Page 82 of The Familiar

“You want me to travel with you? Don Víctor won’t let me go so easily.”

“He needn’t know. I have the money to get you out of Madrid. We’ll meet in Valencia. But we have to go tomorrow night.”

Tomorrow. Before the third trial.

“I can win,” she said. “I know I can.”

“Luzia … what do you think will happen if you do? You’re clever and determined, but you aren’t charming like Fortún Donadei. You don’t have his appeal. He is meant for the machinations at court. You—”

Luzia yanked her hands away. “I am meant for what? To go with you to Turkey and take another scullion’s job?”

“You could be—”

“Your maid? Could I clean your gowns and see to your jewels and wait for you to find me a husband?”

“Would that be so bad?”

“And will the rabbi welcome a woman who can make miracles?”

Hualit’s eyes slid away. “There are healers. Wise women. Prekaduras.”

Salonika. Where the winds howled up from the sea and made new music through the alleys, where the Inquisition couldn’t reach. Once it would have seemed a beautiful story she couldn’t wait to tell. But now she wasn’t sure. Women prayed in the balconies in the synagogues of Salonika, separate from the men. They didn’t study Torah. They didn’t fashion miracles. She would be alone in a city where she didn’t speak the language or know the customs, with only Hualit to protect her—and Luzia didn’t trust her aunt to do that, not if it harmed her own prospects. She would always choose herself first. Luzia could try not to blame her for that, but it was time she lived by the same rule.

She didn’t want to be her aunt’s servant. She didn’t want a life of quiet and submission. She wanted her audience with the king. She wanted to eat and be full.

And yes, she could admit, she wasn’t ready to leave Santángel, who couldn’t follow her beyond the borders of Madrid without Víctor de Paredes beside him.

“I’m going to see this through,” she said. “I will win. And you’ll learn to speak Turkish and keep the Sabbath holy. I’ll miss you, Hualit. But I’m done being led by you.”

Hualit shook her head, her face full of what might have been wonder or worry, or just disbelief. “You are still the child who thought the city wept for her. Your ambition will destroy you, Luzia.”

“Maybe,” Luzia admitted. “But let it be my ambition and not my fear that seals my fate.”

Hualit cupped Luzia’s cheek and sighed. “Even if you win, you can’t fight Víctor de Paredes.”

“I can if I have the protection of a king.”

“Víctor always wins. Always.”

Because of Santángel. But if Luzia won the king’s favor, if she made herself indispensable to him, she would have the leverage to force Don Víctor to break his hold on Santángel. His luck would be his own again. He would be free. Free to leave. Free to stay with her if he wished it. Víctor de Paredes was used to getting his way and that meant he’d forgotten what it was to be desperate.

“Think on it, querida,” Hualit said. “There’s still time to decide. All you need do is go to the stables and ask for a horse. I’ve left money with the groom there. He’ll help you. Just consider it. I have failed you enough times. Let me make it right.”

“Only I can do that now.”

Hualit sighed again and stood. “I don’t have magic. I’m not a beata or a bruja or even a good woman. But tonight I’ll pray that you join me. And if you don’t, if you choose this dangerous path, then I’ll pray for you in Salonika. I’ll pray for you in Hebrew, so loudly the king and his priests will have to cover their ears all the way back in Madrid. I’ll pray that our suffering will be swallowed by the sea.”

The sun was just beginning to set, the gardens turning blue in the gathering dusk. Luzia hugged her aunt and bid goodbye to Ana, and made her way back to the lights of La Casilla.

She wondered if she would have to spend the night pining for Santángel, but he was waiting in her rooms.

“Hello,” she said. “I was walking in the gardens.”

“I know,” he said. “I was waiting for you.”

Then the door was closed and she was pressed against it, his mouth on hers, his body a dark cloud descending. She had lived too long without rain.

Luzia had a thousand questions about the torneo, the king, Salonika. Instead she said, “Can it be done against a door?”