Character guide

Julia

major

Also known as lady Julia, the defenceless Julia, The lady Julia

Ardent, quick to weep and quick to forgive, this younger daughter of Mazzini turns her dangerous sensibility into the courage to defy a tyrannical father.

Ferdinand

major

Also known as young Ferdinand

The marquis's son, raised amid Neapolitan splendour but loyal to the sisters he barely knows, becomes the one ally a hunted girl can trust.

Hippolitus de Vereza

major

Also known as the young Count Hippolitus de Vereza, the Count de Vereza, Vereza, the Count Vereza

A young count whose passion for Julia collides with the marquis's plans, he must weigh a lover's boldness against a nobleman's obedience.

Madame de Menon

supporting

Also known as Madame

A widowed gentlewoman whose own sorrows have softened rather than hardened her, she guards her two charges with maternal devotion and quiet wisdom.

Emilia

supporting

Also known as Dear Emilia

The elder sister, mild where Julia is fiery, her steady affection and clear mind make her the counterweight to a household tilting toward cruelty.

The Padre Abate

supporting

Also known as the Abate, The Abate

A clergyman whose vows sit lightly on him, he trades spiritual authority for the marquis's favour and becomes the instrument of a young woman's persecution.

Cornelia

supporting

Cornelia belongs to the buried history of Mazzini, one of those quiet figures whose fate the castle seems to remember even when its inhabitants do not. Her story is bound up with the marquis's first marriage and the grief that settled over the family after Louisa Bernini's early death. For Julia and Emilia, she is less a person than an inheritance of sadness — a hint that the castle's gloom has roots deeper than their own misfortunes.

Maria de Vellorno

supporting

Also known as Maria

As the marquis's second wife, Maria de Vellorno is everything the gentle Louisa was not: vain, volatile, and skilled at bending her husband's violent temper to her own ends. She has no interest in domestic life or in her stepdaughters, preferring the splendours of Naples to the solemn halls of Mazzini. Her concealed influence over the marquis — he believes himself most free when he is most enslaved — makes her a quiet engine of the family's growing coldness and a source of unease for the sisters she ignores.

Louisa Bernini

supporting

Also known as Louisa de Bernini, de Bernini

Louisa Bernini, second daughter of the Count della Salario, brought to Mazzini the mildness her husband's imperious nature could not tolerate. Her marriage to the marquis produced a son and two daughters, but his arrogance and unkindness wore away at her susceptible spirit, and many believed his cruelty shortened her life. Though she dies in her children's early childhood, her disposition lives on in Emilia and shapes the emotional inheritance of the entire family.

Marquis Mazzini

major

Also known as the noble Mazzini, the Marquis de Mazzini, Marquis de Mazzini

Ferdinand, fifth marquis of Mazzini, is a man of vehement passions and overbearing pride, more concerned with appearances than with the daughters he leaves to a governess's care. He abandons the castle for the gaieties of Naples, paying only annual visits to dictate his children's education as a matter of pride rather than affection. Yet for all his tyranny, he is himself governed by Maria de Vellorno, who bends his passions to her purpose while he imagines himself most independent — a contradiction that makes him both the family's oppressor and its dupe.

Angelo

minor

A servant of the Marquis, often involved in carrying out orders.

The Duke de Luovo

supporting

Also known as de Luovo

The Duke de Luovo moves through the world of Sicilian nobility with the weight of wealth and title behind him, a man whose interests inevitably collide with those of the Mazzini family. His presence raises the stakes of every alliance and refusal, turning courtship and marriage into matters of power rather than affection. For Julia and Emilia, he represents the kind of external force that can shatter a young woman's future with a single demand — and the reason the castle's walls begin to feel less like a home than a cage.

Peter

minor

A loyal servant of the Mazzini household who aids the young lovers.

Robert

minor

A faithful servant who assists Ferdinand in his adventures.

Caterina

minor

A servant in the castle who provides information to the main characters.

Riccardo

minor

A servant of the Marquis, sometimes involved in villainous schemes.

Orlando

minor

A servant who aids the escape of one of the characters.

Nicolo

minor

A servant of the della Campo family.

Henry della Campo

minor

Also known as della Campo

A young nobleman and friend of Ferdinand.

Anthony

minor

A servant who delivers messages for the Marquis.

The Chevalier de Menon

minor

Madame de Menon's husband, a French nobleman with a mysterious past.

Baptista

minor

A servant who guards the castle's secret passages.

The Marquis Marinelli

minor

A nobleman who appears briefly in the story's political intrigues.

The Cavalier de Vincini

minor

Also known as de Vincini

A minor nobleman who interacts with the main characters.