Chloe Oliver is the Keeper of the Alvalaithen.
Background[]
Chloe claims to be a Libra, though Horace suspects this might have been a lie. If true, her birthday would be somewhere in September or October 2002.
At age five, Chloe visited the House of Answers and discovered her Tan'ji. She met Mr. Meister, who promised her the dragonfly would keep her safe.
By the events of The Box and the Dragonfly, Chloe lives in a house with her father Matthew and sister Madeline. She likely attends sixth or seventh grade at Thomas Paine Middle School (though this could also be a lie).
Personality[]
Chloe has a strong, confident personality; she is often described as "fierce". She is unselfish and heroic in action but not in words; there she is intensely sarcastic and can sometimes be condescending and mean. Despite her abrasive personality, she can be lighthearted and mischievous sometimes too, and can even come across as charming and polite when she wants to.
She can be clever, curious, and perceptive, and will go to great lengths to find answers to her questions or test theories. She is particularly analytical of other people. However, her curiosity is limited; she isn't naturally inquisitive about everything, like Horace is. She sees the dragonfly and, by extension, her own abilities as magical, and does not feel the need to understand how it works.
Chloe is a talented and habitual liar. She doesn't seem to enjoy lying, but instead uses it to bolster her confidence or avoid admitting weakness. Even admitting one lie does not discourage her from continuing, although it does seem to leave her annoyed.
Chloe is an introvert, but comes across as sullen rather than shy. She is insistently self-sufficient and doesn't easily trust people, including those who offer her help. Nonetheless, she is also selfless and incredibly brave, routinely volunteering and risking her life to save her friends and their instruments. She is highly protective of her family and allies, though only those she trusts.
She's very confident and persistent, and never seems to feel self-conscious, taking even great praise in stride. She sticks by her decisions and doesn't get embarrassed. She acts casual even about serious things, including her myriad scars, and often doesn't mention injuries she's received.
At the beginning of the series, Chloe is deeply scared of using the Alvalaithen to go underground, and for a time denies that it's even possible. Nonetheless, she's not ashamed of this fear, and is open to learning; she confronts it by the end of the first book and becomes a stronger Keeper in the process. Despite her honesty, if others insinuate that she is scared or weak, Chloe quickly becomes angry. She is harsh, insistent, and unforgiving when she becomes upset.
Chloe used to play go with her father. She also played chess at one point. She knows a surprising amount about word roots and is shown to have linguistic talent.
She seems to regularly use the dragonfly to steal things and break into buildings. She mentions that snooping around in other people's houses is "a habit."
She is agile, moves quickly and stealthily, and can hold her breath for a long time. However, she's also jumpy and easy to surprise. She becomes angry when people are able to follow her despite her best measures.
Somewhat humorously, Chloe has a disdain for passkeys, since they mimic the dragonfly's abilities.
She curses often and genuinely.
Description[]
Chloe is small but solid. She is very short and slight for her age, with small limbs, a light step, a bony frame, and intense dark eyes. She is about six inches shorter than Horace. Her skin is pale, and her hair is jet-black; it is originally long, but after the Oliver Fire it is cut short. She often wears a dark green hoodie when sneaking, and usually carries wintergreen mints in her pocket. She wears the Alvalaithen as a pendant, hanging vertically from a cord around her neck.
Due to a long history with the Alvalaithen, Chloe has a great number of scars. She has a number of mottled, burned patches around the base of her neck from letting the dragonfly's cord slip into her skin. She has a patch of irregular scars near her left elbow from falling into gravel; a long, jagged, purple scar on her right upper arm, from backing into a curtain; and a faintly raised, fan-shaped scar on her thigh, from melding into a book. She also has many thin, light-colored scars on her legs from going thick as she ran through long grass.
Over the course of the series, she gains a variety of new scars. Marks on her forearm and in the hollow at the base of her neck were left by the stones of a golem; the golem's heart left a raised, red, bubbling patch of skin on her right side.
Relationships[]
Horace F. Andrews[]
Chloe originally distrusts Horace. However, she soon comes to realize that he's not working with Raka, and becomes more curious about him. She has respect for, and interest in, Horace's abilities. As they become closer, she quickly becomes more open and casual with him, sharing long-kept secrets about the Alvalaithen. She thinks he's clever; she also enjoys teasing him and taking him by surprise. After several late-night conversations and their collaboration during the Fall of the House of Answers, she grows to trust him greatly.
Ja'raka Sevlo[]
Chloe is genuinely confident that she can handle Raka, and has a lot of experience escaping from him. However, she's very worried about him hurting her family, who could not get away as easily.
Isabel Burke[]
Chloe doesn't like to think of her mother: even hearing Isabel mentioned makes her sensitive and prone to anger.
Henrik Meister[]
Despite Chloe's defensive attitude towards strangers, Mr. Meister is able to break down her walls surprisingly quickly through his cheerful demeanor and respect for her abilities.
History[]
Despite not knowing Horace, Chloe saved him from an encounter with Raka. After he failed to acknowledge her help and tried to lie to her, she insulted him and left.
Several days later, Chloe snuck into Horace's toolshed for unknown reasons, possibly intending to talk to him. However, he was already there, which surprised her, causing her to run away. At some point Raka noticed her and began chasing her, which led to an encounter between them and two versions of Horace. Raka was lured away, which allowed Chloe to escape; Horace followed her home.
The next day, Chloe confronted Horace in his school bathroom, trying to find out how he'd followed her. Upon finding out about the box's abilities, she was shocked and impressed. They planned for her to come to his house at midnight so they could talk more. They spent that night sharing stories and information about their instruments; Chloe finally admitted that Raka had been at her house.
The following week, Horace and Chloe visited the House of Answers, where Mrs. Hapsteade explained the nature of Tanu and the conflict surrounding them. Suddenly, the House of Answers was breached by a golem, though the Keepers and their instruments managed to escape. They passed through a Nevren with some difficulty, then met up with Gabriel, who escorted Chloe and Horace to a cloister. Beck drove them back to Horace's house, where Chloe spent the night for her own protection.
They met Mrs. Hapsteade at the bus stop the next morning, and Beck drove them all to the Mazzoleni Academy. Mrs. Hapsteade led Horace and Chloe into the Warren to meet with Mr. Meister. Now that they were through the Find, he explained the properties and nature of their instruments, encouraging Horace to use the box rationally and sharing the nature of his own instrument as well. He asked them to join the Wardens, and explained their purpose by recounting a simplified history of the War of Sundering. Despite his harsh warnings about the threat posed by Raka, Chloe lied continuously, understating just how much danger she and her family were in. Mr. Meister set up a meeting with them the following night in Horace's toolshed.
Trivia[]
- Ted Sanders has stated that Chloe's first name "just felt right" for the character, and therefore doesn't have a hidden meaning.
- When talking to Horace about him catching her in his toolshed, Chloe mentions that she hasn't been caught using the dragonfly in a long time, implying that she's been noticed before.
- During Chapter 18 of The Box and the Dragonfly, Chloe tells Horace's parents about herself in a long stream of information that he suspects is full of lies: "her parents were divorced, her father was a structural engineer, she had a younger sister, she went to Thomas Paine Middle School and hoped to be an engineer herself one day or maybe a writer, she was a Libra by birth but not by temperament—not that she believed in that anyway—her favorite food was whatever was on her plate, her favorite color was not so much any one color but a tone, she couldn’t sing or dance, was a terrific swimmer, loved cats but had no respect for dogs, didn’t watch much TV but read voraciously, liked Hawthorne but hated Poe, belonged to the chess club, the fencing club, the academic bowl team, and thought her school’s dress code was not nearly strict enough. Horace was pretty sure this last one was a joke."
- Chloe has most likely read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.
- Chloe seems to have played video games. At least one game has left her with such strong muscle memory that she couldn't identify which buttons were used in the controls.
- Chloe knows what the Andrews family leestone looks like, despite Jessica keeping it in her bedroom. This may indicate that she's snooped around Horace's house more than she has admitted.
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