Oleander de Merelands is an infamous assassin. Half-Peri, half Tuatha de Dannan, Oleander has used her combined magic and cruelty to commit multiple instances of mass murder, the most infamous victim being King Gilad. She first appears in Rosemary and Rue.
About[]
Appearance[]
Physically, Oleander looks like a teenager, enough so that Toby remarks the humans who saw her with Simon must have thought she was underage. She has golden skin and waist-length, straight black hair.[1] She has a dancer's build[2] and dark eyes. [3]
Abilities[]
The Peri/Tuatha de Dannan combination is what enables her to seek out her victims so easily: Peri tend toward cruelty, and Tuatha teleportation helps her seek victims and escape capture. She is known for her fondness of poisons, often using the oleander plant she was named for. She has a large body count, King Gilad, Lily, Manuel Lorimer and countless Cait Sidhe of the Court of Dreaming Cats left in her wake. As proven with Lily, she can cause sufficient damage to Lily's pearl that it kills her and she was able to taint a large amount of the Cait Sidhe's food supply without being detected.
Personality[]
Oleander is rather sadistic, which is allegedly common in Peris. She enjoys socializing almost as much as she enjoys hurting people. Oleander is also an opportunist, willing to conspire with one of her own kidnapping victims to cause as much destruction as possible, however she has a sense of self-preservation, as she was unwilling to go after Amandine or Toby after the former threatened her.
Biography[]
Oleander is roughly 900 years old[4]. For centuries, stories of her crimes have made her into a local legend to be feared[5]. Rumors put Oleander at half the assassinations in the last 100 years, including the assassination of King Gilad, which was confirmed by Simon.[6][7] There are rewards on her head in half of the kingdoms that October Daye can name, and she claims the other half just haven't gotten around to it yet.[1]
In the Series[]
Rosemary and Rue[]
Oleander meets up with Simon Torquill in the Tea Gardens, where Simon transforms Toby into a koi fish. Oleander and Simon are conspiring together under the orders of Eira Rosynhwyr,[8] and appear to be lovers.
Late Eclipses[]
Oleander and Rayseline poison and kill a number of fae. Oleander disguises herself as a staff member of Shadowed Hills named Nerium and doses Toby with a disorienting but non-lethal poison. She then helps Rayseline poison Lily, Luna, and the Court of Dreaming Cats. She re-doses Toby and taunts her that Toby is being overtaken by the changeling madness, as Tybalt can't sense Oleander's presence.
Eventually, Raysel betrays and stabs Oleander with one of her own poisoned blades. In her final moments, Oleander rants about Amandine's relationship with Simon, and hints at Amandine shifting Toby's blood as a child. She suggests that she herself had set out to kill Toby in the past, under orders from a mysterious employer, but Amandine had shifted her own blood back and forth as a torture method to warn Oleander away. She dies of the injuries Raysel inflicted.
Chimes at Midnight[]
A night-haunt wearing Oleander's face warns Toby not to make promises she can't keep in regards to the goblin-fruit epidemic, when Toby vows to cut the drug off at its source.
Relationships[]
Evening Winterrose[]
Evening was Oleander's employer, who ordered many of Oleander's crimes to happen. Despite Evening's distaste towards mixed-bloods, Oleander was regarded as Evening's favourite tool.
Simon Torquill[]
Simon Torquill was Oleander's lover, although it is later revealed that he was ordered into Oleander's bed by their mutual employer, Evening Winterrose. Evening also ordered Oleander and Simon to kill October, although Simon defied them to turn Toby into a fish instead.[7] Simon remarked that he was the one who wanted to kill Oleander.
Rayseline Torquill[]
Despite being one of her victims, Oleander conspired with Rayseline to assassinate Lily and attempt to overthrow Sylvester and Luna. However, Oleander wasn't counting on Rayseline betraying and killing her.
Trivia[]
- Nerium, or Neri, is an alias that Oleander de Merelands uses to infiltrate the Shadowed Hills to commit mayhem. "Nerium oleander" is the scientific name of the oleander plant.[9]
- Simon had revealed that had he not kidnapped Rayseline, Oleander would've killed her.[10]
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Rosemary and Rue, Chapter 1
- ↑ Rosemary and Rue, Chapter 6
- ↑ Late Eclipses, Chapter 35
- ↑ Rosemary and Rue, Prologue
- ↑ Late Eclipses, Chapter 11
- ↑ Chimes at Midnight
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 A Killing Frost
- ↑ The Winter Long
- ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nerium
- ↑ Be the Serpent