Edrin
The school's headmaster. He looks younger than you would expect, and he reacts strangely to Chris from the very first day.
- Who
- Headmaster of Déynáir
- Amícûs
- A white cat with red eyes
- Scent
- Candle wax and old parchment, like a room someone has just left
"But don't go around boasting about it."
Edrin is the headmaster of Déynáir. He is younger than Chris had imagined, with short red hair, blue eyes and a silver cloak. A white cat sits on his shoulder, and the cat looks at Chris before Edrin does.
After the river
Chris meets him for the first time after he has walked across the river on the water. Haltora takes him up to the headmaster’s office, which lies behind a plain door of pale oak at the end of a corridor of portraits. The room is full of maps, rolled up and tied with string. Edrin tells him that he, too, walked on the water back then, and that Chris is not to show off about it. Chris notices that the headmaster’s hand tightens on the armrest while they talk, and that there is something sorrowful about his scent.
When Chris puts his hand on the door handle on his way out, it is worn smooth, as if a hundred hands had held it. When he looks back, the door is smooth and new again.
Headmaster
It is Edrin who welcomes the new students in the dining hall and tells them that the island will sort them. He also says that the top of the mountain is closed and that there are no exceptions. He never says more than he has to.
After the test he asks Chris to tell him about the island and listens without interrupting. Chris holds something back, and Edrin doesn’t press. He says that nobody here will push him, and it sounds like something he has said to himself many times before.
Relationships
- Guvinor Haltora: his deputy headmaster
- Chris Godrand: student
Spoiler (revealed in chapter 23)
Edrin is Chris's uncle, his father's brother. Chris works it out in chapter 23, and in chapter 24 Edrin confirms it with a single word. It was he who placed Chris at Fjordly, and he tells Chris what his father asked of him before he died: to hide the boy well and to wait with the truth until he was strong enough.