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.
“You’ve been enjoying your lessons?” “Yes, señor.”
“You are fond of your teacher?”
“I am grateful to him and to you, señor.”
“I see Catalina’s polish has at least put some shine on you. Do you think you’re ready to impress Pérez? Do you think your entertainments are fit for a king?”
“I can only pray that is the case, señor.”
Don Víctor grabbed her by the chin, forcing her to meet his gaze. “I have no interest in the prayers of a shitty little scullion.”
“Víctor.” Santángel’s voice was cold, an echo heard from deep within a cave. “That’s enough.”
“You do not use that word with me. Enough is forbidden to you.” “Leave the girl alone. Vent your anger elsewhere.”
“I’m not angry with her.” Víctor gave her head a shake, his gloved fingers pinching. “I’m simply weary of her mediocrity.” He turned to Santángel. “It is you who deserves my ire.”
“Then beat me. Strike me if you are so sure I cannot find a way to return the blow.”
Luzia didn’t understand this battle, but she didn’t want to be hit and she didn’t want to see Santángel beaten.
“He has tried to teach me,” Luzia said, hoping to appease Don Víctor. “I am a poor student.”
But he didn’t care what she had to say.
“How kind of you to volunteer, Santángel. As always, I am grateful for your service.” He turned to the bodyguard. “Álvaro, break his fingers. If our student is making such wonderful progress, she will be able to repair them.”
“Please,” Luzia began. But Álvaro didn’t wait. He seized Santángel’s hand and wrenched his first finger to the right. The snap was like kindling being split. “Don’t!” Luzia cried.
“Go on,” said Don Víctor. “Fix him as you did the sapling. If you can.”
Santángel said nothing. He didn’t fight or resist or cry out. His gaze was locked on Víctor, but there was no light in his eyes, only a long cold night.
“Again,” commanded Don Víctor.
“Wait!” Luzia pleaded. “Give me a moment to think!” “She thinks now. Who told you to teach her that?”
Crack. Álvaro bent back another of Santángel’s fingers, a branch breaking in winter, an animal’s jaws snapping shut. El Peñaco was grinning now. Was he mad? Did this please him?
Luzia’s mind scrambled for the words that had come so easily only
moments before. Aboltar kazal, aboltar mazal. She couldn’t find the tune. The sound of Santángel’s breaking bones was all she could hear.
“Álvaro will continue until you show me what you are capable of.”
Who knows what you might do?
Luzia shut her eyes, shut out the room, shut out the anticipation in Álvaro’s eyes, the grim resignation in Santángel’s face. There, the melody, the letters forming one after another, but again she felt that pull, that sense of sliding, the song seeking another form.
“Again, Álvaro,” Don Víctor commanded.
She had been lulled by this room, by Santángel’s patience, by velvet
dresses and lessons in comportment. She hated this house and everyone in it. She hated this city too. Anywhere but here, she thought. I would be
anywhere but here. She fought to find the melody and then there, the song, she followed it, humming, the sound blooming from her chest with the strength of a hive, a swarm of bees singing with her, the words taking shape, traveling across the sea, across time, the words of exile, of new beginnings, of survival.
Aboltar kazal, aboltar mazal.
The song emerged in a shout and Luzia screamed as pain tore through her.
