Brother Diaz
A timid, ambitious monk who comes to the Holy City expecting advancement and is instead put in charge of the Chapel of the Holy Expediency, a secret thirteenth chapel that handles the Church's black-ops work. The story's anchoring viewpoint, he slowly trades his vows for his humanity, falls for the werewolf Vigga, and ends the book serving as chaplain to the new Empress.
Alex
A cynical, resourceful street thief presented to the world as Princess Alexia Pyrogennetos, lost heir to Troy's Serpent Throne. Her secret is that she took over the real princess's identity after the girl died of disease, yet she grows a genuine conscience, survives every plot aimed at her, and finishes the book crowned Empress of Troy.
Jakob of Thorn
An immortal knight and onetime Templar, cursed by a witch so that death will not take him, healing from every wound and carrying each one as scar and pain. The group's military leader and weary conscience, he ends the book tackling Duke Michael from the top of the Pharos and, true to his curse, surviving the fall.
Vigga Ullasdottr
A crude, chaotic Norse werewolf with almost no short-term memory and occasional flashes of startling wisdom, at once the team's deadliest weapon and its worst liability. She begins an improbable romance with Brother Diaz, and in the finale she is driven into her wolf shape and kills Baptiste by accident.
Sunny
An elf who can vanish from sight by holding her breath, feared and shunned by nearly everyone despite being among the kindest souls in the story. Her slow-growing love for Alex shapes the final act, and she is taken away in chains after telling Alex she is the best person she has ever met.
Balthazar Sham Ivam Draxi
A vain, wordy necromancer who considers himself an unappreciated genius and spends much of the journey plotting to escape the papal binding. He keeps rescuing the group in spite of himself, turns down Eudoxia's offer of power out of loyalty to his monstrous found family, and still smiles in his cage, planning his next attempt at freedom.
Baron Rikard
An ancient, exquisitely mannered vampire who can bear daylight and pacify hostile crowds with his mesmerizing voice, though every use of that power ages him. He slaughters Eudoxia's four handmaidens atop the Pharos and ends the story grown old from spending so much of himself.
Baptiste
A roguish ex-pirate and all-purpose fixer with a tale ready for any occasion. She is the one core member of the Devils to die, killed by accident when Vigga transforms during the chaos in Troy, apparently while saving Brother Diaz.
Duke Michael of Nicaea
The charming nobleman whose timely rescue of Alex launches the entire scheme. He proves to be the conspiracy's true architect, having used Alex from the start to eliminate Eudoxia's sons and claim the Serpent Throne, until Jakob tackles him off the Pharos and into the sea far below.
Cardinal Zizka
The pitiless leader of the Church's Curia, who saddles Brother Diaz with his deadly appointment and directs the Chapel's dirty work. When Alex demands at the end that the Devils be freed, Zizka refuses and has them shipped back to their cells for the next time the Church needs them.
Eudoxia
The usurping sorceress-empress whose four treacherous sons hunt Alex across the continent, and who is believed dead. In truth she moved her soul into a new body and has been operating in Troy as Lady Severa; Balthazar refuses the place she offers at her side but walks away with her secrets.
Benedicta I
The child Pope of the Western Church, a girl of roughly ten who commands genuine and frightening divine power. She proclaims Alex the rightful heir and lays the papal binding on the Devils, a compulsion so strong that even a Duke of Hell cannot unmake it.
Duke Arcadius
The scholarly final survivor of Eudoxia's sons, who comes to Troy offering to join his claim to Alex's through marriage. On what should have been the wedding night he is frozen and shattered by the false handmaidens, the opening blow of the coup.