Thessa Foleer
Thessa Foleer is a siliceer prodigy trained by Master Kastora in the Grent Royal Glassworks. She is a also sorcery-aphasiac, which allows her to work long hours with godglass since its sorcery does not affect her. Thessa is a native Ossan, but she was sent to Grent as an apprentice when she was young. Not long after, her family was killed in the massacre at Holikan, making her an orphan. This isolated her, and though Master Kastora stepped in to act as a sort of parental figure to her, she often feels lonely, especially during festivals. Thessa is also an experienced falconer with the scars to prove it. Her falcon Ekhi was the last present she received from her family before they were killed.
Thessa is tall and in her early twenties with blond hair, white skin, and many siliceer's scars on her arms that mark her experience in the furnaces.
STORY
At the Grent Royal Glassworks, Thessa Foleer wakes up from recurring nightmares of a city burning and people dying. Due to the Winter Solstice celebrations in Grent, she feels particularly lonely, and to curb those feelings, she sleeps with a young apprentice named Palua, though she regrets the impulsiveness of the decision. Getting out of bed very early, she checks on Ekhi, who seems agitated by something. Noticing that the glassworks furnaces are not yet lit, she wakes up Axio Darnasus, and he asks Thessa about going to the festival with him, but she says that she would think about it. On her way back to the dormitory, she notices a light on in Master Kastora's office, so she goes in. He tells her about his secret phoenix channel he built with Adriana Grappo. He tells Thessa it works, having recharged one piece of forgeglass, and their invetion should revolutionize the world's use of sorcery.
When, they both hear loud booms in the distance, Thessa believes it is simply lightning from the Forge or Winter Solstice celebrations. However, Master Kastora goes to the gatehouse to wake up Captain Jero to inform her that the glassworks is under attack. Jero finds Grent soldiers asking to come in at the front gate. However, they turn out to be Ossan soldiers dressed in Grent uniforms who have come to capture the glassworks' siliceers. They kill Jero and break through the door.
Thessa runs and finds Axio, telling him to wake the other apprentices and get them out of the glassworks, including Palua who is still in her bed. She goes back to Master Kastora's office and finds that he has set fire to his workshop to prevent anyone from getting his designs and inventions. He also leaves the phoenix channel prototype to the flames because it is too heavy to carry. He gives Thessa his phoenix channel schematics and orders her to escape to Ossa and find Adriana at the Hyacinth Hotel. She runs into a soldier, but Ekhi flies at his face, scratching it and giving Thessa to run. However, the soldier shoots Ekhi. Axio then steps in to face the soldier, buying time for Thessa to escape.
On the way to Ossa, Thessa meets another Grent refugee named Serres and helps his family get their cart unstuck from some mud. She lies to him about her identity, giving the name Teala instead. Their small caravan gets stopped by an Ossan military roadblock and are accused of being Grent spies. Serres is wounded, and the Ossans capture every able-bodied person to work in the Ossan Navy. Thessa shows them her siliceer's scars to prove that she is more valuable a hostage, hoping they would instead ransom her to Adriana. However, they inform her that Adriana is dead, which is the reason for the war, and send Thessa to the Ivory Forest Glassworks.
Meanwhile, Demir Grappo goes to the Grent Royal Glassworks with Idrian Sepulki to save Master Kastora, but they find him dying from a bayonet wound. Master Kastora tells them about the phoenix channel and asks that they find Thessa on the road to Ossa, so she can build them another prototype. Idrian sends Master Kastora's destroyed prototype to the Hyacinth Hotel, and Demir finds a wounded Ekhi and brings the bird back with him to the hotel, wondering if it is Thessa's.
At the Ivory Forest Glassworks, the Magna have many incarcerated siliceers that they force into fulfilling godglass quotas for the Ossan government. There, Thessa reunites with Axio, who tells her he lied to the guards about being a siliceer apprentice in order to get better treatment even though he does not know how to forge godglass. Thessa agrees to teach him so he won't be sent to the Magna lumber camp. Thessa also meets Filur Magna, who confiscates the phoenix channel schematics from her, though he does not know what they are. Thessa commits to escaping the labor camp, no matter the cost.
In Ossa, Demir asks Baby Montego to help him find Thessa, who finds out that a woman matching her description was seen walking alone north out of Grent. To confirm it is Thessa, Demir asks his ex-spymaster Duala Jaass about that woman's whereabouts. Duala explains that this woman named Teala ended up in the Ivory Forest Glassworks labor camp, which is owned by the Magna, who like to keep its shares in the family. Demir assumes it might be Thessa going under an alias, so he finds a way to get shares of the glassworks by conning Ulina Magna. He also has a secret compartment made inside one of his carriages in order to smuggle a person past certain checkpoints.
While working to fulfill quotas both for herself and Axio, Thessa keeps an eye out for ways to get back the phoenix channel schematics and escape. When a laborer's hand gets stuck under a wagon wheel, Thessa is the only one to help her. The laborer, whose name is Pari, repays Thessa by telling her that Crastman Magna likely has her belongings in his office and that he is a devoted Rennite.
Demir and Montego go the Ivory Forest Glassworks, and Craftsman Magna reluctantly gives Demir a tour. Demir sees Thessa and pretends to find her physically alluring in order to get closer to her. He engages her in a conversation before slipping a razorglass craftsman's knife and a note into her workstation tray. Thessa finds him obnoxious and insulting but then sees his Grappo family sigil on his hand. Demir winks at her and points to her work tray when no one is looking. After Demir and Craftsman Magna leave, Thessa collects the knife and the note, which reads, "For emergencies only! Hold tight. Escape in the planning." Axio informs her of who Demir Grappo, and explains that he recently won shares of the glassworks gambling. Hoping his behavior was only an act to enact the escape plan, Thessa suddenly feels relief and hope that she and Axio will soon be able to flee the labor camp.
Realizing she must quickly find the phoenix channel schematics, Thessa pretends to be a Rennite in order to trick Craftsman Magna. He falls for her ruse and brings her to his office where she can pray to Renn at his personal shrine. While there, she studies the room and finds a safe. Craftsman Magna tells her that if she keeps up on her quotas and stays out of trouble, she might be able to come worship at his shrine on weekends. That night, Thessa breaks into his office using the razorglass knife. She cuts through the safe and finds both the schematics and ledgers detailing Craftsman Magna's illegal godglass shipments, under-the-table sales, and illegitimate trading. Hoping to use the information later, she memorizes the ledgers before destroying them. Meanwhile, to learn more about Thessa, Craftsman Magna interrogates Axio that night with shackleglass and beatings.
The next morning, Thessa finds Axio missing but is promptly escorted to Furnace Number Nine by Magna enforcers. There, she finds Axio injured and still ensnared by the shackleglass's sorcery. Craftsman Magna informs her that he now knows that she is Master Kastora's protégé. He orders her to make illegal fearglass for him, but she refuses. He tells her that Master Kastora is dead and asks her what the schematics are. She once again refuses, so Craftsman Magna burns Axio with molten fearglass. Unable to bear the pain, Axio rips at his own skin before dying horribly, begging Thessa for help.
Demir arrives soon after and kills Craftsman Magna's enforcers and tries to bargain with him to let Thessa go, saying he and Baby Montego will kill every enforcer in the compound if necessary. Instead of making a deal, Craftsman Magna throws the bit iron with molten fearglass at Demir, so Thessa shoves him, and he trips over Axio's body toward the furnace. Thessa immediately shoves him into the furnace before slamming the door behind him, burning him alive. Turning to Demir, she realizes he has been burned by fearglass. She helps him get a piece of skyglass out of his pocket to calm him long enough to tell her to get Montego, who sets fire to Furnace Number Nine in order to hide evidence of Thessa's crime before picking both of them up and causing a commotion about an accident to distract the Magna enforcers. He then slips away with Thessa over his shoulder under a tarpaulin and Demir in his arms.
Montego takes them to Wagonside, where Thessa takes control of the small Prosotsi glassworks there. In order to save Demir's life, Thessa spends all day and night at the furnace, crafting a high-resonance piece of braided godglass from witglass, cureglass, shackleglass, and museglass. It takes her several dozen tries and twenty straight hours to get the resonance just right and then uses the braided godglass to bring him back from the brink of madness caused by the fearglass. After ensuring he has been saved, Thessa falls asleep next to him on the workbench.
The next day, Jona Prosotsi explains to Demir that Thessa's piece of braided godglass is beyond masterwork, and that she accomplished in twenty hours what would take most master siliceers weeks. Meanwhile, Thessa lights candles in Wagonside's omnichapel before the death god Kloor in memory Master Kastora and Axio. She also lights one for Renn as a gesture of thanks, though she does not exactly believe in the deity. Demir finds Thessa there and properly introduces himself to her before thanking her for saving his life. He then asks her about working with him to invent a working phoenix channel, just like his mother partnered with Master Kastora. He tells her they will be equal partners, a generous offer that no siliceer truly enjoys when dealing with a wealth guild-family patron. After hearing that Demir would use the phoenix channel to help improve the lives of those around him, Thessa agrees, happy to have found someone to fund her dreams for seeing Master Kastora's design come to life. She briefly wonders if Renn had any hand it, now doubting her own doubt of the deity's influence. Demir reminds Thessa that their project may endanger her life, but she agrees to take the risk, and they shake hands as partners.
Back in Ossa, Demir sets up Thessa at the Hyacinth Hotel's small glassworks workshop, and she looks over the contract that outlines their fifty-fifty partnership. When a ruckus outside of the hotel draws her attention, Tirana Kirkovik explains that the city's laborers are rioting in the Assembly District over the tripling of low-resonance forgeglass prices. Worried that Demir might kill the rioters, Thessa finds him keeping rioters away from the hotel by threatening to use his glassdancer egg. She tells him she does not want him to kill anyone, and he insists he does not intend to, only to give them a warning. Demir tries to reason with the rioters but draws a blank, and the Cinders arrive, ready to kill the workers. Demir stands up to them, threatening to use his sorcery. To prevent violence, Thessa asks Breenen Alvari to get all the hotel's forgeglass reserves, which she gives to the laborers to stop the riot. Thessa realizes how important her phoenix channel will be in reestablishing the stability of the world. As she gets to work, she hears the cry of a falcon.
After guarding the hotel for the rest of the day against more rioters, Demir finds Thessa in the mews with Ekhi around midnight. She tells him that Ekhi was her family's last present to her before they died. She then apologizes for giving away all of the Grappo's forgeglass but praises him for standing up to the Cinders on behalf of the workers. Demir responds by saying the move might have made him some enemies, but one of the union bosses asked to become a Grappo client, so he has also gained allies. The two of them bond over talking about their dead families, which makes them both orphans, and Thessa realizes that her business contract between them is now the closest relationship she has. Thessa confesses that she believes Demir is not a monstrous glassdancer like he believes he is, and she invites him to her suite to share a bottle of wine to celebrate their partnership. On their way to the wine cellar, Breenen interrupts them, informing Demir that the Cinders have come to take him away. Worried about being arrested for his defiance during the riot, he tells Breenen to wake Montego if he is not back in a few hours and apologizes to Thessa, telling her they will share the wine another time.
Thessa waits in her suite for several hours, thinking about the new luxuries she enjoys as a Grappo client and about Master Kastora and Craftsman Magna. She tries to distract herself with work, only to be interrupted by Demir knocking at her door, returning from his visit to the Inner Assembly. Since he is acting strangely, she asks if she was too forward in asking him up to her suite for wine, but he insists that sex is not awkward. What is awkward is that they have entered a partnership, but he is about to take control of the Ossan military at the request of the Inner Assembly and attack Grent, a place she lived for many years. She explains Grent is her adopted country, but she is actually Ossan, and she considers the phoenix channel more important than her allegiance to Grent. He then tells her he might die in battle, and he kisses her for luck. She kisses him back and tells him that they will split the bottle of wine when he returns alive. As he leaves, he asks how her family died, and she explains that they died in the sack of Holikan. Demir's demeanor changes slightly as he realizes his largest career mistake killed her family, and knowing this revelation will likely kill their personal and business relationship, he leaves without saying anything. Not understanding Demir's expression, Thessa ignores it and revels in her newfound connection with Demir.
While Demir is gone, Breenen helps Thessa with the craftsmen she commissions to help her build pieces of the phoenix channel. He informs her that his lasting legacy will be to ensure the Grappo family's survival. He then arranges a carriage to take her to the Lampshade Boardwalk to shop for some more supplies. While there, she finds a book called Taming Nature: The Future of Modern Architecture by Sumala Volos which helps gives her the idea to use lightning as the phoenix channel's energy source. On her way out, she is accosted by a man named Temmen, who recognizes her as an escaped siliceer from the Ivory Forest Glassworks. Forcing her into an alley with a knife, he tells her he plans to hand her over to the Magna in exchange for money, but Pari appears and kills Temmen, saying she did not want to see Thessa imprisoned again. They escape into the Grappo carriage, and Thessa offers Pari a job as her assistant, knowing she needed someone trustworthy. Pari refuses at first, saying no one from the Slag has ever made anything of themselves, and Thessa insists that she be the first. She gives Pari money to go fix her broken hand at a healinghouse and tells her to come to the Hyacinth Hotel the following day.
At the hotel, Thessa shares her work on the phoenix channel with Pari. When she gets a lightning rod package from Volos Incorporated, she realizes that Pari cannot read. Almost regretting her decision due to Pari's lack of education, Thessa commits to getting Pari some tutors to teach her to read and do mathematics. They work all day, and around midnight, Thessa goes to the mews to visit Ekhi again. While there, she wonders how she will find lightning to harness with her new lightning rod and whether or not it was fair for her to endanger the hotel staff with her experiments. She discusses the problem with Pari before retiring for the night, only to find her suite ransacked and the night porter dead with a knife in his back. She runs to Montego's room, struggling to wake him as he had been drugged. Through the window, she sees several people she does not recognize dressed in Grappo livery packing up her things in her workshop. After slapping Montego awake, she tells him about the infiltrators and the dead porter. He tells her to not look out the window and leaves with his cudgel. She hears screaming as Montego kills the thieves, and eventually Grappo enforcers take control of the situation. Montego explains that the thieves were Dorlani agents who were ordered to steal Thessa's work. Thessa returns to her room, and Pari insists that she will not quit, despite the violence of the evening's events. To distract her mind from the events, Thessa picks up Professor Volos' book, lamenting that she has no source of frequent lightning strikes, but Pari reminds her of the Forge, a cliff formation where thunderstorms regularly occurr.
Thessa goes to the Forge with Pari and Tirana to scout the location before deciding to move their project there, disregarding any danger. She finishes the phoenix channel and transports it to the Forge with Tirana and a dozen enforcers, setting up the device to harness lightning. Demir returns to the hotel while she is gone and talks to Breenen about her whereabouts at the Forge. He tells Breenen he must fight Devia Kerite head on in an upcoming battle, and he might not survive. He then sends Breenen to the Forge with more enforcers to help guard Thessa before receiving a report informing him that Kerite and her Grent forces are headed at Harbortown, a city very close to the Forge, Thessa, and her experiment.
Breenen catches up with Thessa, Tirana, and Pari on their way to the Forge, but as they make their way up to the clifftop, one of the Grappo enforces named Justaci falls to her death. Tirana confides in Thessa that she suspects that Justaci's death was no accident, especially since Justaci had recently reported finding an open door in the basement the night of the Dorlani attack at the Hyacinth Hotel. They agree to keep an eye out for further treachery. After setting up their equipment, Thessa receives a message from Demir delivered by Fenny that informs her of the looming battle near Harbortown. Recognizing Fenny as a member of the Ironhorn Rams, whose famous Breacher was a long-time client of the Grent Royal Glassworks, Thessa asks Fenny to take her to Demir.
In Demir's army tent, Thessa explains her upcoming plan to harness lightning, and he tells her that he will likely lose the battle against Kerite and that she should be careful not to draw attention to herself up at the Forge. He trusts her enough to not tell her evacuate immediately, though he has his doubts about her safety, and she insists that they are so close to a real breakthrough with the phoenix channel, so she will take the risk. She then asks Demir if she could take an hour more of his time, but he rebuffs her, still feeling guilt about his secret past, and she asks him about his evasiveness. Unwilling to lie to her anymore, he tells her about his military campaign as the Lightning Prince, putting down the Holikan provincial rebellion in nine days, and that the city was sacked at his command. Thessa accuses him of butchering her family, and she flees the tent, not allowing him to explain that he recently discovered Capric Vorcien had ordered the massacre of the city.
Thessa purposefully finds Idrian, who remembers her from the two times she helped Master Kastora with his godglass eye. She asks him if he was at Holikan and about Demir's role. He confesses that Demir was ordered to destroy the city by the Assembly, but he refused, sparing both the city and the Holikan mayor who led the uprising. Unfortunately, minutes after he gave the order, the army marched on the city under false orders. Demir tried to stop them but was one man against an army and suffered a mental breakdown, and Idrian found him the next morning cradling the body of a dead little girl he had tried to save. Idrian then explains that Demir immediately resigned his commission and disappeared into the the provinces, only returning because his mother died. Idrian confirms to Thessa that Demir is no butcher, and she realizes her mistake.
She returns to Demir's tent and apologizes. Demir informs her that he already tried to duel Capric for his betrayal, but the Cinders stopped the fight. He swears to her that Capric would not go unpunished, and she states that she will reserve her hatred for Capric. He tells her he would release her from their contract if she desired, but she insists on keeping it intact. To show her sincerity, she hugs Demir and cries into his shoulder. He feels the weight of his mistakes lessen, and he realizes how much he values her friendship.
Back at the Forge, Thessa is approached by Tirana, who found a flare hidden behind a boulder that showed the Grent army their location. Thessa realizes they have been betrayed and advises Tirana to find someone with flare residue on their hands. Tirana searches amongst the ranks of her enforcers before discovering Kempt, who denies their accusations. After arresting Kempt, Tirana asks Breenen for shackleglass to use in an interrogation, but he states he left it at the hotel. Soon after, a company of Kerite's Drakes arrive at the Forge led by Captain Hellonian, who orders Thessa and her party to surrender into their custody. She refuses, but when Captain Hellonian shows his Glass Knife tattoo, Breenen and his loyal followers turn on Thessa and Tirana, killing and wounding several Grappo enforcers in the scuffle. Thessa, Pari, and Tirana are captured, tied up, and imprisoned in the abandoned lighthouse with the phoenix channel. Breenen explains to Captain Hellonian that he has an agreement with Kerite, where she would spare Demir's life during the upcoming battle if Breenen turned over the phoenix channel to the Glass Knife.
Hoping to distract Breenen by enraging him, Thessa accuses Breenen of betraying Demir, but Breenen reassures her, he only did it to ensure the Grappo guild-family's survival. Meanwhile, she kicks away the grounding cables from the phoenix channel. Breenen discovers what she has done just as Tirana cuts through her bonds with a knife and kills a nearby dragoon. Breenen draws a pistol, but Thessa claims she would rather throw the phoenix channel into the ocean than give it to the Glass Knife. As thunder rumbles overhead, Thessa gets an idea and kicks the phoenix channel, pointing it through the door at the dragoons stationed outside. Breenen shoots both Thessa and Tirana, drawing the attention of Captain Hellonian. However, a bolt of lightning hits the lightning rod and enters the phoenix channel, converting the electricity into a beam of light that disintegrates the captain and his dragoons in a flash of light.
Through the pain of her gunshot wound, Thessa realizes Pari and Tirana are crouched over her, trying to force cureglass between her teeth. She shouts that she is sorcery-aphasiac, so she needs a surgeon instead. As they drag her to her feet, she learns that Breenen and his enforcers stole the phoenix channel. Then she asks if the phoenix channel worked, and Pari shows her a packet full of recharged godglass. Thessa vows to hunt down the traitors with Tirana and skin them alive.
