Page 31 of The Familiar

“In the Ghayāt al-Hakīm magic was seen as the natural result of a holy life, the mark of a true sage. For a long time, crown and Church shared this belief. It was even translated into Castilian, by royal command.”

Luzia laughed. “But I haven’t lived a holy life.”

“I’ve seen all manner of power,” he said. “Sacred and perverse. I’ve never been able to locate the lines between science, and faith, and magic, nor have I cared to.”

“And you’re not afraid … of the devil? Of his minions?”

“Fear men, Luzia,” he said. “Fear their ambition and the crimes they commit in its service. But don’t fear magic or what you may do with it.”

It was the closest he could come to honesty.

CHAPTER 16

With him she wasn’t afraid. Here with the scorpion who knew her secrets, with a killer who made Hualit tremble and Águeda cross herself. Perhaps he didn’t fear the devil because he was a demon himself. People who cross paths with that man come to bad ends. Maybe. But in this room, in the quiet of the morning or the afternoon, there was only the lesson and the pleasure of letting magic take shape, of feeling it expand and grow stronger. It was why she forgot herself so easily with him, why she neglected to curb her tongue or hunch her shoulders.

She could say none of that, so she said, “Tell me about the trials.”

“Your lesson first. We’ve spent too much time philosophizing.” He rose and crossed to the desk where he’d set the leather satchel he often carried. Sometimes it held beans or coals or books. Today he removed a small silken bag and emptied the contents into his hand.

“Seeds?” They were tiny and grayish white, stained pink in places. They looked like baby teeth.

“We’ll begin with something easy. Your miracle of the vines, to make it bloom.” He placed a single seed in his palm.

Simple. The words formed in her head, golden ink spilling onto the page. She didn’t know the languages well enough to pull them apart—Spanish, Turkish, Greek, she couldn’t be sure. But she felt as if they were gathering momentum, traveling away from Spain to countries she would never see and back again.

A brush of her palm over his and a slender green stalk sprouted where the seed had been, its frail roots grasping at nothing. Another pass of her hand and the stalk thickened, bursting with leaves, the root bulb fattening so that Santángel had to place it on the table beside his bag. A current of heat passed through her, as if the magic had been reflected back against her own hand.

“Pomegranate,” she gasped, delighted.

“They take three years to fruit,” said Santángel, his gaze like clouds moving over water. “But that’s no challenge at all for you.”

He reached out with his thumb and forefinger and snapped the stalk. The sapling broke, its green head hanging forlornly over the edge of the desk, and Luzia felt a pang of sadness for the thing she had made.

“It is one thing to repair an object like a glass,” he said. “But can you heal a living thing?”

The miracle of the vine, now the miracle of the cup. It should be easy.

Luzia closed her eyes and reached for that simple song she’d used so many times: a change of scene, a change of fortune. This time it felt strange, as if the music was being pulled in two directions, hungry to form a new note, a new pattern. The letters wobbled in the dark. She opened her eyes and looked at Santángel, who was watching her closely. How strange his eyes were, and yet she couldn’t deny she liked being the focus of his attention. She could feel the shape of him in the room, as if he were a rest in the music, a rock heavy and immovable against its tide. Luzia drew the song back into its proper shape, stronger than before.

The stalk shuddered, some of its leaves shaking free, and then sprang up, like a man woken from a deep sleep bolting upright in his bed. New leaves unfurled from the mended stalk—a trunk now, gray and sturdy. Its roots clambered over the desk, seeking purchase; bright orange flowers burst from its branches. A small smile touched Santángel’s lips.

“No soil. No rain. And yet it thrives. Who knows what you may do, Luzia Cotado?”

She blinked, startled by the echo of her own thoughts, thoughts she had told herself to regret since that night she’d felt herself float above Madrid, when she’d first performed for Valentina’s guests, when she’d taken her first incautious steps on a path that still remained shrouded in shadow. His belief in her was wine on an empty stomach and it left her light-headed.

The silence was broken by Víctor de Paredes’s deep voice. “Meager miracles indeed.”

His mouth pulled down at the corners. His high pale brow was flat. He had the discontented look of a man who was afraid he’d just eaten a bad oyster.

“We’re making progress,” said Santángel. “It’s no small thing to restore life when life is interrupted.”

“Then let’s see what wounds she can really repair. Álvaro, come here.”

Luzia recognized the lumbering bodyguard, the one they sometimes called El Peñaco and who accompanied Don Víctor on the days Santángel came for her lessons. He had to duck his head to enter the room. He had pale blue eyes and he wore his yellow hair in a crop around his ears, the texture like straw. His broad face was so pink he looked as if he’d just emerged from a hot bath.

“Now,” said Don Víctor. “I want to know where all my money is going. I want to see the great milagrera for whom I’ve bought gowns and upon whom my entire family has pinned its hopes.”

Luzia kept her eyes on her clenched hands. She had never seen Víctor de Paredes in this mood, but she knew it well enough. From Marius. From Valentina. Even from Águeda. A sulky child seeking someone to hit.