Émile Adelbrand

Tall, thin, white-haired and not yet forty, living by himself in a great house in the city of Vlad. The enormous libraries in every room are for impressing visitors; he does his thinking in the kitchen, which was built for a large staff he does not employ. He opens and closes his doors with a flick of the hand and answers knocking with an insult, then lets in anyone who insults him back well.

He refuses to treat the sick on the grounds that Cerberus pays doctors for that and it is beneath a mage of his rank—right up until the illness is interesting, at which point nothing else exists. He has a natural affinity for electricity, which is the only reason a discharge from one of Sobiesansky's worms did not put him down.

He is a friend of Lucius Stoneheart, and knows him well enough to invent a sudden thirst and leave the room whenever Lucius needs to cast without being watched. He does not mention having done it.

Lucius married Émile's daughter Catherine, making Émile the grandfather of Jean, Charlie, and Lucie. Émile later offered Lucius his other daughter as a replacement because they looked alike.

The most powerful sorcerer of his generation, Émile decided Cerberus should be seized and rebuilt. Gérard Alois attacked him with Time Stop, four fireballs, and an Eternal Timestop. Émile's Reactive Dispel, built against Alois, stopped them and took his arm. Émile then prepared to destroy the Alois tower despite knowing Catherine was inside. Lucius closed a Destruction Sphere around him.

The council recorded a suicide. Catherine learned the truth and died two days later.