When all is said and done, the character who has the most interesting and varied story arc in Senta and the Steel Dragon is Yuah.  She starts out at the bottom, rises to the very top, and then topples down far lower than she started.  Book 3, The Drache Girl really is the pivotal point for her progression.  In addition, Yuah is just one of my favorites ( I guess I say that about all of them).  Here she brings a newly healed Terrence home to see his house and his son for the first time.

After a few minute’s walk, they could see the massive façade of the Dechantagne house peaking through the trees.  Yuah stopped and pointed to it.

“Does it look like you thought it would?”

“Yes, I suppose it does.  It looks warm.  Everything here looks better than I thought it would.”

“What did you expect it to look like?”

“I don’t know.  Savage, I guess.  Not civilized.”  He looked down at her.  “That’s a nice dress.”

“Thank you.”

“It looks expensive.”

“Oh, it is.  We can hardly afford it.”

“That’s not what I meant.  I’ve never seen you in an expensive dress or a fancy dress.

“You haven’t seen me at all since before our wedding day.  The last time you saw me I was your servant, not your wife.”

“You look exactly the same as I remember you though.  Except you’re not flat-chested anymore.”

She slapped him on the arm, and they shared the first laugh together in a long time.  It might be, she reflected, the first laugh that they had ever shared together.  It lasted only a moment though, because his new blue eyes suddenly went cold.  Yuah turned to see what he was looking at.  Two lizardmen crossed the street at the intersection just in front of their home.  They were carrying a large steamer trunk.

“They’re everywhere here,” he said.

“There aren’t any more of them than there were nine months ago, when you left.”

“I didn’t have to look at them then.”

Yuah took Terrence’s hand and led him the last fifty yards to their home.  The gardens were covered with snow now, the reflecting pool frozen over, and the fountain empty of water.  They reached the bottom of the steps and Yuah squealed as Terrence suddenly scooped her up and carried her to the top of the steps.  Once there however, he stopped and unsmilingly set her back down as the door was opened for them by a particularly large lizardman with a yellow ribbon sporting a gold medallion around his neck.

“You remember Tisson,” said Yuah.

Terrence nodded briskly, and then stepped inside.  She followed.  In the parlor Mrs. Godwin was sitting in the rocking chair with Augie in her arms.  She slowly rocked back and forth and hummed.  With a smile, she lifted up the baby for Yuah to take.  Yuah cradled the child in her arms, gazing with love down into his chubby pink face.

“Here he is,” she said, turning to present her son to her husband.

“He looks like you.”

“Don’t be daft,” she replied.  “He’s your bleeding doppelganger.”

“Yes, I guess he is.  Poor lad.”

Holding the baby with one hand, Yuah took Terrence by the other and led him upstairs to the nursery.  She sat him in the rocking chair and placed Augie in his lap.  She pulled the small folding rocker from the corner and sat next to him.  They rocked back in forth in silence for more than an hour.  When Augie woke up, she nursed him, and when he was full and satisfied, she handed him back to his father, and he looked up with fascination at the strange man holding him. 

Yuah had finished getting her dress back on, and Terrence was holding Augie, when Iolanthe walked into the room, practically filling it with her green dress and her presence.