Biddy Squire

Freckles dust Biddy's nose and cheeks against pale skin. Her light brown hair falls loosely to her shoulders, slightly tousled, with bangs parting near the middle and curving off to each side of her forehead. Narrow light green eyes, set off by long lower lashes and thin brows positioned low on her brow, complete her look.

Biddy grew into exactly the person her father tried to raise: generous, principled, and incapable of ignoring suffering. She portioned out food so every neighborhood cat received a fair share, admitting she was meddling in the animals' world but insisting she could not stand to hear anything cry.

That same conscience pulled her into activism. Convinced the government's negligence was hurting ordinary people, she joined the Red Circus while it was still a student movement and marched in its demonstrations. She could turn fierce when anyone blocked her path, snapping at her worried father and even branding him "the enemy," though his reasoning clearly weighed on her. By her own account she did not fear dying for a just cause; what frightened her was living in a country where criticizing wrongdoing was forbidden.

Biddy was raised in Ostania by Billy Squire. Her mother appears in an old family photograph but disappeared from their lives for reasons never explained, leaving Billy to bring her up alone on lessons about giving rather than taking and lifting others up instead of holding them down, maxims she proudly quoted back at him.

Her activism ended in tragedy. Leaving home for another demonstration over Billy's objections, she was killed in the crackdown that followed; the head wound visible when her father identified her body implies a fatal beating by the SSS. Her death placed Billy under state surveillance, and the Red Circus helped him flee the country, drawing him into the organization his daughter had died for and eventually to its head.

Biddy shapes the Bus Hijacking Arc from beyond the grave. Billy speaks of her when Henry Henderson questions his willingness to threaten children, and he hallucinates her presence when Anya Forger unknowingly echoes her words about speaking up for people in need. Remembering the daughter who was proud of who she had become, Billy admits he only pretended to forget her so his anger could keep him going. He refuses to let her die a second time, abandons the bombing, and surrenders while shouldering full blame, choosing to remain a man worthy of being called her father.