Alice Dufresne

Orphaned at the age of nine, she was rescued over a year later from the streets of Kraftenberg by Miss Miranda Nell, who had found her sleeping in a pile of sawdust in an alley behind a pub. Miss Nell brought her, cold and malnourished, back to the Palace, where she was placed into the care of Miss Lucy Alans.

Miss Alans had intended for her to serve as a servant to the queen, but quite a special relationship blossomed between them. Miss Alans suspected that Queen Autumn saw in her the baby sister she had been robbed of when her biological younger sister succumbed to pneumonia at the age of two; she also knew that Alice, likewise, felt a similar attachment to Autumn. As the sitting queen aged without a suitable heir, she wrote in her will that the crown should go to the young orphan girl she and her staff had raised. Alice was not told until Queen Autumn's death that she would be taking her place.