Divya "Ivy" Jacob, also known as the Jacobite, is a clairvoyant who is imprisoned in Oxford during the twentieth Bone Season. She is a palmist, a kind of vile augur.
Biography[]
History[]
Ivy was born in Jacob's Island to a palmist named Parul, who had been imprisoned there following the gang wars caused by On the Merits of Unnaturalness. At some point, Parul died and Ivy was raised by Vern and Wynn Jacob.
When Ivy was eleven, Chelsea Neves was brought to the slum from Lambeth. The pair became close friends and started a relationship. About four years after Chelsea arrived in Jacob's Island, they escaped together. Ivy went to Camden, where she worked under a kidsman named Agatha Lamb. Once Ivy was too old to be a gutterling, the Rag and Bone Man invited her to be his mollisher, and she chose a syndicate name, the Jacobite. She continued in this role until her arrest at Camden Market on January 11, 2059.
The Bone Season[]
Paige Mahoney meets Ivy in the Detainment Facility after their arrival in Oxford. While all of the new prisoners are recovering from flux poisoning, Ivy appears particularly unwell and afraid, screaming when Pleione Sualocin feeds on a voyant in front of the group. Thuban Sargas becomes her Rephaite keeper.
On her second night in Oxford, Ivy breaks free of the Residence of Corpus, only for Carl Dempsey-Brown to report her to Thuban. As punishment, Thuban shaves her head and beats her, which disturbs Tilda.
Paige sees Ivy again when Warden brings her to Port Meadow, where Ivy is guarding the sally port with Thuban. After Thuban and Warden have a verbal altercation, Thuban vents his frustration by striking Ivy. When Warden and Paige return from training, Ivy opens the sally port. Warden thanks her and addresses her by name, visibly surprising her. After this, Paige only ever sees Ivy from a distance and never speaks to her, but learns that Thuban has been torturing her in Tom Tower, possibly with an iron chair and thumbscrews. Despite her injuries and exhaustion, Ivy reaches the train on time to escape Oxford at the end of the book.
The Mime Order[]
On the train back to London, Ivy tells Paige that she was a gutterling, which Paige does not fully believe, since Ivy is too old. Because Ivy is so weak, Nick helps her walk beside the tracks of the Pentad Line when the survivors leave the train. After the bloodbath at the Tower of London, she takes refuge in Camden Lockets, where Agatha works, taking Felix Coombs, Eleanor 'Nell' Nahid and Jos Biwott with her. Paige later finds the group and they discuss ideas for how to expose the Rephs, but Ivy is particularly reluctant to speak out, believing the survivors should either stay hidden or leave London. Her reluctance partly stems from her belief that Haymarket Hector will not act on the information.
Later, when Paige is leaving the black market in Covent Garden, Cutmouth corners her, demanding to know where Ivy is. At this point, Paige begins to think Ivy is hiding something. Her suspicions rise when Ivy later admits to having grown up in the same community as Cutmouth. When Paige tries to press her on the subject, Ivy threatens her with a switchblade. She expresses disappointment in Paige for working for the White Binder.
When The Rephaite Revelation is printed with unauthorized edits, Paige fears for the other survivors and goes to Camden Lockets, finding that they have disappeared through a tunnel that leads to the Chanting Lay. Realizing the Abbess has taken them captive, she asks Warden to rescue them during the scrimmage.
The Ranthen bring the survivors to the Camden Catacombs at the end of the scrimmage. Once Paige is crowned Underqueen, Ivy tells her story before the Unnatural Assembly. She was the second mollisher of the Rag and Bone Man, who tricked her into selecting voyants for the gray market. When she reported him to Cutmouth, who wrongly trusted Hector to act, the Rag and Bone Man personally burned off her gang tattoo—the rawhand—and sent her to Oxford. The Abbess furiously shoots Ivy, but the bullet only grazes her leg. Since Ivy exposed the corruption in the syndicate, Paige promises to give her a fair hearing and a trial by jury,
The Song Rising[]
Since the scrimmage, Ivy has been staying in a cell north of the Thames with two voyant bodyguards to prevent revenge attacks. By the time of her trial, she has gained a little weight and her hair is growing out soft and dark.
At her trial, Ivy tells the assembled members of the Mime Order how she became the mollisher of the Rag and Bone Man and unknowingly aided the gray market, choosing voyants to be sent to Oxford. Realizing something was wrong, she reported her suspicions to Cutmouth—her former lover—and was ultimately sent to Oxford herself. Ivy also names the people she knew were involved in the gray market, including Jenny Greenteeth and the Wicked Lady. Paige finds her guilty, but gives her a light sentence of remaining under house arrest or with a chaperone. Wynn quickly sends Ivy away in a cab, but stays behind to thank Paige, promising that her kindness will not go unnoticed. This proves true when martial law is declared in London, and Wynn uses the favour owed to her by Styx to get the Mime Order safely into the Beneath. She makes it clear that if Paige had punished Ivy, she would have gladly left the Mime Order to the mercy of Hildred Vance. While Styx reluctantly allows the voyants to enter the Beneath, he exacts a price, stipulating that one syndicate voyant must join his mudlarks and toshers.
In the deep-level crisis facility, Ivy is attacked by a group of enraged voyants, who carve a 'T' (presumably for traitor) into her cheek. Paige and Róisín Jacob hatch a plan to protect Ivy by having her be the one to join Styx, with Róisín then volunteering to take her place. Before they can enact the plan, Ivy goes to Styx of her own accord, leaving Paige a note to remind her that she can't save everyone. Róisín goes after her. At Paige's behest, Scarlett Burnish later has them both extracted from the Beneath.
The Mask Falling[]
Eliza Renton and the Glym Lord send Ivy to the Scion Citadel of Paris to ask Paige for assistance. Paige finds her and brings her to the safe house on Rue Gît-le-Cœur. Ivy has brought Paige the box her father left her in his will, which Eliza gave her. She admits that she ended up liking being in the Beneath, where she scavenged interesting objects, like a sixteenth-century posy ring, which she now wears on a chain around her neck. Paige observes that her time in the Beneath has "taken the clay of her and fired it into sturdy ceramic."
Given her fear of Rephs, Ivy is nervous around Arcturus, but gradually adjusts to his presence. When she expresses her desire to kill Thuban, he discourages her by saying that the greatest vengeance is by continuing to live. Nonetheless, she joins the assignment to Versailles, bringing a crowbar she presumably obtained in London. She defends Paige when Léandre becomes frustrated with her. Though she proves adept at navigating the carrières, she is unable to proceed any farther than the sleeping chamber, realizing she is not yet ready to face Thuban. She tells Paige to burn the place to the ground before going back to Apollyon. Not long after they leave, she musters the courage to follow them down the Passage des Voleurs and meets Paige and the others in the cemetery on their way back.
After Arcturus's supposed betrayal, Paige sends Nadine Arnett, Zeke Sáenz, and Ivy back to London to warn the Mime Order, let the Edinburgh and Manchester syndicates know what's happened, and move the London voyants to the shadow houses. Ivy doesn't want to go back to the Mime Order, instead she wants to become a perdue. Paige understands and says once Ivy is done getting Nadine and Zeke to Eliza and Glym, she should return to Paris, but asks her to bring someone with her. Ivy agrees to this plan.
Ivy returns just in time for the trial of Le Latronpuche, and has brought the person Paige asked her to bring. It's revealed to be Didion Waite, Le Patronpuche's half-brother. After the announcement of the alliance between Le Nouveau Régime and the Mime Order, Ivy tells Paige that Le Vieux Orphelin has accepted her request to join his perdues. She looks forward to being able to pick her new name and begin a fresh start.
Physical Description[]
Ivy is originally seen with electric-blue hair in a pixie cut, but it was shaved off by her keeper. She is of South Asian descent.[1] She is 5"6' and has dark, almost black, eyes. She has mottled scarring on her right arm where a tattoo was burned away. She has narrow hips. After being imprisoned in Sheol I, Ivy has scars hatched into the smooth brown of her skin from her Rephaite keeper. There's a missing tooth at the front of her mouth, thanks to Thuban. Her fingers are noticeably bony, with knuckles raw with calluses. Her smile is rare, but when it appears, it lights her face all the way to her eyes. A few months after escaping Sheol I, her hair has grown long enough to cover the tips of her ears. Her hands tremble. She is frail. She doesn't sleep and her stomach won't take much food.
Personality[]
The instinct to avoid detection is etched into her. Paige recalls how Ivy was the most fearful of the voyants brought to Oxford with her. Her dreamscape feels dim, quiet, and broken. Despite her trauma, Ivy is a survivor.
Etymology[]
Divya is an Indian name that comes from a Sanskrit word meaning "divine" or "divine brilliance."[2]