They Look: Like his wife, he is over 50 years old, but doesn't look it at all.
- Our Centaurs Are Different: In this case, he has the lower body of a wolf.
- Pointy Ears: Like other fae.
- Was Once a Man: He was born as a human, but his body transformed while living in the faerie world.
Marie
Marie
Hazel's aunt, a two-legged centaur. Featured in the short story Frozen Flowers.- Changeling Tale: She was a centaur that was sent to live among humans.
- Cool Aunt: To Hazel.
- Delicate and Sickly: As a two-legged centaur, she is rather prone to sickness, and human medicine isn't particularly effective on her. Her brother sends her medicine regularly, but he isn't able to send much. By the time Hazel visits her for Christmas, she had run out, and refuses to let him go to the herd for more out of fear he and his family will be ostracized for interacting with a two-legged centaur.
- Dream-Crushing Handicap: She would love nothing more than to run around in the field like a proper centaur, but her body just isn't suited for it.
- Hates Being Alone: Has some shades of this.
- Our Centaurs Are Different: As a two-legged centaur, she looks just like a human, but her insides are those of a centaur (which makes human medicine rather ineffective on her), and she feels the urges of one.
- Parental Abandonment: Was sent away by her parents due to being two-legged.
- Why Can't I Hate You?: While she sometimes feels enraged at her circumstances, and feels some resentment towards her family, she ultimately can't bring herself to hate them. No doubt thanks to her brother and Hazel's love for her, Fantastic Racism be damned.
Magical Creatures
Ariel
Ariel
Voiced by: Ami Naito (Japanese), Tia Ballard (English) Foreign VAs
One of the Ariel fairies that greet Chise when she moves in with Elias.
- A Dog Named "Dog": She is only referred to as Ariel, which is the name of her type of fairy.
- Blow You Away: Like all Ariel fairies, she has wind magic, which is useful for both cleansing souls and destroying things.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Suffers one off-screen at the hands of Elias, while trying to keep him away from Chise. She is fine by her next appearance though.
- Easily Forgiven: Neither Elias nor Chise seem to mind the fact that she almost tricked Chise into entering the land of the fae.
- Fantastic Racism: Like other fairies, she is openly disdainful of Elias because of his "incomplete" nature.
- Four-Fingered Hands: As expected of a fairy.
- Insistent Terminology: She and her fellow ariels tell Chise to call them neighbors instead of faeries.
- Pointy Ears: Like others of her kind.
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: She manages to put aside her differences with Elias, and together they manage to defeat Ashen Eye.
Hugo
Hugo
A vodyanoi and Angelica's familiar.
- Familiar: Angelica's.
- Floating Water: Makes water float in order to hold Angelica's instruments while she works.
- Making a Splash: It's his nature as a vodyanoi, a Slavic spirit of water.
- Undying Loyalty: The very first thing he does is to tell Chise that he would grant favors to Angelica and her alone.
Nevin
Nevin
A Wu-il and one of the last ancient dragons.
- Delightful Dragon: A wise and friendly old dragon, who uses his final moments to cheer Chise on.
- Living Memory: Eventually, Nevin moves on to the afterlife, so the one Chise meets is the memory of him that she holds inside herself.
- Not Afraid to Die: As a dragon, he had accepted his death long before it happened.
- Prophet Eyes: He is blind, a sign of his ancient age.
- Spirit Advisor: Once Chise crafts her wand from the branches of his tree, she becomes able to meet Nevin in an Afterlife Antechamber, where he can continue to give her advice and reassure her if necessary.
- Telepathy: All dragons share their thoughts freely, and can listen to those of other people. He does apologize to Chise for reading her mind without permission.
- Transflormation: Upon death, dragons become part of nature. Thanks to Lindel planting a small seed on his body, a lindenbaum tree sprouts from Nevin after he passes away.
- You Are Better Than You Think You Are: When Chise meets Nevin after crafting her wand, she expresses her fears and feelings of worthlessness, so Nevin reminds her of all the people she has helped and asks her to feel more pride in herself.
Jasper and Bernie
Jasper and Bernie
Jasper
Bernie
Jasper is voiced by: Yoshiaki Hasegawa (Japanese), Robert McCollum (English) Foreign VAs
Bernie is voiced by: Shinya Takahashi (Japanese), Tyler Walker (English) Foreign VAs
Cats that reside in Ulthar.
- Big Damn Heroes: Both of them appear to keep the wizards away from Chise once she broke out of the Hostage Situation.
- Cats Have Nine Lives: Jasper is already on his seventh.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: Jasper is courteous and collected, while Bernie is headstrong and mischievous.
- Those Two Guys: They are usually seen together.
Molly
Molly
Voiced by: Rei Sakuma (Japanese), Melanie Mason (English) Foreign VAs
The current King of Cats.
- Cats Have Nine Lives: And she is already on her last one.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Almost performs one in order to stop the mass of corruption in Ulthar. Luckily, Chise finds another way.
- Like a Son to Me: She expresses this sentiment about her owner, who Molly has been watching over since birth.
- She Is the King: "King of Cats" seems to be a gender-neutral title, since Molly currently holds the title despite being female.
- Talking Animal: A talking cat, though she doesn't speak around regular humans.
Spriggan
Spriggan
Voiced by: Hiroki Yasumoto (Japanese), Chris Ryan (English) Foreign VAs
Titania and Oberon's bodyguard.
- A Dog Named "Dog": Same deal as the ariel.
- Bodyguarding a Badass: Titania and Oberon are both extremely powerful beings in their own right, so whether they really need someone to watch over them is questionable.
- The Coats Are Off: He isn't wearing his fur pelt during the raid on Cartaphilus' hideout.
- Cool Helmet: His rock-like head gives this impression.
- Fantastic Racism: Is quite hostile to non-faeries, including Elias. This is because of the damage humanity has done to nature, and Elias in particular has costed the lives of many in the past.
- Hammy Herald: Shows a bit of this when introducing Titania. Averted most of the time however, since he is usually serious and no-nonsense.
- Hulking Out: When angry enough, he becomes huge, capable of even dominating Elias.
- Implied Love Interest: To Silky.
- In Rainbow Day, Feast Day it is actually noted that neither of them really know what to call their relationship.
- Pet the Dog: He's the one who gave Silky a new purpose by changing her from a banshee to a House Fey. The short story in The Golden Yarn reveals that he continuously stays in contact with her to make sure that she's comfortable.
Titania
Titania
The Faerie Queen and Oberon's wife.
- Big Damn Hero: Helps Elias and Ruth find Chise after she leaves with Cartaphilus, and then appears to save her Just in Time, along with the others.
- Fairy Sexy: She's a fairy, and when compared to other fairies, damn sexy.
- Four-Fingered Hands: Same as Oberon.
- The High Queen: Well, The Fair Folk version of it.
- Impossibly-Low Neckline: Magic must be the only thing keeping her breasts from popping out.
- Jiggle Physics: Her large breasts seem to have the the consistency of gelatin with the amount they wobble. Averted by her "branch" form, which appears much more childlike.
- Mark of the Supernatural: Her purple eyes serve to represent her otherworldliness and power.
- Raven Hair, Ivory Skin: She has very pale skin and long black hair, fitting for a queen.
- Shipper on Deck: Makes a bet with her husband on how many children they think Elias and Chise will have.
- Stripperiffic: The clothes of her "branch" form leave little to the imagination.
- Sympathetic Adulterer: Oberon casually mentions that Titania has had numerous lovers in the past. He isn’t really bothered by it, likely because all of them were human, and thus died from old age, which for a fae can happen after a mere moment of having their eyes off them.
Oberon
Oberon
The Faerie King and Titania's husband.
- Composite Character: He is referred to as Oberon and is Titania's husband, but his satyr-like appearance and his goofy nature make him more similar to a different fairy - Puck, at least as he is depicted in A Midsummer Night's Dream, where he is Oberon's servant.
- Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: He's really wacky, but he's also a king of magical entities. He is able to replenish an exhausted Chise's magic within an instant without much effort, implying that his own magical reserves are absolutely through the roof.
- Dude Looks Like a Lady: He looks nearly as feminine as his wife.
- Elfeminate: Is a male fairy who looks female.
- Fauns and Satyrs: He looks rather like a satyr, though he has antlers instead of horns and a deer's legs instead of a goat's.
- Four-Fingered Hands: Unlike most humanoid characters, Oberon only has four fingers on each hand.
- Henpecked Husband: Subverted, even though Titania occasionally sics her hounds on him for his antics, he doesn't really mind that much anyway.
- Horned Humanoid: He has antlers, with one of them being broken.
- Keet: He's quite energetic.
- Immortal Immaturity: While he's older than Elias, Oberon acts like a spirited child.
- No Sense of Personal Space: The guy invades Elias and Chise's personal space and pesters them with questions, to the consternation of his wife.
- Shipper on Deck: He asks if Chise and Elias are married and if they have kids.
- Supernatural Gold Eyes: To contrast his wife's purple ones, his golden eyes signify his faerie nature.
- Too Kinky to Torture: If he gets too obnoxious, Titania will usually send the hunting hounds after him. This doesn't really work too well, as he enjoys it.
Will o' The Wisp
Will o' The Wisp
Also known as Blue Flame. A faerie in charge of leading the dead to the afterlife.
- Familiar: He ends up becoming Alice's.
- Grumpy Old Man: Tends to act this way around the other characters.
- In the Hood: His only clothing is a blue robe with a hood.
- Magic Staff: Which he uses to perform spells.
- Playing with Fire: He possesses flame magic.
- Psychopomp: He lights the way for souls to reach the afterlife.
- Teleportation: Can quickly teleport several people to safety when needed, even if they aren't standing next to each other.
Redcurrant
Redcurrant
A leannán sídhe that becomes Chise's neighbor. She also stars in the short story "The Vampire's Lover", alongside Joel.
- Belated Love Epiphany: After denying it for the longest time, Redcurrant finally seems to undergo one after Joel dies, vowing to stay at his house until the end of time to wait for him.
- Fairy Sexy: Just like Titania, she takes this trope to the logical extreme.
- Hair Antennae: Three long ones that curve backwards.
- Heroic BSoD: Has one when she hears that Joel considers her his First Love, running away from his house and shutting herself down for months.
- Impossibly-Low Neckline: The same deal as Titania.
- Intangibility: Can pass through walls.
- Love at First Sight: The moment her eyes met Joel's, she felt her heartstrings being tugged but denied it due to the fact that he was too plain and unartistic to be her type.
- Meaningful Name: She's named after her red eyes that are the same shade as the berries.
- The Mourning After: After Joel's death, she refuses to look for a new lover, remaining at his house.
- No Sense of Personal Space: Like the other faeries, she likes clinging on Chise, sometimes shoving her assets to her face.
- Our Vampires Are Different: Although a faerie, she drains the blood of men, and in exchange she gives them talent, eventually killing them.
- Pointed Ears: Like most neighbors.
- "Shut Up" Kiss: To Chise when denying her feelings for Joel.
- Sleep Cute: The first time they meet, Chise sees her doing this with Joel.
- Stripperific: She's only wearing semi-transparent purple lingerie. She eventually starts wearing more covering, yet still revealing, clothing.
- Succubus in Love: While leanan sídhe are more like vampires, they function very similarly to succubus since they do drain the life out of their lovers. She been doing that for decades to Joel who she denies actually loving. It's not until he dies does she finally admits it. Afterwards she decides to not find another lover, preferring to starve herself.
- Tsundere: She is deeply in love with Joel and has stayed by his side for decades, yet even while sobbing over him she firmly denies that she has any feelings for him. She even calls him an idiot while he says goodbye to her, saying that he's selfish for not letting her reply to his confession.
- This is best shown during "The Vampire's Lover". She absolutely refuses to admit that she is in love with him, all the while finding every possible excuse to remain by his side, so she wouldn't have to admit to herself that she simply wants to stay next to him.
- Vampires Are Sex Gods: She's a kind of vampire-like fairy, and quite gorgeous.
Merituuli
Merituuli
A selkie and Lindel’s familiar.
- Big Damn Heroes: Saves the alchemists from the dragon that goes berserk during the auction.
- Familiar: He's Lindel's familiar. Lindel usually uses him to send messages to other people, and will sometimes even speak through him.
- Making a Splash: Specializes in using water magic.
- Master of Illusion: Can cast illusions powerful enough to hide dragons in plain sight. He admits it isn't his strong point though.
- Older Than They Look: Usually looks like a young child, but the guide book reveals he is actually 87 years old.
- Selkies and Wereseals: As a selkie, he can transform into a seal at will. He normally takes the form of a small child wearing an oversized sealskin coat.
- Sweet Seal: An adorable and playful little selkie.
Hazel
Hazel
Voiced by: Hiroki Matsukawa (Japanese), Ben Bryant (English) Foreign VAs
A centaur who works as a courier. He also stars in the short story "Frozen Flowers", which deals with his relationship with his aunt, Marie.
- Courier: One rather good at his job.
- Extra-Dimensional Shortcut: He tends to use channels through the world in order to cover long distances in short time. He even teaches one particular path to Chise, Elias and Ruth so they wouldn't be forced to commute for three hours to get to the College.
- Nice Guy: He is rather friendly and approachable, and is even willing to give suggestions for Christmas presents.
- Our Centaurs Are Different: This one works as a courier.
- Pointed Ears: Like most fae.
Ashen Eye
Ashen Eye
Voiced by: Joji Nakata (Japanese), Greg Dulcie (English) Foreign VAs
A very ancient neighbor that takes interest in Chise.
- Ambiguously Evil: Even with his Blue-and-Orange Morality Ashen Eye seems to do some pretty shady things even for a fae. It doesn't help that he told Cartaphilus about Stella, allowing him to possess her and use her against Chise. He is later shown actively working with Joseph during his last confrontation with Chise, apparently only doing it because he enjoys watching them struggle.
- Animal Motifs: Scorpions, since he transforms into a scorpion-like creature when making a contract with Stella.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: Never say something harsh without meaning it within his presence, you will regret it. Just ask Stella.
- Berserk Button: Downplayed, but he doesn't seem to like either Sleigh Beggies or mages in general very much, as he believes they bind and enslave The Fair Folk.
- Big Bad Duumvirate: He helped Joseph find Stella so she could be used against Chise, and later helps him during his final showdown against the heroes.
- Blue-and-Orange Morality: He enjoys inflicting torment for the kicks of it and seems to be somewhat sadistic, but is kept out of outright villainy by his sense of fair play - he will sometimes give clues to his victims to help them overcome his trials and holds no grudges towards those who best him, sometimes even rewarding them.
- Casting a Shadow: He seems to be affiliated with darkness like Elias, and can vanish into dark smoke and create black portals.
- Dark Is Evil: Not entirely evil per se, but definitely not someone you want to take interest in you.
- Evil Sounds Deep: His Japanese voice is even deeper than Elias', and while he's not exactly evil, he can be very dangerous to humans if he wills it.
- Exotic Eye Design: His eyes are violet and have concentrinc circles around the pupil.
- Extra Eyes: He has three eyes.
- The Fair Folk: He represents this trope quite well. His standards for "morality" and "gifts" are far from a human's.
- Familiar: Becomes one to Stella.
- Four-Fingered Hands: His fingers are very long too.
- Graceful Loser: Even when his tricks are thwarted, he still finds enjoyment at having found a Worthy Opponent.
- Humanoid Abomination: Chise only sees a glimpse of it, and is not pleasant.
- In the Hood: Wears a cloak that covers almost his entire face.
- It Amused Me: The only reason Ashen Eye does anything is to amuse himself, often playing cruel trick and pranks on humans because he finds it fun. In the season finale he seems to like helping Joseph because he finds him and Chise interesting and loves watching them fight. He even expresses disappointment when Joseph is seen sleeping in Elias's well after Chise gave him a Cooldown Hug noting how "boring" it is that Joseph has found a place to rest his head.
- He then later found his next source of entertainment in Stella, a past victim of his. She not only wandered into a magical area despite not being able to see Fae, she also proved to have learnt from their past encounter how Ashen Eye, while not a liar, is an opportunist and doesn't reveal everything. She also declares with unshakeable resolve to find a way to hurt Ashen Eye if he ever tormented anyone else, despite not having any magical ability, so she could keep her friendship with Chise, who Ashen Eye points out is why Stella keeps getting into these affairs. So amused by all this, Ashen Eye goes on a First-Name Basis with Stella and decides to test her limits by making a contract with her.
- Losing Your Head: Although Ashen Eye gets his head cut off by Elias, he's still able to just put it back on, though it apparently takes time to stay on permanently and can roll off onto the floor. Not that this inconveniences him.
- Multi-Armed and Dangerous: Has four arms, and is extremely dangerous.
- Not Me This Time: Understandably, Stella believed he was responsible for the mist that suddenly covered the area near Elias's house and made Chise disappear, and has trouble trusting him when he claims otherwise. In truth, it was Rahab, who wanted to speak with Chise.
- Scorpion People: Can turn into one of these, as revealed when he makes a contract with Stella and when he uses said form to defend her from a Neighbor.
- Signature Scent: Chise noticed he smells like sand the first time she met him. She notices the same smell coming from Stella soon after she makes a contract with Ashen Eye, but isn't able to recall where she had smelled it before Stella diverts the topic away from it.
- Spell My Name With An S: Quite literally: His name is translated as "Ashen Eye" or "Ashen Eyes".
- Spirited Competitor: He doesn't care whether he wins or loses, he's just after the thrills of a good challenge.
- Stronger with Age: He is even more ancient than Elias, and so powerful he can put him out of commission effortlessly.
- The Trickster: He loves toying with both Muggles and mages for his own amusement, and his pranks are particularly cruel.
- Voluntary Shapeshifting: Reveals to Stella he can also do this when making a contract with her, turning into a giant, scorpion creature with a large hunchback.
- The Worf Effect: A fairy-boosted Elias one-shots him during the battle with Josef. He gets better, but it seems to deter him for enough time for Chise to deal with Josef, after which he loses interest.
- Wowing Cthulhu: Has this reaction to Stella's Staring Down Cthulhu moment, and decides to enter a contract with her as a result. The spitfire attitude she has is exactly why he likes to stay with her, citing as long as she stays true to herself he'll protect her.
Winter Goddess
Winter Goddess/ The Morrígan
The Mother
The Daughter
Mother is voiced by: Ayako Kawasumi (Japanese), Erin Nicole Lundquist (English) Foreign VAs
Daughter is voiced by: Shion Shimizu (Japanese), Luci Christian (English) Foreign VAs
One of the old gods, which have mostly faded into the seasons, but sometimes resurface into the world.
- Adaptation Dye-Job: The anime portrays her with green hair, but in the manga it is eventually revealed her hair is blood red, much like certain depictions of The Morrígan. Additionally, a volume cover reveals her eyes are actually red instead of gray, her sweater is green rather than gray, and her dress is a dark shade of red rather than black. She even seems less pale than how she was portrayed in the anime. She does eventually take on her red hair in the anime when Chise invokes her nature as The Morrígan.
- An Offer You Can't Refuse: She doesn't actually make any threats, but Elias makes it clear to Chise that refusing an old god's offer for help would end badly for them.
- Because You Were Nice to Me: The reason the Daughter decides to help Ruth find Chise, whom Elias had entrapped in a fit of jealousy, was because of the glistening yew and branches that they had gifted her Mother.
- Blood Knight: Relishes on the opportunity to participate in combat again, gleefully slaughtering Lizbeth's guards once she is fully summoned by Chise.
- Born-Again Immortality: Of a sort. Following the winter solstice, the Winter Goddess gives birth to the Spring Goddess, who throughout the year grows to become the Winter Goddess again, who once again gives birth to the Spring Goddess, ad infinitum.
- The Bus Came Back: Reappears in Chapter 79, getting involved in the College Arc.
- Creepy Crows: Can turn into a murder of crows to move around. When she destroys the eyes of a man spying on her through magic, the poor guy can only scream the word "crows" in a panic.
- Earthy Barefoot Character: The Spring Goddess doesn't wear any shoes.
- Fertile Feet: Wherever the Spring Goddess walks, snow melts and plants sprout from the ground.
- Physical God: She is an old Goddess who holds power over the world of winter and death. Elias's first instinct when near her presence was to hide.
- Prehensile Hair: The Winter Goddess showed this ability.
- Proportional Aging: From being born to an adult over the course of a year.
- War God: Her reappearance reveals her to be Morrígan when called forth by Chise, whereupon she immediately began to slaughter Lizbeth's guards.
Josef's Curse
Josef's curse
The embodiment of the curse that plagues Josef, that was implanted in him as Cartaphilus for throwing stones at the Son of God.
- A Form You Are Comfortable With: Takes the form of Josef when talking to Chise in her memories, just with his face covered in darkness with the exception of his eyes. Before this, it took the form of a forgotten memory of Chise's that gave her the full details of why her mother attempted to strangle her. Like Shannon, it was testing her will and desire to live.
- Fusion Dance: A piece of it is implanted in Chise by Cartaphilus in order in order to keep her dragon curse in check. After both curses have completely settled down, resulting in Chise no longer being at risk of dying too soon, it even notes that now she has the same likelihood of either living or dying as any other creature.
- Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Had a few "strong words" with the dragon curse inside Chise, before reaching an understanding. When Chise sees him after this, there are literally parts of him missing.
Alcyone
Alcyone
An Artificial Spirit that serves Philomela.
- Artificial Human: Technically an Artificial Spirit, made to look in the shape of a woman.
- Cool Mask: The top half of her face is always covered by a mask, though given her nature, it might actually be part of her face.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: In the past, she was hit with an attack that ran through her torso by one of Lizbeth's henchmen, stopping her from running away with Philomela.
- Mirror Character: To Elias. Both of them are tall supernatural creatures with No Social Skills that act as a Parental Substitute to a young girl, but have trouble expressing how they feel in regards to them. Its no wonder they develop a bit of an Odd Friendship.
- No Social Skills: As she was created with low specs, she often has trouble understanding what would be the correct emotion to show in any given situation. This is most prominent in regards to Philomela, whom Alcyone cares for as a daughter, yet she is unable to properly express her feelings to her.
- Parental Substitute: Philomela has described her as a surrogate parent of sorts, though Alcyone doesn't consider herself worthy of such a role.
- Soul Jar: She briefly becomes one for Philomela, in order to help her hide from Chise.
- Statuesque Stunner: She is about the same height as Elias.
- Taking the Bullet: Takes a hit from Gregory in his bear form to protect Philomela. She does it again later, taking a fatal blow from Lizbeth so she could release Adam's revenge curse.
- Trojan Horse: Lizbeth uses her body to smuggle the Testament of Carnamagos back into the College before it's sealed off.
Each-uisge
Each-uisge
Voiced by: Shōmaru Zōza (Japanese), Reagan Murdock (English) Foreign VAs
An each-uisge found near the College's camping place in Scotland.
- Our Kelpies Are Different: Similar to a kelpie, but even more vicious. It takes the form of a horse, and tries to get humans on its back so it can then jump into the water to drown and eat them.
- Know When to Fold 'Em: Decided that the chance to eat Chise wasn't worth facing Rían and his halberd made of Cold Iron.
- More Teeth than the Osmond Family: The teeth continue into its cheeks.
- Summon Bigger Fish: Chise and Elias call upon it to help them deal with the nuckelavee attacking them. It successfully kicks it into the water, but it takes Chise tearing it apart with her dragon arm for it to really stay down.
- To Serve Man: It expresses the desire to eat Chise, and when foiled regrets that it is uncommon for men to wander around near him in the present.
- Walk on Water: Has no problem travelling rivers and lakes this way.
Nuckelavee
Nuckelavee
A nuckelavee that attacks the students while they are camping in Scotland.
- An Arm and a Leg: Chise tears off both of its arms with her dragon arm.
- Big Sleep: Its only eye closes as it disintegrates in the water.
- Cannot Cross Running Water: True to myth, it can't, and with good reason. It is deadly to its kind.
- Cyclops: Only has one eye.
- The Fair Folk: One of the nastiest examples in mythology.
- Fangs Are Evil: As revealed when it opens its mouth.
- Four-Fingered Hands
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Chise takes out a huge portion of its torso with her dragon arm.
- It Can Think: It's not just a mindless monster. It very explicitly tells Chise that it wants to kill her.
- Kill It with Water: Fresh water is lethal to it.
- Our Centaurs Are Different: Subverted. Chise initially mistakes it for one before Elias corrects her.
- Plague Master: As a nuckelavee, it produces poison mist.
- Prehensile Hair: Which it uses to attack the students.
- Taking You with Me: Tries to pull this with Chise. It fails.
- Wake-Up Call Boss: Following the defeat of Joseph, Chise was having a rather easy time as she started attending the College, facing no life-threatening situations for a long time. Then this thing appears to remind her that there are still many things out there that will kill her if she isn't prepared.
Lewis
Lewis
Felicia's guardian. Featured in the short story Pyrite Knight.- Animate Inanimate Object: He is actually the brooch that Felicia is always wearing, who learned to manifest himself in human shape.
- Badass in a Nice Suit: Is wearing a casual suit during his adventure with Felicia.
- Cool Sword: A longsword made of pyrite, which he uses to cut down apparitions with ease.
- Curtains Match the Window: Golden hair and golden eyes.
- Guardian Entity: Has protected Felicia's family since at least the time of her grandmother. He used to work behind the scenes, subtly protecting them as he could, but Felicia is the first one that has been able to see his human form.
- Mysterious Past: Has worked with magi in the past. How he came into the possession of Felicia's family is unknown.
- Not So Stoic: When Felicia claims that he should do as he pleases instead of forcing himself to be her protector, Lewis claims that there would be no reason for his existence then. Felicia notices how his face shows fragility for just a moment after that.
- Offscreen Moment of Awesome: At one point, he sends Felicia away while he takes care of the apparitions attacking them. He catches up soon after, no worse for wear.
- Pretty Boy: Felicia can't stop thinking about how good-looking he is.
- The Stoic: He doesn't show much emotion during the short story. Felicia notes there is a robotic-like quality about him.
Other Characters
Seth Noel
Seth Noel
A black market auctioneer, and the man who convinced Chise to sell herself.
- Affably Evil: He is involved in a very shady business, but is rather helpful and courteous with people.
- Because I'm Good At It: He finds his talents more profitable when put to work at the auction house.
- Big Brother Instinct: Has been taking care of his little sister since she was born, and when a wolfman suddenly appears to attack them, his first instinct is to take a hit meant for her.
- Casual Danger Dialog: When the dragon starts rampaging inside the auction house, he merely complains about what a bother it is.
- Disinherited Child: He was the eldest son and heir of the Webster family, but was driven out due to not having magical talent.
- Friend in the Black Market: He is in good terms with Chise, and offers her as much help as possible when she is looking for the poached dragons.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: A wolfman runs their hand through his chest. Luckily, Seth survived thanks to his watch.
- Inadequate Inheritor: His lack of talent for wizardry resulted in Seth being seen as this, so his younger sister was named the family heiress instead.
- Long-Haired Pretty Boy: Easy on the eyes, with long hair usually kept in a ponytail.
- Magical Accessory: His protective talisman takes the form of a watch, and activates when he has been fatally injured. It saved his life from the wolfman that stabbed him through the chest.
- Promotion to Parent: He is officially his sister's guardian, after their parents and the rest of their family were all killed almost a decade earlier. He does claim that, by that point, he had already practically raised her instead of their own parents though.
- Protective Charm: A protective talisman that reduces the damage from fatal injuries, but breaks after one use. He also gave one to his bodyguard.
- Rescue Hug: Non-romantic example, since they are brother and sister, but he does this for Lucy, who fell unconscious while standing when he came to visit her in the College's nursery.
- Sharp-Dressed Man: He is usually seen wearing a three piece suit.
- Taking the Bullet: Stands in front of Lucy when they are attacked by a wolfman, who proceeds to seriously injure him.
- Tall, Dark, and Handsome: Rather good-looking, and always wearing a nice suit.
- Unbroken Vigil: Despite being late by over a week, he does this over his sister in the College once he arrives.
- You Remind Me of X: Claims Chise is just as stubborn as his sister, revealed in the College Arc to be Lucy.
Josef/Cartaphilus
Josef/Cartaphilus
A mysterious alchemist whose experiments often lead him into conflict with the rest of the cast.
- Age Without Youth: A strange variant. He cannot die, but his body is apparently always rotting and decaying like a corpse (just as if he had a normal human lifespan), and it's implied he constantly has to perform fleshy sorcerer experiments to renew or fuse with other body parts to keep himself looking and feeling young. His Lack of Empathy also causes him to go to unethical lengths and test cruel experiments on mortals. If the state of Cartaphilus when Josef found him is any indication, it is possible that Joseph needs to change his body parts to even be able to move, period.
- All of the Other Reindeer: He was an outcast back in his home village, due to coming from a family of necromancers.
- Ambiguous Disorder: It becomes pretty noticeable from his first appearance that there is definitely something wrong with him in terms of psychology. The most noticeable disorder he appears to possess is Bipolar Personality Disorder. The fact that he is two people fused into a single body likely explains his Bipolar tendencies.
- An Arm and a Leg: He is no stranger to losing body parts, but ever since Renfred and Alice shot him with bullets enchanted to prevent regeneration, he hasn't been able to permanently attach a new left arm.
- Appendage Assimilation: He can't just grow new organs, he needs to take them from other people or creatures to replace his own. While the body parts he takes change form to look natural to the rest of his body, they can assume their original shapes at will.
- Badass in a Nice Suit: An unusual example in that he wears a coat and double-breasted suit with short shorts, likely to emphasize his immaturity. He changes into a more covering suit in time for winter.
- Berserk Button: He hates being called by the name of "Cartaphilus". As it turns out, Josef and Cartaphilus were once two separate people before doing a Fusion Dance.
- Big Bad: The first main antagonist of the manga.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: In his first appearance he looked very nice and willing to help Mina, but just wanted to use her as a guinea pig in his experiment with cats.
- Body Horror: Due to his body constantly degenerating his bodyparts often end up falling apart in globes of melted flesh. It's shown that, without constantly replacing his lost body parts with ones taken from other creatures, he will likely end up as a desiccated, near-dead husk that's barely (if at all) able to walk unassisted.
- Cannibalism Superpower: A variation. He was somehow able to replicate Renfred's teleportation device after taking his arm and some of his hair. He was also able to put Chise to sleep using some of the magic leftover in her eye, after exchanging eyes with her.
- Complete Immortality: He just can't die, at all. Even shooting him in the head point-blank won't kill him, as Renfred can attest to.
- Creepy Centipedes: He has a spell that unleashes an entire tidal wave of them.
- Death Seeker: Played with. His ultimate goal is to be able to die to finally stop the constant agony of his existence, but he still intends to live and find happiness before that happens. Unfortunately, even simply letting his body rot completely would not do the trick. A lot of his experiments are dedicated to trying to find a way to counteract his curse of immortality with something that would finally stop his suffering.
- Disproportionate Retribution: How he sees his curse. In his own words, he threw a few stones and ended up being cursed not only to not die, but also to rot while alive, suffer in pain, be exiled by the living, and so on. In fact, it was not even he who did those actions at all. Or rather, only part of him did...
- Do Not Call Me "Paul": In fact, his main Berserk Button is anyone calling him by his real name, "Cartaphilus". It makes more sense when you find out that he genuinely is named Josef, and he acquired Cartaphilus' curse by fusing with him.
- Evil Genius: Responsible for many twisted experiments on living beings to advance his research, and quite skilled in manipulating innocent people for the sake of his goals.
- Ex-Big Bad: Following his defeat, he decides to stop antagonizing Chise, and takes up residence in a well in the Ainsworth property.
- The Farmer and the Viper: An untold amount of time after fusing with Cartaphilus, he found himself wandering through a village with a rotting, barely able to move body, begging for help. Eventually, one woman decided to help him, kindness which he repays by killing her and taking her limbs.
- Faux Affably Evil: He speaks in a calm, polite, childlike manner. However, that only serves to show how much of a cruel, psychopathic monster he is.
- Feel No Pain: His ultimate wish. To achieve it he makes everyone else suffer.
- The Fog of Ages: Josef has lived for so long that he can't even remember how he was originally cursed to begin with and as his origin episode shows he can barely even remember that he used to be two separate people.
- Fusion Dance: A Power Booster version gone wrong. It turns out that Josef and Cartaphilus were once two separate people. Josef was a grave keeper and a necromancer that found Cartaphilus in a state of near decomposition and attempted to heal him. However, no matter what Josef did, Cartaphilus could not get better but at the same time could not die, to the point that one day the villagers found out about Cartaphilus and thought he was doing a necromantic experiment. After being beaten as a result, he decided that the only way to heal Cartaphilus and allow them to leave the village, was to fuse with him. It's implied that a mental one occurred later, as in the memories Chise sees Cartaphilus initially had his own voice that Josef could hear speak to him after their merger, but by the time we meet them they only ever use Josef's voice.
- Heel–Face Turn: Downplayed, but after Chise gives him a Cooldown Hug and tells him that You Are Not Alone, Josef is seen sleeping in the well outside Elias's house and Ashen Eye notes that he seems to be content having a place to lay his head. In the manga he states that, since he lost, he'll just keep his head down for a Century or so.
- Humanoid Abomination: While looking mostly human, the fact that he can't be killed at all, among other things, clearly show he's anything but a regular person. When he gets shot in the head, grotesque tentacles can be seen emerging from his eye-socket, and when Elias pushes his Berserk Button by calling him Cartaphilus, one of his hands transforms into a monstrous appendage as he loses his composure.
- Immortality Hurts: He was shot in the head and had his left arm blown off, which leads to complaints of some extreme headaches, like his head was "being split in two", and pains in his left eye and where his arm was detached. In Chapter 41 he told Chise that his body is constantly degenerating.
- I Warned You: This is his only reaction to Alan's fate at the end of "The Man Who Hungered for Trees".
- Karmic Injury: His chimera takes Renfred's left arm while he was protecting Alice. Later on, Alice shoots off his left arm using Renfred's gun, which was loaded with bullets enchanted to prevent regeneration, preventing him from replacing it.
- Know When to Fold 'Em: After Elias and Ruth destroy his two chimeras, he agrees to leave at Renfeld's suggestion rather than keep going. He lampshades this trope as he leaves, stating that living as long as he has has taught him when to quickly give up.
- Tries to do it again when Chise's friends break into his lair to rescue her, but Chise doesn't let him get away.
- After losing to Chise and Elias, he decides to just keep his head down for a century or so.
- Lack of Empathy: He is completely unconcerned with the suffering he causes to sate his curiosity, a fact that he admits with a smile.
- Laser-Guided Karma: He is responsible for Renfred being one-armed, as he lost his arm while protecting Alice from one of his chimeras. Later, Alice proceeds to shot off one of Josef's arms with bullets enchanted by Renfred to prevent regeneration, leaving him just as one-armed as his victim.
- Locked into Strangeness: His hair hasn't always been white. Before Joseph became immortal it was blond like Stella's. It's not clear if this change was caused by preference, age, or something related to Cartaphilus himself.
- Mad Scientist: Experiments on people, animals and fae to further his research, even turning Isabel into a chimera.
- Madness Mantra: He tends to say "It hurts" over and over when he's feeling particularly distressed.
- Magical Eye: Chise's eye allowed him to see the world in a different way, and there was enough magic left in it to force Chise to sleep.
- Major Injury Underreaction: Getting shot in the head merely puts him down for a few moments, and he expresses little more than annoyance when his arm is blown off soon after. His injuries cause him a terrible amount of suffering later though.
- The Man Behind the Man: It turns out that the events of "The Man Who Hungered for Trees" were all just part of one of his experiments.
- Mirror Character: It turns out that Josef and Chise have a lot in common. Both of them were mocked by others due to their affinity for magic, grew attached to the one person who didn't (Elias for Chise and Cartaphilus for Josef), and both of them have their bodies suffering due to their respective curses.
- Motive Decay: He muses that he no longer remembers why he wants to escape pain, but also can't stop either.
- Necromancer: Josef was a necromancer before he merged with Cartaphilus - notably using the traditional sense of the term, referring to a person able to speak with the dead, as opposed to a mage that raises The Undead to do his bidding. After his fusion with Cartaphilus, however, he does dip into the modern definition of the term since he can use necromancy to summon wraiths, the spirits of those he experimented with, that can harm the souls of others.
- The Needless: He doesn't eat or excrete anything.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Josef genuinely tried to help Cartaphilus. For his efforts, he was "rewarded" with a life of eternal suffering and having to constantly kill people to prevent himself from quite literally falling apart. This might go some way to explain his selfishness from then on.
- Not Growing Up Sucks: He constantly laments his immortality, and though he has shown he could change areas to make himself look older if he really wanted to (namely by sewing on limbs from people older or taller than he is) his childish personality is a constant. This only applies for Josef, since he currently looks like he did when he first met/merged with the fully grown (and very decayed) Cartaphilus.
- Not Quite Dead: He rose after being shot in the head by Renfred with a magic bullet that prevents regeneration.
- Partial Transformation: He is able to turn his arm into a monstrous, clawed appendage.
- Really 700 Years Old: He is an immortal with at least one thousand years, but has what appears to be the body of a boy in his early teens.
- Sadist: He does seem to quite enjoy the suffering that he inflicts on others.
- Seeing Through Another's Eyes: He has the ability to take control over another person's body and see through their eyes without them being aware, as he did with Stella.
- Shadow Archetype: To Elias Ainsworth. Both are ancient beings with the emotional development of a child who see others as little more than tools to get their way or toys to satisfy their curiosity. However, Elias is (usually) less overtly malevolent and is able to at least fake a level of maturity, not to mention that his relationship with Chise serves as a Morality Chain. Josef/Cartaphilus is far more overtly childlike, sadistic and disdainful of others, taking Elias's negative traits up to eleven. As the series progresses, the line between the two becomes blurry. Joseph starts being portrayed in a more sympathetic light as the suffering caused by his curse is emphasized and his origin story is revealed, while Elias proves that he can be just as much of a monster as Joseph when it benefits him.
- Later, it turns out he is one to Chise as well. They were both kind-hearted youths whose innate great gifts for magic (necromancy, in Josef's case) were not really making their lives better. In time, they would both meet an ancient magical being who would henceforth become an integral part of their life, changing it forever. However, while Elias is a tricky being to understand at the best of times, overall he has changed Chise's life for the better. Josef was... not as lucky with Cartaphilus.
- Spell My Name With An S: The Official Guide Book and manga uses "Josef" rather than the more common "Joseph", possibly due to how long it's been since he was named or being from Eastern Europe prior to merging with Cartaphilus according to the same source.
- Tears of Blood: Breaks into these at times. He has regular tears too.
- Teens Are Monsters: Well, he is at least one thousand years old, but his character is quite similar to this trope, as he is a being that looks like a teenager but is a horrific monster.
- Tragic Villain: While it will never justify all the atrocities he's committed, in the end Josef/Cartaphilus just wants his suffering to finally end, and after living for millennia in an eternally-rotting body, is willing to do anything to make the pain stop.
- Two Beings, One Body: It's revealed that he's actually a fusion of two different people: Josef the gravekeeper and Cartaphilus the Wandering Jew. And it's hinted that even long after they've merged, they maintain their individual identities... to some degree.
- Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Josef used to be a young gravekeeper and given his interactions with Cartaphilus, he was just as much a All-Loving Hero as Chise. It is pretty obvious, considering his current self, that he Took a Level in Jerkass.
- Villainous Breakdown: After Chise manages to see into Josef's memories, and causes him to remember his past, he loses all composure and begins ranting and raving about how no one knows what its like to never die for a sin he barely even remembers. This gets even worse once Chise's friends arrive to help her and he ends up fleeing after letting loose his creations on the heroes.
- Waistcoat of Style: Usually seen wearing one.
- Wandering Jew: He's more or less The Wandering Jew, cursed with immortality by Jesus.
- White Hair, Black Heart: He has white hair and has constantly shown a black heart throughout the story.
- Who Wants to Live Forever?: He is tired of living under constant pain, and the fact that his body is constantly degenerating, forcing him to keep a constant supply of parts to keep it functional, doesn't help matters.
- Would Hit a Girl: Attempted to kill Alice for telling Elias, Chise, and Ruth about him, but Chise took the hit. He remained unfazed.
- Would Hurt a Child: Threatens Stella's life to force Chise to come to his lair.
Joel Garland
Joel Garland
Voiced by: Hideyuki Umezu (Japanese), Barry Yandell (English) Foreign VAs
A widowed old man who takes care of a rose garden. He also stars in the short story "The Vampire's Lover", alongside Redcurrant.
- Arranged Marriage: His marriage was arranged by his parents, but his wife perished before love could truly blossom between them.
- Caring Gardener: He takes good care of his late wife's rose garden.
- Comfort the Dying: Chise goes to great lengths to allow him to see Redcurrant one final time.
- Determinator: As revealed in The Golden Yarn, he once braved a storm in order to protect his garden.
- Don't Fear the Reaper: Played with. In a case of mistaken identity, a dying Joel mistakes Elias (who, ironically, had his Human Disguise on at the time, rather than his usual Skull for a Head) for the reaper. Elias doesn't correct him and plays along, telling him the truth of his current condition and putting Joel at ease.
- First Love: During "The Vampire's Lover", he comes to the realization that Redcurrant is his.
- Garden of Love: He tends to one of these, and is the only place where he was able to see Redcurrant in three different occasions. It even inspires his writings.
- Good Is Not Dumb: As it turns out, he already knew about the leanan sídhe living with him, slowly (and unintentionally) draining out his life. At least, he had a pretty good guess. He evidently read about them at some point.
- Go Out with a Smile: Manages to keeps his calm and smile at Redcurrant while giving her the little life he has left.
- Intergenerational Friendship: Develops a bit of one with Chise.
- Love at First Sight: The brief moment he crossed eyes with Redcurrant was enough to make him fall in love with her.
- No Body Left Behind: His body turns to dust as he dies.
- Not Afraid to Die: Double Subverted. While he accepts his impending death calmly, he confesses to Elias that he is terrified of it. But after finally meeting Redcurrant, who saves him from Dying Alone, he wasn't frightened anymore.
Yuuki Hatori
Yuuki Hatori
Chise's father, who walked out on her and her mother, taking Chise's baby brother Fumiki with him. Though that may not be the whole story.
- Barrier Warrior: Yuuki's magical energy was able to keep the Japanese creatures out of the Hatori's apartment.
- Daddy Had a Good Reason for Abandoning You: This is one is played very oddly. But the night that he walked out on Chise and her mother, he was woken up by Fumiki, Chise's baby brother, and when he was preparing the formula, he noticed a cat-like shadow staring into the apartment like it had been earlier. Whatever it was, it's what caused him to pack his bags and go but before he did he promised that he would return for Chise and Chika, but never did.
- Papa Wolf: Acted as the main defender for the Hatori household, even beating some of the entities with his bare hands if they got too close to his wife and child. It makes his departure form the house all the more unnerving.
- Touched by Vorlons: It's implied that before meeting Chika, Yuuki either had no magical ability or it was latent with no way of accessing it.
Ethan Barklem
Ethan Barklem
Stella's younger brother.
- Annoying Younger Sibling: Stella considers him this, but loves him nonetheless.
- First Snow: It was during his first time seeing snow that he got into a fight with Stella, which led to his kidnapping by Ashen Eye.
- Freaky Is Cool: After getting over the initial shock, he shows this attitude towards Elias.
- Kid Has a Point: Manages to provide Elias with some insight about the meaning of family.
- Ret-Gone: Ashen Eye causes everyone but Stella to forget about his existence for a while, including his parents. Even Stella was in the process of forgetting him, and would have if Ruth hadn't reminded her of the strength of their sibling bond.
Stella Barklem
Stella Barklem
A young girl that befriends Chise, following an incident in which Chise helps her find her younger brother.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: The cause of her brother's disappearance. By saying she didn't want him as her brother anymore, even though she was just frustrated at the time, Ashen Eye was more than willing to grant that wish to teach her a lesson.
- Brutal Honesty: She has no trouble speaking her mind. Her mother even chastises her for being too direct. Ashen Eyes actually likes this quality enough that he chooses to make a pact with her.
- Deadpan Snarker: Has her moments, specially towards the socially inexperienced Chise.
- Demonic Possession: Not by a "demon" exactly, but Cartaphilus isn't too off the mark. He pricked her while passing her on the street, injecting her with something that gave him the ability to control her body for a time, and had Chise make a deal with him in exchange for Stella's safe return home.
- Determinator: Even with her memories of him fading she doesn't give up on getting her brother back from Ashen Eye, and handles other magic or fae related troubles fairly well for a normal human child. When she meets Ashen Eye again she's even willing to threaten him despite fully knowing she doesn't really have the means to do anything.
- Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: Swears to find a way to make Ashen Eye regret it if he dares hurting someone else again. Ashen Eye, for his part, was impressed by this display of boldness, enough for him to decide to form a contract with her on the spot.
- Friendless Background: It's later revealed that she doesn't have any friends aside from Chise because of how straightforward she is. Ashen Eye teases her about it.
- Muggle Best Friend: One of the first friends Chise has made since living with Elias that he didn't introduce her to, and she doesn't even have the Sight. Unfortunately for her this made her the target of his jealousy, to the point he specifically wanted her to be the sacrifice needed to save Chise's life at the time.
- Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory: Initially she benefits from this. She realizes Ethan's disappearance is unnatural because no one else in her family remembers he exists. The longer he's missing, the less she can remember about him to the point she can't understand Chise when she tries to remind her what his name was.
- Wise Beyond Her Years: Chise initially assumed Stella was closer to her age and was rather surprised to hear she was getting social advice from a kid who hasn't even hit her teens yet.
David Purley
David Purley
Voiced by: Kenji Fukuda (Japanese), Aaron Roberts (English) Foreign VAs
Angelica's husband and Althea's father. A normal human.
- Early-Bird Cameo: Is glimpsed in Chapter 26 arriving home to spend Christmas with his family. He is formally introduced in Chapter 32.
- Happily Married: With Angelica, once she finally decided to give him the chance.
- Hunk: Rather muscular and handsome.
- Mayfly–December Romance: And he knows it, so he intends to make every minute count.
- Nice Guy: Nothing but pleasant and welcoming with Chise, showing her hospitality and worrying for her health.
- Perma-Stubble: Which serves to accentuate his face.
- Precocious Crush: He was just a kid when he fell for Angelica. It took him over a decade of courting, but she finally agreed to marry him.
Spoiler Character
Cartaphilus
The original Cartaphilus.
- Age Without Youth: By the time Josef finds him, he doesn't look much different from a corpse.
- Ain't Too Proud to Beg: He begs Josef for help, as he has no one else to turn to.
- Bandage Mummy: He looked like this after Josef treated him.
- Buried Alive: He was buried under a rockslide when he was found by Josef.
- The Faceless: We never get a good look of his face, which is probably for the best, since what little was glimpsed was not pretty.
- Fingore: His rotting, bone-exposing fingers are shown.
- The Fog of Ages: He didn't remember why he was cursed in the first place.
- Forced to Watch: His body prevented him from doing anything when Josef was being beaten by the villagers who forced their way into his home.
- Fusion Dance: At Josef's proposal, they perform one of these, giving birth to the current Cartaphilus.
- Immortality Hurts: He could only complain about his unending suffering.
- Walking Spoiler: His existence serves to explain the origins of the current Cartaphilus, and the motives behind his actions.
- Wandering Jew: The actual Wandering Jew, cursed to live forever for throwing stones at Jesus.
Lizbeth Sargant
Lizbeth Sargant
Voiced by: Sayuri Sadaoka (Japanese) Foreign VAs
Philomela’s grandmother, and head of House Sargant.
- Big Bad: The main orchestrator behind the incidents surrounding the College during the College Arc.
- Black Eyes of Evil: Her sclerae are pitch black.
- Conceive and Kill: All but stated to have killed her husband once Adam was born.
- Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: To Ashen Eye. Ashen Eye was an inhuman, monstrous threat while Lizbeth is a human antagonist in the College Arc. Additionally, Ashen Eye is Ambiguously Evil and does thing out of his own amusement but Lizbeth much more despicable in a humanized sense, being a Gruesome Grandparent who emotionally and physically abuses Philomela. Finally Ashen Eye was defeated by Elias towards the end of his story but neither Elias nor Chise lay hands on Lizbeth in her final moments because she gets tormented by the manifestation of her son's hatred, gets merged with the book's entity, and dies when one of the werewolf pups she kidnapped slays her.
- Evil Old Folks: One of the most despicable characters in the series, she uses her own granddaughter as a tool for her plans.
- Gruesome Grandparent: She is both emotionally and physically abusive towards Philomela. Nothing Philomela does is enough to please her, and Lizbeth tends to hit her and lock her up in a cell for any mistake.
- Karmic Death: She's killed by one of the werewolf pups she kidnapped from their parents to force them into servitude.
- Outliving One's Offspring: Her son Adam perished years before the start of the story.
- Seeks Another's Resurrection: Her goal is to bring her son, Adam, back to life.
- Terminal Transformation: Subverted. After the book's entity is banished it looks like she will die from the side effects of merging with the book, but she is killed by one of the pup werewolves she had kidnapped before she can succumb to them.
- Til Murder Do Us Part: She only married a man with a good lineage on the hope of having talented children. Once she had Adam, she disposed of him, as a heir was all she needed from him.
- Viler New Villain: Both Joseph and Ashen Eye from the previous arc were bad but Joseph was at least a Tragic Villain and Ashen Eye was like a force of nature with Blue-and-Orange Morality. Lizbeth, on the other hand, is purely despicable on a human level, being a Gruesome Grandparent to Philomela and showing practically no redeeming qualities. She does get a Freudian Excuse flashback but it's much weaker than Joseph's story and doesn't do much to humanize her considering she continues to show no remorse and act monstrously to the very end.
Fabio Zaccheroni
Fabio Zaccheroni
One of the alchemiststs residing in the Abandoned Hall.
- Ambiguously Brown: His name seems to indicate Italian heritage at least. He was also in Italy at some point during the past.
- Nominal Hero: He volunteers to look after the students who decide to accompany Chise and Elias to the Sargant manor in search of Philomela, because he would be rewarded for it.
- Recruiting the Criminal: While most of the people in the Abandoned Hall are criminals that agreed to work with the College already, Fabio in particular was asked to help teach the students during the lockdown. Under Wachmann's supervision, of course.
- Sadist Teacher: He is recruited to teach the students self-defense skills during the lockdown, and has a little too much fun manhandling them while doing so, doing things like holding Martin in the air with a Neck Lift, and forcing Rían and Chise into a sparring match with him.
- Sunglasses at Night: He is always wearing his sunglasses, even though he spends most of his time in a dimly lit underground facility.
Felicia
Felicia
A young girl born with the sight. Featured in the short story Pyrite Knight.- Action Survivor: She is thrust upon a dangerous situation one night, but manages to handle herself well, and succeeds in her objective of getting the crystal home.
- Chronic Hero Syndrome: Can't bring herself to just abandon the crystal begging for help to return home, despite the fact that it attracts dangerous creatures to her, and she would face no consequences by just abandoning it.
- Girlish Pigtails: Girls her hair like this, with both pigtails in the back of her head.
- Like Brother and Sister: She thinks to herself that Lewis is like a protective older brother to her.
- Missing Mom: Her mother died years before the series began, but Felicia still remembers her fondly.
- Muggle Best Friend: Alma is this for her.
- Pocket Protector: The reason she survives her Taking the Bullet moment. The arm of the apparition ends up hitting her brooch, which splits in half. Unfortunately, this makes Lewis incapable of manifesting anymore.
- Taking the Bullet: After successfully getting the crystal back home, one last apparition appears and attempts to take take the crystals. Felicia puts herself between the crystals, and the fast-moving arm of the apparition, and ends up knocked unconscious.
- Tragic Keepsake: The brooch with pyrite stones embedded in it. It was a gift from her mother, who in turn had received it from her mother. It's also Lewis's true form.
Posthumous Characters
Chika Hatori
Chika Hatori
Voiced by: Kikuko Inoue (Japanese), Rachel Michelle Thompson (English) Foreign VAs
Chise's mother, who committed suicide around ten years before the series began.
- Ambiguously Human: She has the same red hair and green eyes that Chise inherited, which is already noted as being a statistical improbability despite their implied mixed heritage. Chapter 42 also gives hints that she may have had gone through the same things as Chise did when she was younger, thus implying she may have been a Sleigh Beggy as well or something similar.
- Break the Cutie: She basically underwent what could be considered a bullying campaign by the Japanese entities. The stress of it, and trying to maintain a household led her to be easily manipulated into almost killing Chise. This was the final straw, and she was Driven to Suicide.
- Driven to Suicide: The entities of Japan basically bullied Chika into this by calling her a forsaken woman after her husband left her, and then something manipulated her into trying to kill Chise. Thus she decided to take her own life by throwing herself off of their apartment balcony in a self inflicted Redemption Equals Death.
- Easily Forgiven: Averted. After being shown the truth of her mother's suicide, Chise admits she still loves her but won't forgive her actions.
- Hikkikomori: Downplayed and Justified, due to her and Chise's nature, which attracted the Japanese neighbors, both could barely leave their apartment without Yuuki's presence, to the point that it was treated as a red-letter day when she could go grocery shopping on her own. When Yuuki leaves them, forcing Chika to work, the neighbors hound her near constantly and slowly drive her mad.
- Mama Bear: When a creature tried to eat Chise in the middle of the night, she overcame her exhaustion, grabbed a kitchen knife, and practically cut the thing in two.
- Moment of Weakness: Her attempt to strangle Chise was this, since it was caused by the emotional stress of her situation, and the manipulation of a malevolent entity. After realizing what she just tried to do, and having a My God, What Have I Done? moment, she committed suicide.
- Troubled Abuser: Chise's most vivid memory of Chika is when she tried to strangle Chise while saying she never should have given birth to her. Later flashbacks reveal that Chika was actually a very loving mother at one point, but the constant turmoil of dealing with malevolent supernatural creatures that tried to manipulate her, along with her husband and son's sudden disappearance, and her inability to hold down a steady job afterwards, eventually drove her to attempt to kill her own daughter and later succeed in killing herself.
- Walking Spoiler: Considering her suicide and the reasons behind it are at the core of Chise's character, this is not surprising.
- Why Do You Keep Changing Jobs?: Played for Drama, the constant harassment from the entities made it difficult for Chika to hold a steady job, and her constant changing of jobs made her seem unreliable to employers after a while, making it hard for her to find employment.
- You Should Have Died Instead: Utters the "never should have had you" variation while trying to strangle Chise, but it turns out that she was being manipulated by...something.
Mina
Mina
Matthew's wife.
- Delicate and Sickly: She has been sickly since she was born, confining her to bed most of her life.
- Fate Worse than Death: She becomes the very core of the impurity that came to be because of the actions of her husband.
- Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Blonde, affectionate towards her husband and cat, and always with a warm smile on her face, in spite of her fragile body.
- Happily Married: She was openly affectionate with her husband, Matthew.
- I Cannot Self-Terminate: She begs Chise to erase her and the rest of the impurity, since they've been trapped for centuries, with no end in sight.
- I'm Melting!: The "medicine" that Joseph forces her to drink has this effect on her.
- Kindhearted Cat Lover: In great contrast with her husband, she is shown to have been a loving owner to their cat, Tim.
- Power Makes Your Hair Grow: For some reason, her hair as the center of the impurity is much longer than it was during her life.
- Together in Death: With Matthew, thanks to Chise.
Matthew
Matthew
The man responsible for massacring cats in Ulthar. Hundreds of years later, his unresting soul is putting everyone at risk.
- Devoured by the Horde: Every last bit of him was devoured by the surviving cats.
- Fate Worse than Death: His soul was bound to an island, and merged with the souls of the slaughtered cats to become a mass of corruption and hate.
- Happily Married: He was so in love with his wife, Mina, that the loss of her did a number on him, mentally and emotionally.
- Love Makes You Crazy: His willingness to do anything to save Mina is what led him down his dark path.
- Mind Control: Its implied that Joseph did something to him that made him more susceptible to manipulation.
- Single-Target Sexuality: Everyone in town knew he only had eyes for Mina, and found the idea of him having an affair ridiculous.
- Unwitting Pawn: In his desperation to save Mina, they both become the subjects of Joseph's horrific experiments.
Isabel
Isabel
Ruth's original owner.
- All of the Other Reindeer: She was bullied because of her red hair and green eyes.
- Desecrating the Dead: Courtesy of Cartaphilus, who uses her head for one of his chimeras.
- Dying as Yourself: After Ruth manages to mortally injure the chimera, Isabel briefly regains control and pats his head.
- Identical Stranger: Subverted. Ruth claims that Chise and Isabel look very much alike, but once Chise gets a look at her through Ruth's memories, she realizes that, other than their hair color, they look nothing alike.
- Single Tear: Which Ruth licks away.
Adam Sargant
Adam Sargant
Philomela's father.- Hates Their Parent: According to him, Lizbeth only saw him as an extension of herself, and was obsessed with him due to being her only son. It's telling that he preferred death rather than being back under her thumb.
- I Die Free: In the end, he chose to end his own life rather than come back to Lizbeth's house.
- Love at First Punch: Fell in love with Iris when she headbutted him and refused to submit as his test subject.
- Trophy Child: To Lizbeth, he was the living embodiment of her dutifulness, as she was able to produce a proper heir for her house, despite her advanced age.
Iris
Iris
Philomela's mother.
- Hesitant Sacrifice: As she lays dying, she thinks to herself that despite all the hardships of her life, she did not want to die.
- Made a Slave: Her own parents sold her to the Sargant House, to be used as a test subject for their heir.
- Mama Bear: Uses a gun to protect Philomela from Lizbeth's men, who came to take Philomela to her grandmother's house.
- Multiple Gunshot Death: How she meets her end at the hands of Lizbeth's henchmen. It backfires on them, since she lives long enough to use Adam's hexcraft on them, replicating her injuries on them.
- Senseless Sacrifice: Despite her efforts, Philomela is ultimately taken to Lizbeth's house after her death.
- Taking You with Me: After being shot, she uses her last moments to perform mirror-class hexcraft on Lizbeth's henchmen, making at least some of them suffer and die with her.
Silky's former mistress
Silky's former mistress
A woman who lived in Elias's home some time before he moved there. Featured in the short story Rainbow Day, Feast Day.- Empty Nest: She suffers from this, being a widow whose son has recently left for college. Part of her motivation in the story is finding something to do with her time.
- The Mourning After: She is a widow during the time of Silky's flashback. When her husband was in his deathbed, she promised that she would make a feast for his next birthday. Unfortunately, he died before then, so she decided to honor his memory with a feast every year on his birthday. Eventually, she decided that one day a year wasn't good enough, so she started to cook a feast anytime his favorite type of day, windy, with a rainbow in the sky, occurred.
- No Name Given: Her name is not revealed during the short story.
- Older Than They Look: Well into her forties during the time of Silky's flashback, but could easily pass for a woman in her twenties.
- Supreme Chef: Silky learned a lot by watching her cook.
- Thinking Out Loud: Was prone to this, which allowed for some communication between her and Silky.
- Walking the Earth: She traveled to other countries in order to learn new recipes, so she could make every feast for her husband better than the last.
Ashley
Ashley
Alex's younger sister. Featured in the short story Defender and Ash.- Magic Staff: Has a long wand, with a white finish and a red crystal at the tip.
- My Greatest Failure: Deeply regrets abandoning her sister to go learn magic with the Black Widow.
- My Greatest Second Chance: Decides to risk her life to go save the soul of a woman from a cursed marsh, as said woman's younger sister had sent a letter to Ashley begging her to do it. She feels like she has to do it, since she had abandoned her own older sister in the past. Unfortunately, the letter was actually sent by Alex, who wanted Ashley to fail in conquering the marsh, like Alex had earlier.
- Your Soul Is Mine!: This was her fate. Alex decided to do everything in her power to save her soul from the marsh.
