Trolls

Trolls are represented through a worker at The Inferno whose Wards allow him to pass as human and participate in everyday life. His circumstances become a pointed example in Lock’s argument that the Coterie, despite its abuses, also provides services and protections that supernatural people may struggle to obtain elsewhere.

Identity and Introduction

The evidence centers on a troll who manages the dish-pit staff at The Inferno. His Wards let him pass as human, a condition Lock emphasizes when explaining that the troll needs them to do ordinary things such as own a home and go to a store. The scene gives no broader account of troll society or of how common this dependence is, but it makes the practical stakes of concealment explicit.

Family and Access to Care

The troll has three children, all delivered by Coterie doctors. Lock asks whether the troll could have taken his wife to a human hospital, where a lapse in her Wards or complications requiring tests might expose her. The family’s access to medical care is therefore tied to the same organization that also exerts coercive power over supernatural people. The example presents the Coterie not simply as a source of danger, but as an institution some families rely on for essential services.

Narrative Significance

Lock brings up the troll while challenging Ava’s condemnation of the Coterie. He is not claiming that the organization is wholly good; rather, he argues that it is not wholly evil when people such as the troll depend on it. Ava recognizes the force of the example but struggles to reconcile it with her own understanding of the Coterie, especially while Cade is being held by it. The troll’s brief appearance thus gives concrete human consequences to a political dispute: rejecting the organization is not an uncomplicated choice for those whose daily life and family care depend on its infrastructure.