The Enchanted Greenhouse

Terlu Perna is the novel’s main character. The former librarian is in her twenties and has skin that’s “an agreeable shade of lavender” (2), purple eyes, curly brown hair, and “smile creases around her mouth” (2). Her cheerful appearance reflects her personality because she tries to remain optimistic despite the hardships she faces: “She was more of a put-a-smile-on-and-blunder-ahead kind of person than a weeper” (31). Because Terlu is highly extroverted and sociable, her loneliness at the start of the novel pains her deeply. Her yearning for companionship leads her to break the empire’s draconic laws and grant Caz sentience, and her subsequent punishment instills a deep sense of fear that she wrestles with throughout the story. Later in the novel, her warm personality helps Yarrow embrace human connection after his years alone on Belde, and she develops a found family on the island. Terlu’s compassion and intelligence are two of her greatest strengths as a protagonist. She places herself at great risk to help Yarrow and the plants, and her skill with languages enables her to become a “self-taught sorcerer” and save the greenhouse from destruction (128).

As the protagonist and point-of-view character, Terlu guides the novel’s