Sister Pan

Sister Pan is a Mystic Sister, or Holy Witch, at Sweet Mercy. She's also Mistress Path, teacher of Path class, at the convent. Now very old, she hasn't walked The Path in years, and isn't always respected by the novices.

Appearance and Personality
Sister Pan looks very old, over eighty. In fact, she is 102 years old at the time of her death in Holy Sister. Nona describes her as possibly the oldest woman she had ever seen. She has dark skin and is missing is her right hand. Her eyes are pale and creamy with age, and she suffers from the cold and seems to be quite deaf though this is possibly an act. She is described to have a surprisingly young voice. Pan has a sharp wit but is never unkind. She prefers to entertain and guide, rather than directing or dictating.

Red Sister
In Path class, Sister Pan only becomes truly animated the novices with Quantal traits, often taking them to a secret rooms on the mid-level of the Path Tower protected by sigils, so they can safely practice their magic. Those novices without the traits focus on developing through meditation, mantras and the control of breathing the mental states of Clarity, Patience, and Serenity which are useful training for any nun; she sometimes let's them go practice Blade-Path instead. Her teaching method is subtle and difficult to understand; at stage an exasperated Nona sighs, "It was all very well Sister Pan making pretty speeches but it would be much more helpful if she would just tell them what they needed to know. If you understood something you should be able to explain it: if you didn’t understand it then you had no business teaching it." Pan also runs the naming ceremony, where novices in Red Class chose the name that they'll use as nuns, which is kept secret until they take holy orders.

Sister Pan begins to suspect that Nona has a touch of Quantal, based on the Path Bond between her and Hessa. During Sherzal's visit to the convent, Nona proves to have much more than a touch, destroy a wall during her whipping. Pan takes new interest in the novice, visiting her in the Sanatorium, and taking her with the other Grey Class Quantal novices - Arabella and Hessa - for one-on-one lessons in the secret rooms. Sister Pan takes her three novices to the annual event at The Academy, where they challenge Academy students in trials. Ara and Hessa perform well, but Nona collapses during her trial when the student tries to use a Rending-Shadow on her. As Nona recuperates, Pan berates the two Academics for their student's recklessness who may have been emotionally manipulated. When she wakes, they ask Nona how she survived the test, and she demonstrates her Flaw-Blade, an almost never seen Marjal trait. Realises that Nona is a Three-Blood, the first in a hundred years, the Academics advise Pan to take Nona back to the convent quickly.

Grey Sister
In Mystic Class, Sister Pan begins to formally teach her Quantal novices - Nona, Zole, and Joeli - the subtle art of Thread-Work. When Nona and Zole practice, they discover that Zole only has the deepest and most fundamental Threads hardest to find, something Pan has never seen before.

Holy Sister
Defying direct orders of Abbess Wheel and her old age, Sister Pan accompanies the war force of the convent of Sweet Mercy to the defense of Verity against a siege of the Scithrowl. When a group of the most potent Scithrowl battle mages, called Adoma's Fist, threatens to overwhelm the defenders, Sister Pan challenges them alone. After being taunted by the Scithrowl mages she reveals that she has been walking the path for twenty uninterrupted years and obliterates her opponents, sacrificing her life in the effort and release of energy.

The Girl and the Mountain
In Mystic Class Mali goes on her ranging to the ice with 3 other sisters including Nina who where caught in a storm and lost. All but Mali perish due to the cold. She is rescued by Yaz through a haze gate while linking together by the Path. She also faces extreme frostbite and loses her hand while traveling through a gate to Hades to retrieve an object to store Taproot.

She later returns with Yaz to Sweet Mercy via another gate in the caves beneath the convent.