Frances Cardona

Frances Cardona is the book's protagonist, and is initially struggling to make money at the beginning of the novel after the death of her husband - Omar Cardona. She's coined the title “The Local Spinster” by the local community, due to her not visibly mourning and having seemingly no plans to remarry at all. She's sorrowful and often pessimistic, rarely ever seeing the positive in any situation she's in. She sees herself as inferior to her fellow painters, and devalues her work often. Frances never felt any real attraction to her late husband, and only married him for the financial security and status points. But after developing feelings for the Dawnland monarch, she was swooped with the typical cliche romantic acts.

She was already a painting prodigy at childhood, and continued to further improve her work as she got older. She has the magical ability to make her paintings come to life, but only for brief moments. Frances has no idea how this ability came to be; she often feels like she's gone mad. Her abilities spiral out of control whenever she has heightened emotions. She usually uses her abilities to cope with and process her emotions in general, using them almost as a personal support system, although this does get unhealthy later on.