The Familiar

by Leigh Bardugo

One was not supposed to mourn the dead; it was said to deny the miracle of resurrection. But the death of a queen was different. The city was meant to grieve her passing, and her funeral procession was a spectacle rivaled only by her stepson Carlos’s death earlier that year. Luzia’s first cries as she entered the world were mixed with the weeping of every madrileño for their lost queen. “It confused you,” Blanca told her. “You thought they were crying for you, and it has given you too much ambition.”

cold, to fix the bread when the top had burned so badly.

Luzia saw her reflection in the goblet, changed but unchanged, made perfect and ruined all the same.

She hoped that Marius was right, that it wasn’t beauty life required, but will.

Better to live in fear than in grinding discontent. Better to dare this new path than continue her slow, grim march down the road that had been chosen for her. At least the scenery would be different.

Later Luzia would understand that when it came to anything worth having, there was no end to more.

Maybe if she’d been born on a different day, or even at a different hour, without the prayers for a queen’s soul echoing in her ears, she might have done just that. But she could be no one but herself.

There is a fine line between a saint and a witch, and I wonder if you are prepared to walk it.”

Language creates possibility. Sometimes by being used. Sometimes by being kept secret.

“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.”

He grasped her hand in his. “I was wrong when I told you to fear men and their ambition,” he murmured in her ear. “Fear nothing, Luzia Cotado, and you will become greater than them all. Now sing for me.”

“I want to eat this pomegranate.” “That’s why I brought it to you.” “And I want you to turn your back while I do it, so that I can enjoy it as it was meant to be enjoyed, without worrying what I look like with juice streaming down my chin.” “I can do that too, Luzia Cotado.” For the second time, he turned his back on her.

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.

Oh…

I would buy a great deal of books, and buy myself a house to read them in, and erect a high wall outside of the house, so no one would bother me.

How annoying that it had worked. How embarrassing that he hadn’t been her partner in the dance but her teacher once again.

Luzia could taste the pomegranate in her mouth, the flavor of her own ambition, her appetite for more.

When Santángel lowered his lips to her ear, the sweet green scent of orange blossoms overwhelmed him. Did she have a lover? And why did the thought make him want to find this mysterious suitor and bury a knife in his heart?

The glass had arranged itself into stars, a glittering constellation that hung above Antonio Pérez’s head: the shape was unmistakable, as if a slice of the distant universe had appeared in this ballroom. The Pleiades. The sign under which the king’s secretary had been born, the chart that had pleased him so powerfully, the promise that his fate was bound up with kings and queens. The illiterate peasant girl had read his letter. A letter contemplating Pérez’s arrogance, his attachment to this dream of his own greatness. A letter written in Latin.

“What are you? Why do people fear you? Did you make a bargain with the devil himself?” He held up his fingers, enumerating his answers. “In another life, in another world, I would be called a familiar.

a fine profile, a long-fingered hand coaxing a scorpion into a jar.

“Would you care for some more?” he offered. “I don’t want to be greedy.” “I brought it for you,” he lied. “You did?” There was something in her disbelief he found shaming. “I thought my wife might enjoy it.” She smiled again and Marius caught himself preening. It had never occurred to him that his wife could be happy, or that he might be the one to make her happy, or that in doing so he might be made happy in return. Perhaps his doctor was wrong and there was something to this drink of chocolate after all.

It was hard to reconcile the man before her with the sickly creature she’d met in the courtyard of her aunt’s home only a few weeks ago. He was still lean, his face set at sharp angles, but now he looked strong and healthy, his back straight, his shoulders broad. It was irritating to realize how handsome he was. They’d been on more equal footing when he looked like he might collapse.

Something new had been born between them, something with a shape she couldn’t quite determine. Álvaro’s death, the pomegranate, now the scorpion, each moment taking on its own alchemy. But was she changing, or was Santángel?

Until that cursed day in the widow’s courtyard. Now his heart beat, his stomach growled, his cock hardened. He was a man again, and he didn’t know whether to hate Luzia Cotado for this unasked for awakening or fall at her feet in gratitude. It was a kind of madness, but one that could be cured. When he was free. Then he would see the world. He would remember what it was to be human and forget the scullion he had chosen to doom.

But that he should desire her, that he should be left addlepated when she mentioned the pleasure of a hot bath? It was unacceptable.

Unravel. A single word might drive him mad. It stuck in his mind like a thorn, infecting him with a kind of fever, the thought of Luzia Cotado unraveling.

“You’re done with me then?” she said as he strode to the door. I haven’t even begun. He needed to leave now. For both their sakes.

She kept her eyes on the coals and said, “When we were on your horse, I wanted you to keep riding. I wanted you to charge through the gates and onto the road. I didn’t want to come back.” For a long moment she thought he would say nothing. When he finally spoke, his voice was quiet, as if he were confessing. “I thought the same thing,” he said. “I wondered how far we might go.”

As if she were the bell that had been struck, that trembled with sound. He wanted to hear her ring out.

“I’m going to bathe,” she said. “The water will have gone cold.” “I can heat it.” Of course she could. Desire had turned his mind to jelly.

“You’ll stay?” she asked. “I will not leave until you send me away.” Or until I’m driven mad by wanting.

Santángel heard a loud splash of water, then smelled sweet almonds. Was she washing her hair? He wanted to ask but didn’t quite trust his voice to frame the question.

How had he not understood how lovely she was?

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.

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.”

Her lips were soft, her mouth sweet, and when he felt the press of her tongue, he knew he could make no more arguments.

“Then kiss me again, Santángel,” she said. “It was too late for us before we ever met.”

As dawn broke and Luzia felt for the first time the joy of waking in a lover’s arms, she experienced a kind of desperate hope too. “There must be a way to break the curse,” she said. “And we will find it together.” Santángel wanted to tell her that Víctor de Paredes had already offered him a way. But he drew her closer and said nothing.

“Where did you learn to braid a woman’s hair?” she asked, watching his pale face in the mirror, the concentration there. “I don’t recall,” he said. “But I’m happy for the skill. I would spend a lifetime braiding and unbraiding your hair.” Lovers’ nonsense.

The Austrian. When Spain was strong, its people were happy to claim Philip. But reeling from loss of blood and treasure, he was the Austrian again, a Hapsburg interloper who would never belong on Spanish soil no matter his native tongue, or how many palaces he built.

Valentina sputtered, “If you have his children they will all have tails.” “At least I’ll have children.” Luzia regretted the words as soon as they were spoken. Valentina’s grip loosened, her eyes suddenly lost, a woman searching the crowd for a daughter she would never find.

You must be careful with … with Santángel.” It seemed everyone wanted to warn her today. “Because he made a deal with the devil?” Valentina winced. She shook her head. “Because he is a man, Luzia.”

How was she to sort love from desire? It was like planting sage beside foxglove, trying to separate the leaves when the plants were still new. Both were a kind of medicine if only you knew which was which. Santángel was dangerous, but was he dangerous to her? He had lain with her on this bed. He had whispered her name. A murderer who spoke to scorpions, who appeared places he should not. He was a horizon she didn’t yet know. Why seduce a girl of scant beauty or knowledge if not to control her? Why link himself to a peasant if there wasn’t some gain in it?

“You never finished the story,” she said. “Tell me now. Tell me the real ending for the cursed prince.” Santángel watched her with his strange eyes. “For him to be free, a new bargain must be struck.” “Is that why you flattered me and fucked me? So that I would love you? So that I would take your place in Víctor’s service?” His laugh was low and bitter. “I never intended any of this. I didn’t want to want you.” “You would bargain me away to him.” “That would be the price.” “Then tell me you haven’t considered it.” It was a plea, pathetic really. Lie to me, let me believe in you a little longer. But Santángel had promised her truth and he would not relent now. “I have. Every day and every night.”

“Víctor has made a fool of you, Santángel. He would never settle for such a trade. I’m no immortal. I can’t serve his children or his children’s children.” “What is death to a woman who can heal any wound?” he asked gently. “A woman who can cure any sickness—even time?”

“And you?” she demanded. “You must give up what you value most to break the curse. How can that work when it’s freedom you prize most highly?” “It was, Luzia. For a very long time. But curses are cruel.” She felt as if she’d thrown herself off a cliff. For a moment she had the illusion of flight. His words were wings and she was carried by their meaning, by the elation of being wanted in return. She was what he treasured. She was what he valued most.

I’m going to fucking kill myself. Idk why I thought this time that Leigh’s work wouldn’t be so devistating but clearly I was fucking wRONG

Maybe she had, but she could see the love and fear in Santángel’s eyes. He wasn’t afraid for himself, but for the woman he loved. Demon he might be but he was trying to save her. “I’m not leaving you,” Luzia wept, her voice raw and red, a new burn. Valentina didn’t care anymore that she had lived a life without love. She wanted only to know that it existed in the world and could be saved.

It felt good to take one of them with her. Hualit’s neck snapped when she struck the surface. She died quickly as she’d hoped to, as Celso had promised she would. Gonzalo broke his back but floated along for quite a while, trying to fight the current, until finally, weeping, he slipped beneath the surface.

Months later, a woman brought a fish home from the market and cut it open to find an emerald the size of her thumbnail. She thanked the fish, tucked the jewel into her pocket, and left the house, never to be seen again. Her husband, a drunkard with heavy fists, found only the fish, which he was forced to prepare himself for dinner. He choked on a bone and was buried in a pauper’s grave. His wife walked all the way to Paris, where she opened a parfumerie and lived happily for many years, eating lamb and vegetables and snails, but never fish, who she felt had done enough for her.

My god what a twist but I fucking love that

“Go away and be glad I didn’t tell the vicar you sleep with a portrait of Martin Luther cradled in your arms.”