The Fragile Threads of Power

Content Warning: This section of the guide briefly mentions violence, torture, and anti-gay bias.

Kosika is a resident of White London and one of the novel’s point-of-view characters. Her name means “little queen.” She is 14 in the novel’s present and serves as the child queen. Physically, she is not especially striking: “[S]he looked like she was caught between, neither here nor there. Her hair, which was neither blond nor brown. Her eyes, which were neither green nor grey nor blue” (2). She is an Antari and the most powerful magician in White London, though she was raised in a poor neighborhood and was a thief as a child. She is estranged from her mother, who tried to sell her into slavery and to profit off her queenship.

Throughout the novel, Kosika struggles to understand her role as queen and to establish magic in White London. She sometimes feels burdened by her power, telling Lark, “I wish [it] were a cloak or crown […] Something I could shed” (438). She finds new purpose in the appearance of Holland’s ghost and idolizes him as her saint. Though Holland’s motives are murky, Kosika is still young and naive enough to take him at his word.