Edwina Helvellyan is a Malvanian internee whose mother and grandmother were abducted by the Cyad Confederacy during the Great Invasion.  She stowed away on a Cyad ship with the intention of finding her mother and grandmother.  She is training to be a healer.  She also takes a great interest in politics and history.  She has a calm demeanour and can be somewhat reticent, especially around people she doesn't know well or doesn't feel comfortable with.  She and Sheraleen Conder (later Sheraleen Mulvaney, then Sheraleen Donovan) became good friends during their time in a Cyad correctional school (prison).