Jolyon is a friend of Duvall's from school in Aldomina.
Backstory
As a teenager, Jolyon attended a posh boarding school in Aldomina, where they were becoming disconnected from general society at around the same time as Duvall. The pair would skip class together and get high or do juvenile pranks[1], and in fact rarely went to class together instead[2].
Jolyon came into debt to some "unsavory sorts", and when something went wrong, they were not protected by labor laws (as devils don't have contracts), and thus died and went to hell.
During the Bell Metal Station arc
| Spoiler: What Happened at Bell Metal Station Arc
This page contains information that is a spoiler for What Happened at Bell Metal Station. If you do not wish to know the secrets of the heartland, please turn back. |
When Pickman and Duvall boarded the Red Zephyr, the train saw an opportunity to communicate to others. It appeared to Jolyon in Ojantani form and made an agreement (not a contract) to hire them, saying that it could not go back, but they could. Mechanically, this was as a result of Duvall taking the upgraded Echo fallout "The Life Not Lived"; Jolyon appeared on board, now older and resembling "a Great Gatsby side character"[1], and greeted their friend. They were hospitable and friendly, offering tea, but Pickman declared them to be a ghost or a projection of the train and refused to participate in the conversation, while Duvall was flummoxed and didn't feel like anything was odd at the time. Also, full of bugs, which they noticed. After some conversation, Jolyon gave him a Red Zephyr torch and convinced the train to stop so he and Pickman could walk back to Bell Metal Station.
When the party returned (with Lyke) after being kicked out of the station, Jolyon was fixing the broken pipe, now dressed as an old-fashioned train operator. Pickman finally realized that Jolyon was not in fact a ghost, and wrote a letter that convinced the Red Zephyr to stop attacking the station and instead head to Sapodilla.