Jinks

"Be patient, Jinks, my boy, he told himself. You do not want to make her suspicious, do you? Wake her later if you need to, but for now keep your eyes shut and your mouth closed. And while you are doing that, you can use that mighty brain of yours to make your plan perfect."

- Jinks thinking to himself while faking sickness and making plans to steal riches from the palace of Del, all while Sharn is asleep on top of him, in The Isle of Illusion

Jinks was an acrobat and entertainer for the royal family in the palace of Del.

History
Jinks worked at the palace as an acrobat and entertainer to the royal family. He met Barda during this time, and was among those who took to calling him "Barda the Bear." When the Shadow Lord invaded, he fled the palace alongside the rest of the acrobats.Some point after fleeing the palace, Jinks met up with Doom and joined the Resistance movement against the Shadow Lord.

The Maze of the Beast
Jinks was stationed at the western stronghold when Lief, Barda, and Jasmine arrived with an injured Dain. At first he refused them entry, since the west of Deltora was infested with Ols, but he allowed them to enter when Lief correctly guessed the password. Since he knew Barda from their time in the palace, he ruined the companion's plan to continue travelling under false names, and then watched as they were taken away and imprisoned on Doom's orders.

Return to Del
Jinks watched a flock of blackbirds fly over the western stronghold, carrying the golden arrow given to Lief, Barda and Jasmine by the Dead Gnomes. He briefly wondered if the birds were Ols before shrugging it off and returning to the cave to sleep more.

Cavern of The Fear
After the Shadow Lord's defeat, Jinks moved back into the palace. He became a source of gossip and gamble, and purchased a fighting spider named Fury. It was he who told Jasmine about Lief's explorations into the Toran noble families for a bride, mostly just to make her jealous.

After Jasmine and Glock left for the Shadowlands, Lief and Barda forced Jinks to accompany them, since Glock had taken his fighting spider, Flash, with him. Since Fury had lost an earlier battle, she had a thirst for revenge and would track down Flash for a rematch.

The trail led them to the Os-Mine Hills, where the party was ambushed by a pack of Granous. While their leader played riddle games with Lief, Jinks cut himself free with a concealed knife. However, he fled rather than staying to help his king. The Granous pack chased after him, allowing Lief and Barda to be saved by weaver birds.

The Isle of Illusion
Jinks was found by Lindal of Broome and brought back to the palace. He told everyone the lie that Lief had been killed by the Granous before passing out. Very few actually believed his story, due to his nature as a trickster. He was tended to by Lady Sharn.

In actuality, Jinks was not as ill as he let on. When Sharn left him, he went about the palace. The way he saw it, either Lief was alive and would tell everyone of Jink's cowardice, or he was dead, and the Shadow Lord would invade again. Whichever option, he could not remain in the palace. So, he went about the palace, stealing what jewelry and valuables he could.

During the search, Jinks found his way into Marilen's room. He ate a poisoned cake prepared by Amarantz and died seconds later. His body was discovered by Sharn and Marilen, who used this to confirm that someone knew of the latter's arrival in the palace.

Physical appearance
Jinks was a small, wiry man with grey, waist-length hair that was twisted with feathers. He wore a strange assortment of different coloured garments and a striped woolen cap. Jinks also missed many of his teeth.

Personality
Jinks was described by Barda as, "a more gossiping, jealous, spiteful, trouble-making piece of mischief was never born." A coward by his own admission, Jinks seemed to have little loyalty to anyone but himself. He took delight in stirring up trouble for his own amusement and was only too quick to feign pathetic innocence where it suited his purposes. He was also not afraid of committing theft, as evidenced by the amount of times he was caught stealing from the palace pantry. He would often play victim and lied about having a condition that required him to consume tiny amounts of sweets to sustain his health.

Abilities
Since he was originally an acrobat, it can be assumed that Jinks was agile and skilled at performing. He was able to conceal a dagger up his sleeve, which could be attributed to his performer training, and he was able to outrun an entire pack of Granous.

Jinks' history among actors and acrobats has also allowed him to easily integrate himself among people, which helped him to pick up and spread gossip.

Jinks had a deep, powerful voice that did not suit his appearance at all.

Barda
Jinks and Barda were familiar with each other when they both lived at the palace in Del, though even then Barda was aware of Jinks' duplicitious, troublemaking nature. When they met again years later, Jinks took great delight in accusing Barda of cowardice due to his act in fleeing the palace before the Shadow Lord's assault, as well as claiming that Barda hid his cowardice by pretending bravery. However, Barda worried more about the damage Jinks' knowledge could do to the quest for the Belt's gems than about his own reputation. Their relationship soon reversed after Barda became the new chief of the reformed palace guards, which left him unafraid to grab Jinks and lift him in the air when he discovered Jinks was stealing food. Jinks lost no time in abandoning Barda to the Granous. Later he claimed that both he and Lief had met their ends and commented that Barda had been "thoughtlessly cruel" to him.

Jasmine
Jinks and Jasmine did not have much interaction prior to Deltora's liberation from the Shadow Lord's occupation; afterwards, Jinks delighted in antagonizing her. Notably, he called her "my lady" in mockery of her disdain for palace niceties and protocol. He enjoyed demeaning her lack of awareness of Deltoran palace customs. He also displayed little regard for traditions regarding Adin's relationship with his wife Zara when Jasmine pointed them out. It is unknown whether he was aware of Jasmine and Lief's feelings for each other. If he was, he almost certainly delighted in dashing Jasmine's hopes with his belief that Lief was to take a Toran bride.

Lief
Jinks did not interact with Lief much prior to his ascension to the throne; afterwards he seems to have had little regard for Lief's character, believing that he would marry a beautiful Toran woman for the sake of quickly producing an heir to the throne. His regard for Lief seems only to have extended so far as Lief's presence or position benefited him, as when he sought release from an angry Barda's clutches. By contrast, Jinks was quite willing to leave Lief at the hands of the Granous while seeing to his own safety. Later he went as far as to spread lies that Lief had perished upon returning to Del. Jinks even falsely claimed that he tried to save Lief.

Doom
For whatever reason, Doom allowed Jinks to join the Resistance, most likely because he could not be too choosy about his allies. However, Doom was not blind to Jinks' deceitful nature, and warned Sharn against trusting him.

Deltora Quest 1

 * The Maze of the Beast
 * Return to Del

Deltora Quest 2

 * Cavern of The Fear
 * The Isle of Illusion

Trivia

 * Jinks is one of the four minor or major characters to be given a POV in the series besides the main characters, the others being Jarred/Doom, Sharn and Josef.
 * Despite having been described as having a deep, powerful voice in The Maze of the Beast, the narrator of the Deltora Quest audiobooks, Ron Haddrick, made the mistake of giving Jinks a more high-pitched voice in the books of the second series.