Celia Bowen: As a child, Celia is described as having long, curly brown hair and large dark eyes, whose color is unspecified, but match those of her father. During her childhood, Hector dresses her up in beautiful gowns and she is made to appear like a doll. However, this stops after she grows too old for frilly dresses, and by the time she is a teenager, he father takes a different route: during her time as a spiritual medium, Hector makes Celia wear ragged dresses and his control over her diet causes her to almost starve - eventually, she is allowed to gain weight and become much more healthy.
When Celia auditions for the circus, her face is described as "maintaining a semblance of girlishness", even though she is nearly eighteen by this point. However, it is suggested that nobody knows how old she is. When she speaks during the auditions, her voice is described as calm and low, which echoes the low whisper that she had as a child Her hair is still curly,but after Tante Padva suggests that her hair is too light for the black-and-white color scheme of the circus, Celia darkens her hair color so that it is almost black and it is assumed that this color remains for the duration of the circus.
Celia Bowen is said to retain her age from when she first joined the circus, which is around 18. However due to the slowing enchantments of the circus she would actually be around 34.
Marco Alisdair: When Marco is first introduced, he is described as having badly cut dark hair and grey-green eyes. Due to his life in a orphanage, he is also introduced in extremely ragged clothes. However, after Alexander "adopts" him as his student, Marco's appearance improves; he is treated to private hairdressers and tailors, and his wardrobe consists of expensive, fashionable suits.
However, one of Marco's specialties is the ability to manipulate his appearance, and he uses this skill throughout much of his adult life. Even though the changes are subtle, they are noticeable to Celia Bowen, and are enough to attract the attentions of Isabel and the Burgess sisters upon sight; when using the enchantment, his features become sharper, a goatee appears and his eyes turn to a bright green - the general effect makes Marco appear older than he really is. When Marco and Celia are alone for the first time, she mentions that his "mask"is handsome, but consciously so, and for her the sentiment is off putting. Marco proceeds to drop his guard afterwards, and Celia notes that he is still handsome - from this point on wards, it is suggested that he only reverts to his normal face when he is in the company of Celia; however, the manipulated face is still visible to everybody else.
Because of Marco's studies and his habit of keeping notebooks, he fingers are constantly stained with ink. Marco also resembles that of a 21 year old, and due to the magic would actually be around 37 by the time of the novel ending.
Similarities: Both Celia and Marco both share a permanent scar on their ring fingers, which bind them to the challenge they are competing against each other in.
Environment Descriptions:
"People marvel at the staggering height of the tallest tents.They stare at the clock that sits just inside the gates that no one can properly describe."
"The whole of Le Cirque des Reves (The circus of dreams) is formed by series of circles.....Rather then a single tent with rings enclosed within, this circus contains clusters of tents like pyramids, some large and others quite small. They are set within circular paths, contained within a circular fence. Looping and continuous.
I need to get further into the book so I will be updating these descriptions as I go along.
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