Rory is Sybil’s romantic interest in The Knight and the Moth. He is described as tall with tan skin and dark hair. Rory wears three gold hoop earrings in his ears and smudged charcoal around his eyes, demonstrating his past residences in Coulson Faire and the Chiming Wood. Rory was a foundling child, raised in the Seacht, before he was taken by the Artful Brigand. He was used as an unpaid servant and treated poorly until King Benedict the First found him and brought him to live with Maude in the Chiming Wood. Rory found out the truth about the Omens firsthand, seeing the casual cruelty and largess of the Artful Brigand, and his attitude toward Sybil’s faith sharply contrasts with her own. 

Rory and Sybil have an enemies-to-lovers relationship, as Rory knows the truth about the Omens, and Sybil is initially faithfully dedicated to the Omens. However, Rory and Sybil are more similar than they first realize, as they were both raised by an Omen and treated poorly throughout their childhoods. Sybil even notes that she and Rory “[a]re his coin—two sides, perfectly balanced” (225). They have their differences, but their similarities are more significant to who they are. In this respect, Rory acts as a foil for Sybil, as his cynicism contrasts sharply with her faith, even causing her to eventually question it herself. 

Rory’s lack of faith is a key piece of his characterization, and Sybil struggles with it. When Sybil realizes that Rory thinks she can beat the Ardent Oarsman, she thinks, “Errant knight Rodrick Myndacious, prideful, disdainful, godless, believed in me” (237). Though Sybil utilizes a series of negative adjectives to describe Rory, there is an affection in her thoughts about him, coupled with disbelief that he would believe in her when he doesn’t even believe in the Omens. In addition, her faith in Rory is illustrated by the fact that the first moments in which Sybil reveals herself are to him, and he is the first person to whom she reveals her real name. This vulnerability increases the romantic tension between them; she notes that it “ha[s] changed something between [them]. It fe[els] like a fever, looking at him. [She] [i]s dizzy and thoughtless for it” (274). Rory falls in love with Sybil quickly, and even after seeing her stone eyes, he still loves her. By the end of the novel, Sybil realizes, “He’d do anything I asked of him” (384). Rory is so devoted to Sybil that he continues trying to fight Benji even after he’s been stabbed in order to protect Sybil. Although his characterization reflects many aspects of a traditional romantic male lead, he also supports Sybil’s quest for independence and free will, a contrast to the other people in her life, like the abbess and Benji, who try to control her.

The bat-like gargoyle, or Bartholomew, is Sybil’s loyal companion in The Knight and the Moth. Though Sybil initially believes that the gargoyles of Aisling are sprites, the reality is much darker: They are Diviners starved of spring water. Bartholomew is the original Diviner, the foundling boy who died on the tor before being resurrected by the abbess. 

The gargoyle is fiercely loyal to Sybil, though he cannot tell her the truth about Aisling. He tries to warn Sybil when he tells her about his vision in the Chiming Wood, saying, “I see young girls wearing shrouds, and I watch them age. The ones that do not vanish fracture and bend and cry out. But, like mine, their voices catch in the wind, distorting, then disappearing, over the landscape” (287). The image of the remaining Diviners fracturing and bending hints at them turning into stone and becoming gargoyles, but the magic of Aisling prohibits the gargoyle from telling Sybil directly. While Sybil is the final diviner, Bartholomew was the first diviner. They bookend the existence of Aisling Cathedral and the Omens. As the gargoyle succinctly notes, “For better, for worse—The rest of the story could not exist without us” (363-64).

Maude is one of the king’s knights. She is described as having dark, cropped hair with metal rings in it; green, charcoal-lined eyes; and a straight nose. She is 41 years old, making her the oldest of the core group that is hunting the Omens. Maude is from a noble family in the Chiming Wood, and she became a knight under the reign of King Benedict the First, Benji’s grandfather. She learned the truth about the Omens from the first King Benedict, and she killed the Faithful Forester herself, which Maude credits as her first justified kill. 

Though Maude has no children and claims to lack any maternal instincts, she acts as a maternal figure in the novel. Sybil notes, “She was the most nurturing woman I’d ever known” (277). Maude is kind and caring, and she is the one to drag Rory and the gargoyle away from Benji after his betrayal, promising Sybil that she will take care of them.

Benji is a surprise antagonist in The Knight and the Moth. His core issue in the narrative is the lack of power that comes with his kingship. When Sybil considers becoming a knight instead of a Diviner, perhaps taking away the religious legitimacy of Benji’s quest, Benji says, “I’m the king, and it’s never about me. I’m not respected like a craftsman or a knight or a Diviner. My first public act is to go into the hamlets and be utterly humiliated by the nobility in the names of the Omens” (295). Though Benji claims to be taking up the mantle to stop the corruption of the Omens, in reality, he seeks to take the power for himself. He wants to be a king who is revered as royalty, pushing back against the traditional Traum notion of the king as a supplicant to the Omens. Benji pretends to be concerned with rooting out the corruption and violence of the Omens, but he works in the background to consolidate his own power and become the uncontested ruler of the Stonewater Kingdom.