Clove

One of three roommates (with Ambrose and Lucas) in the sentient, ever-shifting Gray House, which has a basement containing the Hellmouth, a portal to the hellish space between our mundane Earth and the magical otherworld.

Clove Yuzuki Spindlebinder is a scatterbrained, creative wizard from the magical world. His family are very prominent and known for big, bombastic evocations, but he prefers thread magic,  enchantments, and charms. He’s naturally talented and clever, but has trouble focusing on magical tasks and other things he isn’t interested in. Unfortunately, all the things he isn’t interested in are what people expect of him. After he was kicked out of magic college for the umpteenth time, he was placed in Gray House by his mother, Wizard Council leader Rosemary, because she thinks managing it will be a good learning experience for him.

Backstory

The only child of Rosemary Lightsplitter. His conception was an accident, and because Rosemary was busy with her duties, she barely raised him. Despite this, she tried to give her son every comfort other than her presence.

Clove grew up in a large house filled with automatons that took care of household chores. He was schooled by a series of tutors rather than going to school, so he rarely saw other children. This was a lonely and monotonous life. To pass the time, he discovered several different artistic hobbies and fell in love with fabric crafts. He eased his loneliness by giving dolls a semblance of life, developing a talent for thread magic.

Although his mother was rarely around, he admired her greatly. He heard much news about her accomplishments as part of the Wizard Council and her magical genius, and Rosemary encouraged him to follow the same path. However, he came to know quite well that his magic did not have the same power as hers. He figured that the best he could do was try to make her proud in his own limited way.

He went to a wizard school when he was 18, where he struggled with his classes, though he made his first friends. He was soon kicked out, which would become a pattern with every successive school he tried. His mother's disappointment grew each time he saw her, as did his inner turmoil over his failings. He may not have been the kind of wizard his mother was, but Clove wanted badly to do magic as his job. However, the rules of Smaragdine mandated that one could not do so without graduating from one of these schools, and Clove was losing hope.

Other Information

• GENDER AND SEXUALITY: Clove is demisexual and demiromantic, and she finds out that she's a trans woman. The Magical World treats gender very casually, so  after Arc 2 makes her more confident in her decisions and less shy  about following her own path, Clove just kind of decides to try being a  girl in Arc 3. She finds out that she likes it! Though she socially and physically  transitions, she doesn't change her name; she likes it, and it's pretty  gender neutral anyway. Her fashion doesn't change much, either. She has a  very strong sense of her own aesthetic, so pretty much all she does is  shave off her facial scruff and grow out her hair.
• RELATIONSHIP WITH LINDEN:  Linden and Clove end up hanging out quite a few times in Arcs 1-3, first meeting when Clove has trouble navigating the Mundane World and  Linden helps out with his knowledge of how to blend in. They find out  that they get along great, but once the attention of other people is  focused on Linden, his mask comes back up and he becomes distant. Clove  is curious about him, sensing some kind of loneliness and finding that  he's actually interested in magic, but she's also frustrated by his  false faces and refusal to express what he really feels. Thus, their  possible friendship can't take hold. However, during Arc 4, he opens up  quite a bit, including toward to Clove, properly solidifying their  friendship, and in Arc 5, it develops into something more, albeit  awkwardly due to Clove's romantic nervousness and Linden's difficulty  talking about his real feelings. Either way, they are very sweet and in  love by the end.