Is the Newest Witch to Enroll at the Salvatore House a Friend or Foe?

Although Legacies often teases the chance of reuniting us with characters that we haven’t seen since the season finale of The Vampire Diaries, like Elena and Damon Salvatore, every now and then, showrunners introduce us to an entirely new character, like Cleo Sowande (Omono Okojie).

In Season 3, showrunners announced that there was a new witch in town. But fans have had a hard time figuring out where her loyalties lie. While Cleo previously had doubts about attending the Salvatore Boarding School for the Young & Gifted, meeting a new friend seemed to ease her concerns. But what do we know about her? Who is Cleo Sowande, and whose side is she really on?

Cleo isn’t just any witch — she’s the seventh daughter of the seventh daughter in her lineage, which makes her a little different than the witches we’ve met in the past. Cleo is a muse and holds the power of inspiration, which made it easy for her to connect with her newfound friend at the Salvatore School, Hope Mikaelson (Danielle Rose Russell), who shares her passion for the arts. 

Earlier in the season, Cleo dropped hints about her traumatic history, and reports suggest that she will reveal even more details about her story in upcoming episodes. Cleo explained in Episode 10, “My sisters were murdered. I am the only one of us left. I have accepted that there was nothing I could do to save them. I have figured out how to live without them, to move on.”

Throughout the last season, Cleo and Hope have built a pretty powerful bond, but all of that came to an end in Episode 12. In “I Was Made To Love You,” viewers learned that Cleo had replaced the real Landon with a Malivore. 

When Hope discovered the news, she condemned Cleo for her ulterior motives. To which Cleo responded, “You know nothing of who I am. I am merely forcing you to live up to your potential, to fulfill your destiny as the one who is able to open the artifact, to kill Malivore, to free me!” 

Just as the former friends were preparing to throw down, the witch was rendered unconscious by a masked hero who we later learned was Landon (no, he's not dead). Now that Cleo has shown her true colors, viewers wonder how the rest of her story will unfold. And fans have theories. Some users believe that Hope and Cleo’s relationship runs much deeper than we previously believed.

On Reddit, one user wrote, “I think the idea that Cleo's family being the victims of Klaus and / or the Mikaelsons has merit. It would make a lot of sense.”

“Especially since Klaus was long obsessed with his past catching up with Hope. I recall in [The Originals] that he was killing descendants of people he had bad run-ins during his past for fear of them coming back to hurt Hope."

You'll have to see what happens between Hope and Cleo on new episodes of Legacies at 9 p.m. EST on the CW.