Devi
Devi, that extra debt will be a millstone around my neck.
– Kvothe
Devi is a gaelet in Imre, working above a butcher's shop. She has a reputation for lending money to desperate people. She was expelled from the University during Simmon's first year.
Appearance
Devi is in her early twenties.[2] Her face is described as "pixie-like" and she has straight strawberry blonde hair.[2] She is short and fair-skinned.[2][3]
Education
Before she was expelled from the University, Devi was a talented Re'lar.[2][4] She studied in the Medica[5] and is a powerful sympathist, with an Alar like the ocean in storm[6] - according to Simmon, she could forge an eight-part binding.[7] She is a proficient alchemist but had little interest in sygaldry.[6]
Devi was expelled for Conduct Unbecoming a Member of the Arcanum during Simmon's first term. She was suspected of malfeasance but no proof could be found.[7] She believes that her expulsion was in fear of her strength after she could match Elxa Dal in symapthy by her second year.[6] Her consequent lack of access to the resources of the Archives is a major motivator to her.[5][4]
Business
Devi keeps modest windowless rooms above a butcher's shop in Imre, which she scents with perfumes of her own creation to cover the smell of rancid fat.[5][4] She lends money to desperate people, usually in the hope to secure repayment in kind.[3] Through this strategy, she has built a modest personal library.[1] In order to protect her business, she secures loans against a blood sample from her debtors.[2] Two years before Kvothe arrived at the University, a student reported her to the authorities but ended up both unsuccessful and humiliated.[1] Rather than giving money to her clients, Devi sometimes provides credit notes that can be redeemed with local moneylenders.[2][4]
In the Chronicle
Kvothe first meets Devi when he needs to raise funds to pay tuition for his second term and more conventional means aren't available to him.[2] He returns to her to pay his third term's tuition, and becomes friends with her to the extent that she lends him books in exchange for music and company.[1][8] She later reluctantly funds his expedition to Trebon.[5] In exchange for a full unexpurgated set of the Vautium Tegnostae, she sold a plum bob to a noble, which Ambrose used to poison Kvothe.[9]
When Kvothe was suffering from malfeasance at the hands of Ambrose, he suspected Devi of being responsible. After he confronted her, she defeated him in sympathetic combat and ordered him away. Kvothe was impressed by the level of control she had despite her fury.[6] Mola, who was friends with Devi before she was expelled, brings her into the plot to recover the mommet from Ambrose's rooms and prompts a reconciliation between the two of them.[10] She agrees to put Kvothe's debt on hold for a year and a day during his trip to Vintas.[11]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 The Name of the Wind, Chapter 60, "Fortune"
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 The Name of the Wind, Chapter 50, "Negotiations"
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 The Wise Man's Fear, Chapter 143, "Bloodless"
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 The Wise Man's Fear, Chapter 10, "Being Treasured"
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 The Name of the Wind, Chapter 70, "Signs"
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 The Wise Man's Fear, Chapter 26, "Trust"
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 The Wise Man's Fear, Chapter 23, "Principles"
- ↑ The Name of the Wind, Chapter 69, "Wind or Women s Fancy"
- ↑ The Wise Man's Fear, Chapter 42, "Penancem"
- ↑ The Wise Man's Fear, Chapter 33, "Fire"
- ↑ The Wise Man's Fear, Chapter 50, "Chasing the Wind"
