Ingrid

Ingrid is Myfanwy Thomas’s secretary and trusted assistant, the person who keeps the demands of the Checquy’s daily business in view while Myfanwy tries to reconstruct a life she does not remember. Her competence is practical rather than theatrical: she relays appointments, organizes reports and preparations, and helps Myfanwy navigate conventions she has forgotten. The relationship grows beyond office routine into a quiet alliance, most clearly when they mourn together after the reception attack.

Identity and Role

Ingrid works as Myfanwy’s secretary, addressing her as Rook Thomas and managing the constant traffic around the Rook’s office. Her work includes conveying requests from senior figures, arranging appointments, and keeping Myfanwy informed about the day’s schedule. At one point she explains that Dr. Crisp is waiting, a meeting of the Rooks and Chevs will occupy much of the morning, and other appointments have been shifted to the afternoon. She also brings Myfanwy coffee and the latest reports from around the Isles, making her a practical link between the office and the wider organization.

The story presents Ingrid as notably composed in the face of the Checquy’s abnormal routine. Myfanwy has heard that Ingrid is usually the first person on the day shift to arrive at the building. When Shantay Petoskey reaches the office even earlier, Ingrid looks slightly frantic at the unusual reversal. The brief moment offers a measure of her habits: punctuality and reliability are so characteristic that an exception registers immediately.

Supporting Myfanwy’s New Life

Because Myfanwy has no memory of her former life, ordinary decisions can become unfamiliar territory. Ingrid helps her manage that gap without turning every uncertainty into a crisis. After Myfanwy asks about changing for dinner with Lady Farrier, Ingrid tactfully explains that the Rook’s suit is respectable but that Lady Farrier has particular expectations about women’s dinner clothes. When Myfanwy realizes she can look in the residence, Ingrid accepts the plan and reminds her of another obligation: a three o’clock appointment with the head of building security. She offers to page Myfanwy when he arrives.

Ingrid’s assistance also extends to events where Myfanwy must perform her office before important visitors. When the Lord and Lady want the Rook to make a formal impression on the Americans, Ingrid recommends a crimson dress that a Greek woman had persuaded Myfanwy to buy. She knows where it is—among the clothes in Myfanwy’s guest-room wardrobe, most of which Myfanwy does not wear—and offers to send instructions for putting it on. This practical knowledge contrasts with Myfanwy’s sense that her wardrobe consists almost entirely of black, gray, and white. Ingrid has also arranged for the hairdresser and sent instructions for Myfanwy’s hair; when asked about a bodyguard, she proposes Anthony. The exchange makes the previously obscure idea of an entourage concrete: Ingrid and Anthony are the people preparing to accompany Myfanwy.

Her support is not limited to logistics. After Myfanwy questions her about the interrogation of Gestalt, Ingrid explains that the female Gestalt had been in combat that morning, that all four siblings were still energized, and that Grafters are a bogeyman for graduates of the Estate. Myfanwy, unable to supply the context Ingrid assumes she shares, can only agree without understanding. Ingrid’s account therefore gives readers and Myfanwy a glimpse of the fear attached to the Grafters, while also exposing the strain of navigating an organization whose shared history Myfanwy has lost.

Composure and Strain

For much of the novel’s office life, Ingrid appears hard to unsettle. Her habitual calm makes Myfanwy notice when she enters the office perspiring and visibly flushed. Ingrid quickly rejects Myfanwy’s awkward guess about the cause and explains that she has just been told the Americans are coming. The moment briefly breaks her usual professional composure: the news has affected her enough to make the arrival unmistakable before she explains it.

Ingrid’s response also underscores the scale of the preparations she helps coordinate. The Americans’ visit entails more than an appointment; the Lord and Lady want to impress them, Myfanwy is expected to dress formally, and Ingrid is already arranging hair, clothing, and security. Her concern is thus tied to a concrete responsibility, not simply to surprise at the announcement.

Relationship with Myfanwy and the Retainers

The relationship between Ingrid and Myfanwy is built through repeated acts of dependable assistance, but the reception attack reveals its emotional weight. After the violence, Lady Farrier questions whether the surviving Retainers should be escorted away because some had been willing to turn against her. Myfanwy argues forcefully that those who put themselves in danger to protect the group have demonstrated loyalty. Her insistence is personal: she does not want Ingrid taken away from her.

Myfanwy and Ingrid had found Anthony dead after he had protected them, and they wept together and held hands when the party moved to another room. In the aftermath, Myfanwy’s defense of the Retainers is inseparable from that shared grief and from her attachment to Ingrid. Ingrid is not merely an employee whose presence can be rearranged as a security precaution; she is someone Myfanwy depends on and refuses to surrender casually.

Narrative Significance

Ingrid’s role links the unfamiliar public duties of the Rook with the small, specific decisions through which Myfanwy learns to inhabit them. Coffee and reports, a reminder about security, advice about dinner clothes, and preparations for a formal reception all give shape to a working life Myfanwy cannot remember. Ingrid’s competence cannot restore that lost history, but it makes the present more navigable.

That same practical closeness gives the later grief its force. Myfanwy’s concern for Ingrid surfaces not as an abstract declaration of loyalty but in a concrete dispute over who may be removed after an attack, followed by their shared mourning for Anthony. Across these moments, Ingrid becomes both a guide to Myfanwy’s institutional world and a personal connection that the amnesiac Rook recognizes as worth protecting.