Nadya

### Quote

"I've been at the school for five years. I'll be seventeen in a month. A year after that and then I graduate, and my family starts expecting me to go somewhere, to make something of my life. I can't live on a countdown. I want to go *home*, and that means waiting until Belyyreka calls me back. I'm not a political exile like Sumi. I'm not a cultural exile like Kade, either. I just got caught in the wrong current. I want to gome *home*, I can wait here just as well as I can wait on campus."

Nadya is one of the main characters in *Beneath the Sugar Sky.*

## Appearance

Nadya is Russian, with brown hair she likes to keep perpetually wet and a missing right forearm, replaced by a saltwater prosthetic from Belyyreka.

## History

### Before the Books

Nadya was born in Russia, without anything below the elbow on her right arm. She was adopted by an American tourist who believed she was "helping" the "special needs" girl. She gave Nadya a prosthetic arm which she hated, not only because it was uncomfortable and unhelpful, but because it reminded her that her adoptive family would always see her as the sad orphan who needed saved, when she just wanted love.

When she was about eleven, the waterweeds by the turtle pond opened up for her, and she fell through the doorway to Belyyreka, spending a lifetime there. While she lived in that world, she made her own prosthetic out of river water, filled with weeds and fish. However, she fell into the wrong river and was dragged back to Earth.

Nadya was sent to Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children. She remained there for five years, longer than students mostly remain. She was at the School by the time *Every Heart a Doorway* happened; however, she was not actively involved in the plot. She never officially met Nancy, but she knew her from therapy sessions. She considered her to be "dry as bones."

### Beneath the Sugar Sky

Nadya befriended Cora when she arrived at the school, since they were both "damp girls." Nadya tended to burst into Cora's room and wanted to be her roommate, something that Eleanor refused, seeing as they both took the longest baths and it would be bad for them to be in the same place to egg each other on.

At the beginning of Autumn, Nadya meets up with Cora to go to the pond. She teases her friend for her abnormal hair color- a side effect of the Trenches- and refuses to wear a coat, saying that she doesn't get cold. She rushes into the pond to play with the turtles, only for Onishi Rini to fall from the sky and land with a splash in the pond. Rini demands that they take her to Sumi, and when Nadya says that she's dead, Rini throws a turtle at her head.

After Rini shows the students that she's slowly being erased from existence, they bring her to Eleanor, and she explains that she was sent to bring Sumi back to Confection, and she has a bracelet that can take her between worlds. Christopher has the idea to find Sumi's skeleton, return her hands, and then find her soul in the Halls of the Dead. Eleanor gives them permission to go, so Nadya departs with Rini, Cora, Christopher and Kade.

During the ride, Nadya insists on keeping the minivan windows open and keeps asking Kade if they've arrived yet. He asks why she's there, and she says that since she got doused with "turtle water", she gets to come on the quest. When they exit the car and enter the graveyard, Rini asks what stars are, which gives Nadya the impression that she's stupid. Christopher raises the skeleton of Sumi, and re-joins her hands. Nadya then joins Kade and Christopher in explaining Nancy to Rini so that she knows who to look for in the Halls of the Dead, and Rini summons them a door to travel through.

They enter the Halls of the Dead, and encounter the Lady of Shadows, who demands to know how they arrived. She softens once she realizes they are friends of Nancy, though Nadya insists that she isn't, and is instead a Drowned Girl. The Lady knows this, and says that the Drowned Worlds touch their borders. Nadya is brought to tears at the mention of Belyyreka, though the Lady says that she can't open a door there. The Lady then takes them to Nancy, who agrees to take them to the room of souls. Nadya doesn't understand how Nancy can enjoy being a statue, and Nancy says that's because she wasn't called. They then enter the room of souls, and Christopher summons Sumi's ghost; however, it is a ghost of who she was before Confection, and they will have to go elsewhere to find her nonsense. At that point, the Lord of the Dead arrives, saying that they will have to trade one of their souls if they wish to leave with Sumi's. Nadya asks if they have a turtle pond, and then agrees to stay so long as the Lord would let her go if Belyyreka called to her. She says goodbye to the others and leaves with Nancy to find the River of Souls.

Nadya remains at the River of Souls for a while, sitting with the turtles. One day, she throws a rock in anger, only to realize she'd thrown with her water prosthetic- which had returned. She sees a portal open to Belyyreka, and dives in, finally returning home.

## Trivia

* "Nadya" is a Russian diminutive of Nadezhda, meaning "hope" in Slavic.
	+ Nadya is also an Arabic name meaning "moist, tender, delicate."
* She has a slight Russian accent.

## References

1. ↑ http://www.tor.com/2017/06/28/illustrated-scenes-rovina-cai-seanan-mcguire-beneath-the-sugar-sky/
2. ↑ Beneath the Sugar Sky, page 72: Nadya took a step forward, nervous, glancing around at the others. Her hair, dry after so long away from either bathtub or turtle pond, was a fluffy brown cloud around her head.
3. ↑ Beneath the Sugar Sky page 21 "The ghost of a Russian accent lingered in her words and wrapped itself like water weeds around her vowels, pale and thin as tissue paper."