Page 114 of The Familiar

“She will be a vulnerability to you, Víctor. Forever. People will always wonder if you have a heretic in your household and if that heresy stains you as well.”

“You underestimate your own gifts. Besides, Pérez cannot evade the king forever. Once he is in Philip’s grasp, the scullion will be of no interest to him. We will make sure she goes to mass as regularly as she pisses and she will be a testimony to the victory of the one true Church. I’ll drag her to Rome to take communion if I have to.” He leaned back in his chair. “But perhaps I’ve mistaken your feelings for her. Would you rather her dead than that she belonged to me?”

I would keep her from being buried alive in a future of servitude. But he couldn’t save her without Víctor. Every scheme he had would twist to further the De Paredes fortunes. Every move he made would draw the cords tighter around Luzia. He had thought he might buy his own freedom with hers, but now they would both be captives. She would hate him and she would be right to. Maybe she would choose the pyre instead.

“Can my luck not be enough for you?” he asked.

“Your luck brought me Luzia Cotado. If the king will not use her as the instrument she was meant to be, I will.”

There was the truth that had choked him in the scorpion’s den. He had doomed her before they had ever met.

CHAPTER 50

The cell was lonely without Teoda and without hope. Neva slept more than anyone Luzia had ever encountered and she listened jealously to the old woman’s snores. She would have liked to sleep through these interminable days.

Rudolfo was posted at her door all night long now and he wasn’t happy about it, but his bad mood was tempered by anticipation for the love spell he was owed.

“It isn’t time yet,” Luzia told him. “I need to know more about your beloved.”

“She is beautiful,” Rudolfo told her. “Smooth skinned, eyes like—”

“Sapphires. Yes, so you told me. But what are her interests? Where is she from?”

Rudolfo faltered.

“Do you want wobbly magic?” she prodded him. “Do you want her to fall in love with some other man named Rudolfo?”

“No!” he cried.

“Everyone knows Mariposa Baldera is beautiful. You must discover her likes and dislikes, find out about her family, learn everything you can about her.”

“How am I to do all that?”

“Talk to her.”

“I couldn’t.”

Luzia sighed. “Then there’s nothing I can do.”

“You will help me or I won’t let you out to collect your rations. You will starve!”

“Do as you must,” said Luzia. “You will be the one to live without love.”

The next day he returned. “Mariposa is from Salamanca. She has a brother who is about to start at the university. She likes fried fish and lilies.”

“Then you must bring her lilies.”

“It is November!”

“Bring me a bulb.”

“I can’t afford such things.”

“Then dig one up in the monastery gardens.”

“That is a crime!”

“You can be an honorable man or you can have love, Rudolfo.”