Loriel Youngers

### Quote

"I almost didn't see it. It was so small. This perfect little door, carved into the lintel below the porch light. Like a door for moths. I just wanted to see what it was, that was all, so I got up really close, and I knocked with the tip of my pinkie finger. The world went all twisty and strange, and then I was standing in the hall on the other side of the door, looking back on this impossibly huge porch. I didn't go through. It pulled me. That was how bad the Webworld wanted me."

Loriel is a character in *Every Heart a Doorway**,* and a student at Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children.

## Appearance

Loriel had brown hair that she wore in braids. She wore glasses with thick lenses made of carnival glass because spending time in the Webworld sharpened her vision so much that the normal world now looks too magnified.

## History

### Backstory

Loriel found the door to the Webworld carved into the lintel below the porch light of her home, so small it looked like a door for moths. She knocked with the tip of her pinkie finger, and was pulled through. After many adventures, the Queen of Dust asked her be a princess of the land and stay forever. She agreed on the condition that she could go home and tell her parents, but after they didn't believe her, she couldn't find her door and was sent to Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children. She continued to search, not knowing that the door was waiting for her back at home in the corner of her bedroom.

### Every Heart a Doorway

Loriel is first mentioned when Nancy meets her on her first day, describing her as being shy with brown braids and thick glasses. Loriel confessed to her that she came from a high Rhyme, high Linearity world.

The next day when Sumi was killed, Loriel accused Jack of the murder, saying "You did this, didn't you? This is just like what happened to Angela's guinea pig. You can't keep your hands or you scalpels to yourself." Jack tried to explain that it was a cultural mix-up, and that she had thought the guinea pig was for anyone who wanted it as it was in a common area, but Loriel brushed off this explanation saying that it was a pet.

Sometime after this, Loriel and Seraphina take Jill somewhere quiet until the other girls stop panicking.

At dinner, Loriel poured her soup over Jack's head, knowing that it would upset her because she doesn't like to be messy. Her companion then says that Loriel had sneezed in it before she poured it on her, and Jack runs off to get cleaned up, with Jill, Nancy and Kade following behind.

When Nancy and Kade arrived to group therapy without Jack, Loriel sneered and asked "Couldn't get the little killer out of her basement?" Lundy told her to stop speculating about who harmed Sumi, and Nancy and Kade take a seat. Seeing them sitting next to each other, Loriel's glare intensified. Nancy notes that she isn't the only one to found Kade beautiful, though she's likely the only one who found his beauty more aesthetic than romantic.

Loriel goes on to question Lundy about Sumi's death, asking who else would kill her like that before mutilationg the body. Then Jack walks into the room, now changed into clean clothes, explaining that she likely died from her injuries as corpses don't bleed as much as living people do. She then asks why she would have left a body if she had killed her, drawing on the fact that she had gained the reputation of dissecting bodies for research. Christopher comments that she makes a good point, but Loriel is unconvinced and argues that making a good point doesn't mean she's not a killer. However, the heat was gone and her accusations had been met with reality, so she simply slumps back in her chair and crosses her arms, saying that she'll keep an eye on her.

Lundy agrees that everyone should have their eyes on each other, and instructs that class to not to anywhere alone. Hearing this, Loriel raises her hand and questions what she should do if she finds her door, saying that won't miss going through her door just because she's not supposed to be alone. Lundy says that if this does occur, whoever is left can find another buddy, though Nancy can tell by her tone that she doesn't believe anyone will find her door. Christopher suggests that everyone stay in groups of three, or if they can't manage that, they should try not to find their door. Some students laughed at this. Others, like Loriel, looked pained.

Lundy then asks Loriel to tell the group about her door. She explains how she had found the door to the Webworld carved into the lintel below the porch light of her home, so small it looked like a door for moths. She had knocked with the tip of her pinkie finger, and was pulled through. After many adventures, and the tragic death of her beloved Wasp Prince, the Queen of Dust asked her be a princess of the land and stay forever. With tears in her eyes, she explained how she he agreed on the condition that she could go home and tell her parents, but once she got back to the real world she couldn't find her door. Loriel explains that that was almost two years ago, and that she still hasn't been able to find her door. Lundy says that this is because some doors only appear once, but Loriel denies this, as the she is sure the Queen will have kept to her promise. When Lundy asked if her parents are prepared for her disappearance, she snorted and says that her parents didn't believe her story, and thought that she had been through some type of trauma and couldn't be trusted, which is why they had sent her to the school.

That night, she had trouble keeping her eyes closed long enough to fall asleep, and started roaming the grounds to try and find her missing door, as she often did. When she got outside, Jill hit it over the head from behind, cracking her skull and knocking her to the ground. Then she extracted her eyes and optic nerves with a blade before leaving her to die. Angela found her body the next morning, not realising she was dead at first until she saw a crow eating from her eye socket. The Queen of Dust kept her door in place for the next sixth months, before releasing the magic and retiring to her chambers for a year of mourning.

Eleanor decides that it would to better to not report the death and tell her parents that she ran away, rather than risk having the school closed. Nancy, Kade, Jack and Chrisopher all agreed to help get rid of her body. When Jack examines her corpse in the basement, she concludes that it was a blitz attack and that the end goal likely wasn't death, but she can't think of who would want her eyes. They take her body to the basement and lower her body into a bathtub of acid, and then wait a few hours for her soft tissue to dissolve.

Once she's reduced to her skeletal form, Chrisopher plays his flute and guides her to the end of the grounds where the landscaping drops away to a stony stretch of earth full of tangle and weeds. Before she can be buried, Jack asks her to nod if she can understand her, to which Loriel responds with a nod. Jack then asks her who killed her, a question she was unable to answer since she could no longer speak. She points to the empty space next to Jack, hoping that Jack and Chrisopher would realise that it was Jill who killed her, but they did not. Chrisopher then continued to play his flute until she had walked into the ground. Later, Eleanor thanks them for getting rid of the body, and promises the students that she'll find a way to fix the situation, to which Angela bitterly asks "Oh, yeah? Can you fix it for Loriel?"

After Jack and Jill returned to the Moors, Loriel's eyes were buried with Sumi's hands and Lundy's body.

## Relationships

### Jack

Loriel had a strong hatred for Jack, which probably stemed from the time she dissected her friend Angela's guinea pig, which she didn't believe was an accident. When Sumi was killed, Loriel was immediately convinced that Jack was the one who killed her.

### Angela

Loriel and Angela were roommates while at Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children. They were likely very close, as Angela knows her well enough to know that she went wandering the grounds looking for her door when she disappeared, and she continues uncontrollably crying long after she finds out that Loriel is dead. Angela believed that Jack had killed Loriel, so she is horrified when Eleanor lets Jack "have the body", and continues to be bitter about it throughout the rest of the book.

### Queen of Dust

While Loriel is in the Webworld, the Queen of Dust asks her to be stay in the Webworld as her adopted daughter forever and to be a princess in the land. Loriel says that she wants nothing more, but requests that she go home and tell her parents first. The Queen agrees, but warns that she will have to look harder than she has ever looked in her life to find her door again. Loriel said she could do it, but never found her door back, which the Queen had kept in the corner of her bedroom with the most complicated magic she could muster. After waiting two and a half years for Loriel to return, she gives up and releases the spells on the door and spends a year in her chambers mourning.

### Kade

While don't interact at any point in series, Nancy assumes that Loriel had a crush on him by how she glared at her when she sat next to him. After Loriel is killed, Kade agrees to help get rid of her body, and is horrified at the thought of someone removing her eyes while she was still alive.

### Wasp Prince

While Loriel is recounting her adventures in the Webworld, she starts crying while she describes the death of her beloved Wasp Prince. Little else is known about him.

## Trivia

* Christopher says that Loriel liked doing puzzles and paint-by-numbers.

## References

1. ↑ Every Heart a Doorway, page 132: "Sumi liked origami and making friendship bracelets, Loriel did puzzles and paint-by-numbers."