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"Oh, you look just like Nancy!"'' --Julia Ingledew

Emma Tolly
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Born

1992

Family

Mostyn Tolly (father)

Nancy Tolly née Ingledew (mother)

Julia Ingledew (aunt) Paton Yewbeam (uncle by marriage) Paton’s family, which includes Charlie Bone

Hair colour

Pale Blonde

Eye colour

Grey-blue

Endowment (if a child of the Red King)

Can transform into various types of bird (a limited form of shapeshifting)

Affiliation(s)

Good endowed

Ancestor (if a child of the Red King)

Tolemeo

Department (current or past)

Art

Gender

Female


Emma Tolly (b. 1992) is one of the "good" children. She is best friends with Olivia Vertigo. She is the only child of Mostyn Tolly, an inventor, and Nancy Ingledew.


History[]

Eight years before the beginning of the first book, Emma's mother, Nancy, died from illness just days before Emma's second birthday. Emma's father, Mostyn Tolly, chose to give Emma away rather than raise her himself, believing that Emma would have a better life living with a loving father, a mother and a brother, rather than living with him, a 'crusty, absent-minded man'. Harold Bloor, an old school friend of Mostyn's, offered to give Mostyn in return for Emma 'the most exciting challenge of his life'. They wanted him to bring to life the Knight of Toledo, Queen Berenice's father and an ancestor to all of the descendants of the Red King. Mostyn agreed, and was led to believe that Emma would have a more happy life with the Bloor family rather than remaining with him. However, Dr Bloor was lying and only wanted Emma for her endowment.

Lyell Bone, Charlie's father, tried to stop the Bloors from taking Emma but became hypnotized by Dr Bloor's son, Manfred, who was nine years old at the time. Emma, too, suffered the same fate and was put under the same trance, renamed Emilia Moon, and shipped off to live with adopted parents, who were paid off by the Bloors.

Emilia moon

Charlie Bone eventually figures out that Emilia Moon is really Emma Tolly and awakens her from her trance with a strange box he found, containing a suit of armor in it that had the sound of a church organ playing and church bells tolling. This was Tolly Twelve Bells, an invention made by Mostyn Tolly, with the intention of waking both Emma and Lyell from their spellbound state. The invention woke Emma from her trance, and when the Bloors discovered that she was free they brought her back to the Academy, possibly with the intention of re-hypnotizing her. They locked her away in a dark cell in the Academy, but Emma escaped through use of her endowment and found her way, with Paton Yewbeam's help, to her aunt, Julia Ingledew, at Ingledew's Bookshop. Emma now lives there.

In the second book, Emma acts as if she doesn't want to be friends with Olivia anymore, and is unintentionally distant toward all of the good endowed. However, Emma soon realises that she hasn't been being very nice lately and eventually helps the good endowed in their quest to rescue Henry Yewbeam from the Bloors.

In the third book, Emma begins the quest to rescue Ollie Sparks from invisibility, mainly due to the fact that he almost helped her escape from her attic prison in the first book and she felt sorry for him.    

Emma has a crush on Tancred Torsson throughout the series. Hinted at first, subtly in the fourth book, and made obvious in the sixth. She becomes distraught when Tancred and Tracy Morsell start dating in the sixth book. At the end of the eighth book it is shown that Tancred and Emma are holding hands, signaling that they are finally a couple.

"Billy whispered, 'Tancred and Emma are holding hands.'"--last line, last page in Charlie Bone and the Red Knight.


Physical appearance[]

Emma has pale-blonde hair and grey-blue eyes. According to her aunt Julia Ingledew, she looks just like her mother Nancy.


Personality[]

Emma is a gifted artist, and loves to draw birds. Her endowment enables her to transform herself into different types of birds, even those which are seen only in fairytales. Through a combination of her two talents, she eventually creates her own bird called the Tollroc (the name is probably a fusion of “Tolly” and “roc”, the roc being a mythical bird). Emma strongly resembles her mother, Nancy, and owns a duck named after her. Her greatest weaknesses are her fingers or hands, as she cannot fly when these are sore or weakened. Emma is caring and sweet, a little shy and booknerdish-- the opposite of her best friend Olivia.

Emma has a very bright, happy way about her, something that appeared after she was released from Manfred's mid control. She loves to read and is quite clever. In the first book, she says that she is a very persevering person. Although she could be considered shy, she is extremely brave, as shown when she saves Tancred from drowning. She is stronger than she looks, as is shown in the fourth book, when she successfully fights Joshua Tilpin's magnetic pull and doesn't let herself be taken in by him. Emma is very loyal, especially to her aunt and her best friend Olivia, and is always ready to help others, no matter the danger to herself. 

Powers[]

Shape-shifting[]

Emma Tolly's endowment is to shape shift into any type of bird at will, even fictional ones. The only time she can not fly is when her hands and fingers are weakened or sore.

Flight: This is what Emma mainly uses her power for. While in bird form, she can fly and dive as fast as a hawk, maybe even faster

Slight Mental Endowment Resistance[]

Emma has shown resistance to other people's mental endowments before. For example, she was able to resist Joshua's endowment, while Tancred was not. Although she was hypnotised for a long time, it started when she was little, so she had less power then.


Relationships[]

Emma is the daughter of Nancy and Mostyn Tolly, and the niece of Julia Ingledew. After being handed over to the Bloors, she lived with a couple, Mr and Mrs Moon, who were vaguely fond of her but didn't treat her with much love and kindness. When she was woken up from her trance, she went to live with her aunt.

Emma cherishes the memory of her dead parents and loves and respects her aunt deeply. She has no love for the Moons who looked after her as foster parents during her hypnosis. She is best friends with Olivia Vertigo, and friends with the other good endowed children at Bloor's.

Later in the series Emma develops a seemingly unrequited crush on Tancred Torsson, which causes her a lot of pain in book 6 when Tancred is dating Tracey Morsell. Eventually, in book 8, Tancred begins to return her feelings, and the two end up dating at the end of the novel.


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