Iolanthe is such a great character.  I love it when people tell me what a bitch she is.  In a way, she and Zurfina are just alike– totally interested in their own machinations, unsympathetic toward anyone else, powerful, determined, and unforgiving.  On the other hand, while Zurfina’s goals  are always completely self-serving, Iolanthe’s are a bit more complicated.  She is determined to see her family rise to power.  And she and Zurfina fall at either end of the order/chaos scale.

In this book, Iolanthe plays a relatively small role, but we can see that she sees Senta for the first time as an asset at her disposal.  She also has to deal with Yuah’s problems.  Something that continues into book 5.