The Familiar

by Leigh Bardugo

She wasn’t prone to visions or trances. She saw no futures in the patterns of spilled salt. If she had, she would have known to leave the bread untouched, and that it was far better to endure the discomfort of Doña Valentina’s anger than the peril of her interest.

“Don’t be an idiot. You’ve been given an opportunity and I will help you seize it. For the both of us.”

“Is the mouth of a shark an opportunity?” “For the shark it is.”

If he had died on that hunt, would Santángel have been free? Or would he have been doomed to sit in place, waiting until a De Paredes heir could be found to command him?

“You will keep my family from ruin, as you always have.”

Perhaps they should have cut her hair that day. If Valentina had picked up the razor, or Hualit the shears, if Luzia had bent her head to their ministrations, maybe more than one of them would have returned to the shabby house on Calle de Dos Santos and lived to tell this story.