Character · from book 2

Tsarina Signet

A level-60 Elite of the Over City — half naiad, half high elf, naked but for a thong and a skin of living tattoos that are her Blood-Magic battle squad. Star of the scripted drama Vengeance of the Daughter; runaway to Grimaldi's circus; the bastard daughter of a high-elf king with business on the Hunting Grounds. She tries to bleed Carl for a spell before she trusts him.

Race and class, since book 2: Half Naiad, Half High-Elf · Summoner

First appears: Book 2

Series arc

As of book 5. The half-naiad summoner of the second floor's circus, taken from the sixth as a child and sent back to it by a production company to kill her sister. Book 5 gives her the assault on her mother's palace with paper monsters, a teacher and a boy inked onto her skin, and a truth: Carl tells her on a log who controls her world, Apito's guest list brings her to the party, and an empress tells her that her mother and her fallen family were never real. She casts Ink Marauder alone — caster, sacrifice and killer — and breaks a goddess's seal by her own hand: 'You tell them I did this out of my own free will.' The Nothing takes her. Two of her tattoos live; her mother's incomplete golem is in Carl's inventory; 'Protect your family, and watch over mine.'

Open threads

Status is open or resolved; the chapter after it is the last one that moved the thread.

Thread	Opened	Status
The Vengeance of the Daughter contract for the sixth floor	B2 ch. 11	resolved · B5 ch. 76 — Signet assaulted Fort Freedom and then died at the masquerade by her own hand; 'Quest Complete. The Vengeance of the Daughter' in the pit.
What Signet left: two living tattoos and her mother's body	B5 ch. 75	resolved · B7 ch. 84 — Answered: Princess Lunette's body, Signet's mother's, gave Louis its heart and lungs; Nadine and young Clint, the two it was opened on, are alive among the children, Clint now a flesh golem.

All threads: Open threads.

Through book 2

The first Elite the series spends time with, and the first serial Carl signs on to. Her arc on the third floor is complete — charmed, kidnapped, sacrificed-for, reconciled (B2 ch. 6–B2 ch. 11) — and continues without him on the Hunting Grounds, where his contract says they will meet again.

Through book 4

A glass half-naiad in a fountain, very like her, reminds Carl of her (B4 ch. 21); her storyline is one of Katia's reasons for leaving (B4 ch. 33).

Through book 5

Back at level 60 with a transfigured people and a quest double-billed onto Carl (B5 ch. 13, B5 ch. 14); her mother's palace taken with paper monsters (B5 ch. 25–B5 ch. 28); a teacher inked on her skin (B5 ch. 29). Not autonomous — she goes where the showrunners send her (B5 ch. 16) — until Carl tells her the truth on a log (B5 ch. 63), Apito invites her to the party (B5 ch. 67), and an empress tells her that her family was never real (B5 ch. 73). She casts Ink Marauder alone, as caster, sacrifice and killer: 'You tell them I did this out of my own free will' (B5 ch. 74). The Nothing takes her; two of her tattoos are alive forever.

Left behind: Nadine and young Clint, given flesh; her mother's incomplete golem; 'Protect your family, and watch over mine.'

Through book 6

Her mother's body on the asphalt for a spider who cannot fill it (B6 ch. 26).

Through book 7

A dead crawler's storyline demanded for a third season (B7 ch. 1); her mother's heart in Louis (B7 ch. 84).

Where they appear

Book	Chapters they are in (of the book's)	Where
2 — Carl's Doomsday Scenario	10/26	6–13, 17, 25 · the book's own page
4 — The Gate of the Feral Gods	2/35	Ch. 21, Ch. 33 · the book's own page
5 — The Butcher's Masquerade	30/78	13–17, 24–26, 28–29, 36, 39–40, 51, 55, 57, 63–70, 72–77 · the book's own page
6 — The Eye of the Bedlam Bride	8/74	Ch. 3, Ch. 12, Ch. 15, Ch. 17, Ch. 23, Ch. 26, Ch. 32, Ch. 54 · the book's own page
7 — This Inevitable Ruin	9/89	1–2, 15, 20, 26, 39, 42, 74, 84 · the book's own page

By book

Tsarina Signet in book 2 — Carl's Doomsday Scenario

Signet's arc on this floor is the drama she stars in. A poster marked TRAITOR (ch. 6); a first meeting that is a Puppy Dog charm and a sacrifice spell aimed at Carl's blood (ch. 6, ch. 7); a broken promise answered with a Water Lily curse on Donut (ch. 8); the story told on the walk — the ringmaster who saved her as a child and whom she loved as a woman, the family transformed, the nightly assault 'for family' (ch. 8, ch. 9); the paper army (ch. 9); and the un-banishment, spoken by Grimaldi through Carl's mouth (ch. 11). She goes into the tent, keeps her word about Donut, and is presumably down the stairs to the Hunting Grounds, where Carl has contracted to meet her story again.

Tsarina Signet in book 4 — The Gate of the Feral Gods

A glass half-naiad in a fountain, very like her but half human, reminds Carl of her and the sixth-floor contract (ch. 21); Katia counts 'that Tsarina Signet storyline' among the reasons the party's plate is full (ch. 33).

Tsarina Signet in book 5 — The Butcher's Masquerade

The daughter

Tsarina Signet is back at level 60, elites do not level, tattoos swirling, dry in the rain by a curse (ch. 13, ch. 14): her mother a murdered naiad princess, King Finian dead, her half-sister queen, two cancers to cut (ch. 14). Seventy followers around a tree that is old as shit (ch. 15); the assault on her mother's palace from the top down with paper monsters (ch. 25, ch. 26); a kingdom that fell on its own (ch. 28); a new tattoo of a dead teacher and a kiss on Carl's cheek (ch. 29). She is not autonomous — she sent them to a saferoom because the showrunners sent her (ch. 16) — and Carl thinks about what it would take to make an elite self-aware.

The free will

Tired on a log, she agrees to wait for a signal that is a lie (ch. 63). Apito herself invites her to the party, and she walks in bare-chested and takes Carl's hands (ch. 67). Carl points her at the judges — off-worlders who control all of this, watching for entertainment — and D'Nadia finishes it: more people than stars are watching, her mother was never real (ch. 68, ch. 73). She eats a fallen acorn (ch. 73), asks for a knife, and casts Ink Marauder alone as caster, sacrifice and killer: 'You tell them I did this out of my own free will.' The floor opens; the Nothing takes her; her blood becomes a tornado and her tattoos a family loosed on her sister (ch. 74). Two of them stay alive forever. 'Protect your family, and watch over mine.'

Tsarina Signet in book 6 — The Eye of the Bedlam Bride

Edgar's items are the ones that put the tattoos on her (ch. 3); her memory golems are still around, people like the shark, and Tina is still an allosaurus (ch. 12); a goddess's charisma is like meeting her the first time, but stronger (ch. 15); Yemaya's ears and eyes remind Carl of her and of Samantha (ch. 17). The body of her mother — a full-sized naiad in seaweed, a tattoo of a fish made flesh by her final spell — appears rigid in Carl's arms (ch. 26); she had told him of the All Tree and of Grimaldi (ch. 32).

Tsarina Signet in book 7 — This Inevitable Ruin

Dead, and yet the Dream's subsidiary demands a third season of her storyline (ch. 1); her mother's body, given to Carl at the Masquerade, gives Louis its heart (ch. 84). Donut on the ghillie suit: 'like one of Signet's tattoo people fell through a paper shredder' (ch. 2).