Page 73 of The Familiar

“I will,” he replied. “You have seen what I am. You know it is my nature.”

“Go on,” she repeated.

He had the sense that the world had shifted, that if he stepped outside, the constellations would be unfamiliar in their shapes. He lifted the comb and set it against her scalp, drew it through her oiled curls. She closed her eyes, and her sigh of pleasure made him wonder, for the first time in many years, if God was real and testing him.

“Is there no more to your tale?” she asked.

He steadied his breath and said, “That night the stranger took them out beyond the city walls and they followed the steps of the ritual he set out. There were no howling winds or flashes of lightning, and the prince felt it was all rather disappointing. But he paid the man his fee and they returned to their rooms.

“The next morning the prince woke late. He felt no different. But when he walked the streets, people didn’t smile at him as they had once done. The butcher offered him no fine cut of meat. His landlord demanded payment. Can you guess what he’d lost?”

“What he valued least,” she said. “His luck.”

“The prince had never understood that there was anything truly special about him. He hadn’t grasped that the luck that kept him from shipwrecks and earthquakes and spider bites was a kind of magic, a magic he’d never recognized and so never valued as he should.

“Distressed, he went to find Tello, afraid his friend might have died in the night. But Tello was alive and well and sharing a meal with a group of travelers.

“‘My friend,’ Tello cried. ‘Such news I’ve had. My uncle has decided to make me his heir, and I must travel to his lands at once.’

“It soon became clear that whatever had happened in the ritual beyond those city walls, the prince had not lost his luck; he’d given it to Tello. There are worse things, he told himself, than to see a friend thrive. But he couldn’t understand what Tello had been forced to give up, and that troubled him.”

“It was a trick.”

“You are wiser than the prince. In time he understood that the spell really had worked, that it hadn’t just deprived him of something but offered him a gift in return. If the prince burned his hand, it healed almost instantly. If he broke a bone, no remedy was necessary but to set it straight and get a good night’s sleep. He and Tello tested this newfound power, cautiously at first. A cut here or there. A bit of poison in the prince’s cup, then a bit more. He sometimes grew sick, but he always recovered. And as the years passed, they realized that though Tello aged, the prince did not. He was as young and strong as when they’d met the stranger in the marketplace.

“They traveled to Tello’s uncle’s lands, and soon the uncle passed and Tello inherited. His flocks grew and his harvests were always plentiful. He assembled a group of men and offered them in service to the king. He bought himself a knighthood and more land. He married a young noblewoman and had a son. Tello grew richer and happier, and the prince grew restless, eager to travel and return to his studies once more. He had eternal life and he wanted to use it.

“Tello begged him to stay, but the prince refused. He could remain no longer. He packed his few belongings and set out. He spent the day traveling, his spirits high, and passed the night in a comfortable inn. But when he woke he felt a strange sensation. The rising sun was streaming through his window, and as it did, the prince watched his fingers burn to ash.”

A crease appeared between Luzia’s brows. “He had been cursed?”

Santángel touched his thumb to the damp skin of her brow and waited for it to unfurrow, then drew the comb through her hair again. “It seemed so. He leapt onto his horse and rode back to Tello’s lands, and as he did, his flesh was restored and his strength returned to him.

“‘You have come back to me, my friend,’ exclaimed Tello. ‘Let us never again be parted.’

“‘You knew,’ said the prince, for Tello showed no surprise.

“‘We are bound to each other. So long as you remain in my service, your luck is mine and eternal life is yours. Ah, my friend, I dreaded this day and the look in your eyes. I’m grateful it didn’t come sooner.’

“That was when the prince understood that the stranger in the marketplace had been in Tello’s employ. And at last he knew what Tello had given up: the prince’s trust, the love of the person he cared for most in the world. It was all he’d had of value then.”

Santángel set the comb aside. It was time to tell her the rest.

“Since that day I have been bound to Tello de Paredes and all of his descendants. My luck is theirs. I live, I do not age, but I am bound to them forever. And if I spend a night away from them, I will burn away to ash when morning comes.”

“You cannot die?” Luzia asked. She had asked him that before. But for the first time, her voice was less than bold, the truth of his curse and what it meant between them.

“I can. At least I think I can. If you struck the head from my neck or burned me on a pyre.”

“How do you know?”

“Because they tried everything else. Tello’s son was cruel and wished to test the limits of my immortality. I was beaten with rocks, stabbed, my limbs broken, but still I healed. I was drowned in the river, again and again, but still I rose from the shore. I begged Tello to release me from my bonds, not to leave me to his son’s mercy. He wept on his deathbed, he begged for my forgiveness, but he would not free me.

“With every new member of his line, I had hope one of them would see fit to set me free. That their coffers would be full enough, their lands great enough. Víctor promised he would, when he was a young man. But that changed as everything does. Everything but me.”

The room was silent. Steam rose from the water. His fingers were damp with almond oil.

She sighed. “Then we are trapped here, you and I. Despite all our gifts.” She turned her head to him. “Will you kiss me now, Santángel?”