Character Analysis
Magical Mommy
Azalea's mom, the queen of Eathesbury, is very pregnant and very sick when we first meet her in the story. Azalea remembers: "Mother hadn't been taken with a quick, hard illness that swept up a person overnight. Her illness had come slowly and lasted for years, robbing a bit of her each day" (1.13). This is a major bummer, not just because she's the mom, but also because she seems like an awesome person.
Even when ill, she's cheerful, and Azalea observes that "Mother had a plucky way of smiling that deepened her dimples and brightened the room" (1.24)—this during her last visit with her mom before she dies.
During this same visit, Azalea's mom also makes Azalea swear on silver to watch over her younger sisters. It turns out that she knows a little something about magic; according to the King, she believed in "the deepest magic of all. So deep, and rare, that it doesn't even have a name" (20.32). We kinda wonder how you refer to this type of magic in conversation, since saying all that is a mouthful.
We're guessing that Azalea's mom knew what she was doing when she asked Azalea to swear on a silver handkerchief to look after her sisters—there's no way she didn't know that it was a magical act. And in order to ask her daughter to undertake a magical oath without knowing it, we're thinking she must have been desperate.
Much-Loved Lady
Everyone who knew Azalea's mom adored her. Mr. Bradford tells Azalea how sorry he is that she died: "'She had the nicest laugh, I think, of anyone I ever knew'" (4.73), he says. And Lord Teddie ran off with their mother's portrait so that he could pay a really good painter to do an even better version, saying:
"I remembered your mum from ages ago, and when I found out she…you know…she—anyway, I thought, wouldn't it be chuffing if I collected all the pictures I could find of her and had Carrivegh—that's our family painter, Carrivegh—paint her. And it could be a surprise for you all." (29.108)
It seems like everyone loved their mother… most especially the King. He deals with his grief in a weird way, ordering her things all locked up and forbidding the girls to speak of her, but eventually he does deal with it, and despite her absence, they're able to function as a family again. It's a good thing too, because we're pretty sure it's what she would have wanted.
Silently Suffering
When Azalea's mom appears in Keeper's pavilion, it confirms Azalea's worst fears: that the High King can trap souls, and this has happened to her mom. But Azalea soon realizes that she's not just trapped, she's tortured, as Azalea takes in:
Mother's bright eyes and kind face, creased with the familiar look of pain. Her mouth seemed a blurred line and Azalea gaped at the scarlet lines about Mother's lips, ringed with purple bruises. Azalea suddenly realized—Her mouth had been sewn shut. (18.159-160)
Azalea finally realizes that this isn't her mom, but rather Keeper taking her mother's shape (because he's stolen the brooch that once belonged to her), and it's good news that Azalea's mom didn't really have her soul trapped and her lips sewn shut… but it's a compelling enough image that Azalea believes it, and we do too at first. It's with some relief, and some sadness, that Azalea realizes that her mom is well and truly dead.
Something of her lives on inside Azalea and her sisters, though, related to the warm flickery bit of magic that's hard to pin down. When Keeper locks Azalea in a storage room to die, and goes out to kill the King, her mom appears to her in a dream. She comforts Azalea:
Mother tilted her head, reached out, and brushed an errant strand of hair from Azalea's face, and wiped a tear streak away with her thumb. (25.101)
And then she makes Azalea swear upon the silver handkerchief again, this time to watch over her whole family, including her father. Azalea does this, and she emerges from the dream with the silver handkerchief in hand, even though she'd destroyed it earlier. So although Azalea's mom is dead, enough of her remains to help set things right in the end.