Adeline Vance

Adeline Vance is the secretary at the Phoenix Jackson Museum of Curiosities.

Adeline is the only reason the Museum is functioning whatsoever. Both Adeline and Phoenix Jackson are on the record as saying that the place would fall apart without her, and they are not wrong. Adeline has been shown to take the lead on every piece of organizational work at the Museum that does not fall directly under Phoenix Jackson's magical ability.

Adeline has an aptitude for knowing things about people that they either don't know about themselves or don't expect other people to know. She is often very direct about communicating this information, such as when she told Ellison Prince she did not realise that Ellison dated men, or when she told Lucius Zann that asking about whether her aptitude with people was due to her magic was like asking him if his aptitude for medicine was because of his autism.

Adeline is often a very maternal figure, sometimes to the point of smothering. Adeline has an unknown history with Patrick Cooper, who asks her to do favours for him despite his ongoing feud with her employer.

Dark Backstory
Adeline has clearly not always worked for Phoenix, as Cephus Mamiodes was surprised to learn that she is "now" working for him. This was further reinforced by The Thespian, who alluded to, and then eventually outright stated, that Adeline had previously worked for Alex Abel and that the Museum was bankrolled by The New Inquisition.

This did not come as an enormous surprise to the player characters, who had already concluded that Adeline must have some skeletons in her closet and, frankly, that the rather absurd amount of money the Museum had at its disposal would have to come from somewhere a little more reliable than a smelly hippie. The rather more sinister implications of this were reinforced, however, when Lucius confessed to Adeline that he was afraid that he really did have the capacity to be a serial killer, and Adeline rather sweetly told Lucius that he was not alone and that he surely doesn't think that Adeline is a bad person. This throws new light on Adeline's callous observation that after the events of the Madison King Memorial Website that the gang should "ice" Charlotte Odette.

The memorial website also threw something of a wrench into the operations of the Museum; following Phoenix lending his van keys to Charlotte, Adeline began to refer to Phoenix by his first name rather than her usual title, "Mister Jackson".