In addition to Iolanthe and Yuah, several others live in the Dechantagne household (not including the servants).

Mrs. Colbshallow continues to live with the Dechantagnes.  Mrs. C is perhaps the most often encountered household memeber.  She has her bit in all six of the books.  By this point, she’s pretty much running the house and her son lives right across the street.

Iolana, Iolanthe’s daughter is a toddler in this book and while she appears, she doesn’t have too big a part to play.  The same is true of Yuah’s son Augie, who is a tiny baby.  Both have a much bigger parts in books 4 & 5.

At that moment a little girl, almost three, in a bright floral dress ran into the room.  Her blond hair seemed thin around her chubby, round face, but was supplemented with a large red bow on the top of her head.  Bouncing along on her chubby little legs, she was not quite in control of her body, and bumped right into the stuffed arm of Iolanthe’s chair.  She was up again quickly, though she left the item she had been carrying, a doll with a dress exactly like hers, lying on the hardwood floor.

“Auntie Yuah,” said the toddler, running to the woman with the baby.  “I want to give Augie a kiss.”

“Alright, but carefully.  He’s asleep and we don’t want to wake him.”

With the exaggerated movements that are so endearing in the very tiniest human beings, the little girl reached up on her tip-toes and puckered up her lips, stretching them out as far as they could go, and kissed the baby, held out by its mother, with a smacking sound.  She then rolled back on her heels, almost losing her balance and falling back onto the coffee table.

“Very sweet,” said Yuah.  “Now go see Mummy.”

“Don’t you dare jump on me,” said Iolanthe, as the child trundled around the table toward her.  “Your dress is filthy.  What have you been doing?”

“Making mud pies.”

“Making mud pies,” muttered the governor.  “Sirrek!”

The mottled yellow and brown lizardman returned.

“Who is supposed to be watching Iolana?”

“Kheesie,” hissed Sirrek.

“Remind her that the child is supposed to stay clean.  If she can’t do her job, I’m sure that there are others who can.  And have her draw Iolana a bath.”  Iolanthe turned to Yuah.  “If there is one thing you can count on the lizards to get right, it’s bathing.”

Yuah gave a half nod-half shrug of acknowledgement; though the vast majority of her attention was still on the sweet, perfect, angelic, little face of Augustus Marek Virgil Dechantagne.  At two months old, he was still so tiny and so helpless that without trying, he activated that part of her that seemed to want to do everything for him and to give him everything.  And he looked so much like his father.  She held and cuddled him for half an hour, scarcely noticing that everyone else eventually left the room.  Finally she was rewarded with his dark blue eyes opening.  As he looked back at her, she felt the pull of her milk, and carried the baby upstairs and into the nursery to feed him.

Zurfina the Magnificent is a character in the Senta and the Steel Dragon series.  In Book 3: The Drache Girl, as in Book 2: The Dark and Forbidding Land, Zurfina appears, but itsn’t around all that much.  It is, after all, Senta’s story.  When Zurfina is present though, she is really fun.  She is one of my favorite characters because she is so seriously messed up.  She’s self-absorbed to the point of being psychotic.  She’s sexy and wild.  And of course, she’s extremely powerful.  She lives by a few basic guidelines.  If you’re powerful enough, you never need to explain yourself.  If you’re powerful enough you never have to do anything you don’t want to.  Nobody is as important as she is.

Books play an important role in Senta and the Steel Dragon, and quite a few fictional authors and their books appear throughout the series. One author mentioned in a previous book actually is a major character in books 4 and 5. ::grin::

Phoebus Dodson is the author of several scientific works that we usually see Hero enjoying or Senta dreading. I imagine his books are huge, with heavy leather bindings, and are usually dusty because nobody wants to read them. His books include: Time and Space, Matter and the Elements, Gravity and Light, and The Contracting Universe.

Dillan Westmacott is the author of a racy novel entitled The Pursuit of Perfection. (Spoiler Alert) This is of course also a reference to the relationship between Terrence, Yuah, and a certain otherworldly winged woman. (End spoiler)

The most often referreed-to author is Kasia Garstone. She is a scandalous muck-raker (and some say socialist or communist. Her books include Steam, Revenge, Sacrifice, and Privilage and Sacrifice. Practically everyone reads her works, but almost nobody admits to it. My favorite line about Garstone actually doesn’t appear until book 5, but I’ll give you a little preview.

“Kasia Garstone says wizards are tools of the oppressors.”