Before she begins writingFrankenstein, Mary Shelley reads the memoir sev eral times.

They did not age. They did not change. They traveled the world athousand times over. They may be traveling still.Each city is new to them, each shore a strange one. Time has that effecton places, when enough of it has passed. One day they open the gate to agarden in an unfamiliar village. They walk between the orange trees hand inhand. They both think, So, this place is real, never knowing they have bothdreamed this moment.Every night she shuts the windows tight to guard against drafts, and everymorning he dies and is reborn beside her. She reminds his heart to beatagain, as she did so long ago. He kisses her fingers, and combs her hair, andhe treasures her, as only a man who has lost his luck and found it once moreever can.

She breathed in, breathed out, watched the ash gust away from her acrossthe bed, and then his pale body was stretched out beside her once more,made whole as a broken glass had once been made whole

Perhaps he would have said more, but as the first rays of sun shonethrough the window, he burned away to ash. Luzia had known her lovewould destroy him.

“If you are the last thing I see,” he whispered, “it will all have been worthit.”

One of them, a Flemish piratewho had somehow been granted a second life, didn’t question his goodfortune. He pulled the gag from his mouth and, without a word, ran off intothe night.

He was afraid to leave his wife.He was afraid to travel.He was afraid of what news the next letter would bring.When his wife became pregnant, he experienced a dread so vast he hadno way to contain it. Fear was too new to him, too fresh, too limitless.I’ll be different when my child is born, he told himself. But when he sawhis newborn son lying in his cradle, his fear only grew larger. He couldthink of nothing but the perils this world held for anything small orhelpless. He feared drafts. He feared heat. He called doctors and consultedwith astrologers. His holdings dwindled to nothing because he was afraid tomake a choice, lest it be an unlucky one.Eventually his wife left him. “Find me when you’re able. I will wait foryou,” she promised, and went home to her wealthy parents with the baby inher arms.I will go to her, Víctor vowed. Tomorrow.We will journey to the southern city and I will regain my vigor, he toldDonadei. Tomorrow.He died that way, alone in his bed, afraid to leave, afraid to stay, afraid towhisper anything but “tomorrow.”

He couldn’t explain it and yet he felt sure thatsomehow Luzia Cotado was to blame.So he told his patron he was feeling poorly, that he was certain hisabilities would return. Don Víctor had assured him that he knew a wise manwho could restore his talents, who could give him strength and powerbeyond all he’d imagined. They’d have to travel far to see him, but at theend of their journey, beyond the gates of a southern city, they would strike abargain

She hired a new one from the orphanage, who Quiteria taughtto read and write, and who had a great talent with sauces.

The scent of orange blossoms filled her nostrils.

He turned his head and saw Luzia naked on the pyre, her chin heldhigh. She met his eyes and he had the strange sensation that he was liftingup off the pyre. As the smoke filled his lungs, he could swear he smelledorange blossoms

DoñaBeatriz was nowhere to be found. Perhaps she’d gone back to her husband.

Each moment felt too quick, as if he’d already lost his hold on the world.So many years, so much life lived, and he would leave no one to mournhim.

Valentina clutched the sachet of rosemary at her sleeve. For protection.I’m here, she wanted to shout. I’m sorry. I only wanted a little warmth. Ididn’t know what kind of fire I would start

When she wassatisfied with the scene she’d written for the character of the lovesick prisonguard, she went to find Valentina

One evening over glasses of jerez, Valentina had turned to her and said,“Am I not appealing enough to corrupt?”When Quiteria had met Valentina at La Casilla, she had sensed thatbeneath the sour expression and the meager jewels was a woman waitingfor a chance to live. From the first kiss, she was proven right. Valentina hada glutton’s heart and had spent too many years surviving on scraps. Quiteriawas shocked to discover that, after years of infamy and seeking every kindof pleasure, she had finally found a lover who could keep pace with her.

Quiteria Escárcega now that theplaywright had left for Toledo.

In the house across the way, hecould see a woman seated at a harp, her hands moving slowly over thestrings. He sat down and listened and after a time he wept.Across the street the woman at the harp played on, unsure of why she’dchosen to return to the music room that morning when it had been so longsince she’d sought pleasure in it. She didn’t know whom she was playingfor or why she’d chosen such a sad piece. She’d never given much thoughtto the residents of Casa Ordoño, and so she didn’t wonder where the womenhad gone. She played and played, without thought for the way her fingersstung, or for the scullion who had gazed out the window and longed formusic, and who would never hear her song.

Hualit sighed. “At least he died happy. That’s more than most of us canhope for.”Now Hualit was dead too.

One winter Luzia used her wages to buy him a new coat and boots. Shehad saved for months so that she could know he would at least be warmwhen he was out wandering. He’d donned the coat proudly, beaming withpride. He’d done a joyful dance in his new boots and told her that adaughter was a blessing.Two days later, she was walking near the Prado when she saw a group ofpeople gathered by one of the bridges. The cuadrilleros were trying to fish acorpse from the river.She told herself not to look, to go home, that it was none of her concern.But her feet were already carrying her through the crowd. Her father kneltbeneath the bridge, his hands clasped, his face tilted to the sky, exultant. Hewas barefoot and dressed in rags. He’d frozen to death in the night.

“Let me unbraid your hair and I will have no regrets at all.”

Shedrew closer, grateful for his warmth, for the pleasure of leaning into him, aslovers did, as they might never do again.

“Do you want to argue or do you want to kiss me?”He closed the space between them in two strides and took her in his arms.“I assure you I am capable of both.”

He hesitated. “No. But she is already fond of me.”“Fond. That’s nice. It’s good that fond is enough for you.”Rudolfo pressed his face against the grating of the door. “But it is notenough for me!”“Then you must do as I bid, for I die tomorrow.”When she had told him her demands, he said, “Impossible! No, I cannot.”“At least she’s fond of you.”

Butwhen he returned he had the Prince of Olives in tow. Doña Beatriz trailed intheir wake, gowned in golden lace, her hands clasped tightly

It was the same sensation he’d experienced his first nightwith Luzia. As if the sky above had rearranged itself and night would shownew constellations—the shape of a pomegranate, a path through an orangegrove.

Santángel smiled. Their path was chosen. The crossroads long past.

Luzia saw him clearly. She always had. And now he was telling her toattack him, but why? What was his plan?

“Guillén Barcelo Villalbas de Canales y Santángel.”

They were thesacrifice Don Víctor wanted her to offer. Luzia thought of the smell ofcocido, of Valentina unbraiding her hair, of the sprig of rosemary tuckedinto her sleeve, the barest scrap of protection, the barest scrap of kindnessafter years of slaps and punches and disdain.“They prayed as good people do,” Luzia said

Then Teoda was still alive and free. Luzia hoped she was far from Spain’sborders and that her nights were dreamless.

But now she liked the idea of Rudolfo finding favor withhis lady. Now that he didn’t smell of sweat and his teeth were less stainedand he had actually bothered to speak to her rather than gawking at her likeall the other dullards, maybe there was hope for them both. Besides, it wasthe only entertainment she had

But Luzia ...my dreams don’t lie. I watched you burn.”“Fate can be changed,” Luzia said. “Curses can be broken.”She had to believe that, or she would sink beneath the waves

“He guessed. Perhaps he sensed that my interest in him wasn’t that of achild. Maybe he saw how desperate I was for the kind of attention I’venever had. He pretended we shared the same secrets, complained of DoñaBeatriz.” She hesitated. “I have never been kissed that way before, as a man

“I’m not a child. I’m thirty-eight years old. Thirty-eight years in thischild’s body.”

“Luzia?” Teoda asked, but Luzia didn’t want to speak. She didn’t knowhow anymore

nd then her aunt was beneath her, sinking to thebottom of the river. She had no eyes, no lips. The fish had eaten them.Hualit’s lipless mouth opened. “I’ll pray that our suffering will beswallowed by the sea.”

er mouth was full of water, hernose, her throat. She coughed but the water kept coming. She wasdrowning. This was not the potro or the garrucha or any other torture madeby man. This was death, pushing into her chest, her lungs. She couldn’tsing, couldn’t speak, couldn’t think. There were no words. There never hadbeen. There was only death, cold and dark

A shame. A tragedy. A casualty. He might pity her, even mourn her, buthe was a creature who had endured lifetimes of loss. What was one silly,pining woman in the scope of all that? She had known him only a fewweeks. He had contemplated sacrificing her to his master even as he’dkissed her mouth and combed her hair, even as she’d lain trusting in hisarms. Enough people had warned her to beware of Santángel.

But Hualit had sailed across the sea

a small green sprig fell to the floor.Rosemary. Romero. For protection.Valentina had sent the cocido, the fresh clothing.

“It came from a playwright,” said Lucrecia through the wall. “She hastaken up a collection for you at her theater.”Luzia took another bite and then another. It was all impossible. Maybeshe’d died in the woods. Maybe she was asleep at La Casilla. Why wouldQuiteria Escárcega raise funds on her behalf?

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

That was probably true. What could one powerless woman offer another?“I can make sure she doesn’t die alone.”He stared at her as if she’d sprouted a horn from her forehead. “You donot want the Inquisition’s attention, Valentina. The best thing you can do iswash your hands of that woman. To do otherwise is dangerous, and you aretoo foolishly sentimental to realize it.”“I recognize the danger,” she said. “And I would rather be a fool than acoward.”

Maybe she should have asked after Marius, but shefound she didn’t mind being in the house alone. She went down to the silentkitchen, softened bread in a bowl of wine, made herself eat a little ham andtwo pickled plums

“Quiet. Humble. Perhaps a bit stupid.” Luzia was none of these things,but Valentina could do her this service.

Luzia knew that wasn’t true. If they wanted to know the names of otherCalvinists and heretics, Teoda would have to name them. But if the thoughtthat she could escape torture made this horror easier, Luzia wasn’t going tosnatch it away.“You’ll have that same choice,” said the Holy Child. “They’ll ask ifyou’re in league with the devil.”“I should have such powerful friends.”Teoda’s laugh was high and light. “I knew I liked you.”Neva sang on

Teoda shrugged. “I have already confessed my heresies. They have noreason to prolong my stay here. Besides, the king will want to make a showof my death.”“Then ... you are to be burned?”“Of course. If I repent the executioner will do me the courtesy ofstrangling me first, but I will not repent.”“She’s not as brave as she sounds,” said Neva. “Neither am I. You’ll hearus crying at night.”

LCHAPTER 44uzia woke in the larder.

forced to prepare himself for dinner. He choked on a bone and was buried ina pauper’s grave.His wife walked all the way to Paris, where she opened a parfumerie andlived happily for many years, eating lamb and vegetables and snails, butnever fish, who she felt had done enough for her.

“I won’t fight you,” she said, smiling gently, softly.Hualit hoped they would say prayers for her in Salonika. Shema Yisrael,Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai Echad.Gonzalo grabbed hold of her shoulder.“Come,” she said, her hands grasping his jacket, her back pressed againstthe railing. “We’ll go together.”He was stronger, but he didn’t expect the weight of her, her pockets fullof reales, her hems and sleeves sewn full of jewels.Gonzalo shouted as they toppled from the bridge.It felt good to take one of them with her.Hualit’s neck snapped when she struck the surface. She died quickly asshe’d hoped to, as Celso had promised she would. Gonzalo broke his backbut 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 itopen 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

eat grapes off the vine. On sunny mornings the printer’s wife who livednext door sang as she did her housework. She didn’t have much of a voice,but Hualit had learned to like the sound.

She thought of her snug house and its comfortable bed and the fountainburbling in its courtyard. All of it belonged to Víctor. Would he install hisnext mistress there? She hoped whoever lived there would love it as shehad, that she would sit and listen to the birds calling across the rooftops and

So there would be no trip to Venice, no hosts waiting to receive her. Shewould never slip away to board the ship to Salonika. Mari would nevermeet her in the harbor. Víctor hadn’t capitulated or been swayed by herwiles. He’d used her one last time, laughing at her schemes, knowing as heentered her that he’d sentenced her to death.

In a way, she supposed he was. Only she had heard the music too late.The song had been playing all along, if only she hadn’t been so distractedby her own cleverness

But it was her needthat had frightened Hualit the most, her longing for affection, her loneliness.Hualit could not mother her. Would not

Was itperverse to want to be longed for by a man she didn’t love?

Let it be all I’ve hoped for, she prayed.

“Marius,” Valentina pleaded.He gave a single stubborn shake of his head.Luzia turned her back on them and plunged into the woods, the branchesclosing behind her.Maybe she would escape. Maybe she didn’t need the horse at all. Maybeher gifts were greater than the king’s men or Marius’s cowardice.Valentina held to that hope as they stood silent between the trees, evenwhen she heard the angry shouts of men in pursuit, even when Luzia beganto scream

“Give her your horse, Marius.” Valentina was begging now, and shewasn’t sure what she was begging for. For Luzia? For herself? That therewas more to Marius than a man who liked fine ponies and good food? Whowas only kind when life was easy?

Valentina didn’t care anymore that she had lived a life without love. Shewanted only to know that it existed in the world and could be saved.

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 mightbe but he was trying to save her.

Valentina didn’t understand what was happening.

I’ll find you. Please, ifyou value your life as I do, go. Trust me to meet you. Trust me to survive asI trust you to do the same.”“Santángel—”“I have begged for nothing in this life, but I am begging you now, Luzia.Go.”She pressed a kiss to his lips and ran.

He had no chance to finish before the arrows flew. He covered her bodywith his, felt the steel tips pierce his back like bolts of fire.

He helped her into the saddle and then he was behind her and they wereriding as she had dreamed they would, away from kings and climbers andcurses

Donadei turned on her. “You stupid cunt.”

The jewels at the four points of Donadei’s cross leapt from their settings.Shimmering wings snapped up from their backs as their thick scarab bodiestook flight, buzzing around his curly head. The rubies at his shoulderssprouted wriggling legs and giant red ants reared up, clambering toward hiscollar.

“You were the one who gave life to the shadows. You attacked Graciaand me at the puppet show.”

“Malparido,” Luzia growled. The bastard had set her up. He’d fanned herdoubts about Santángel, but worse, he’d made her doubt her own gifts. He’dpretended he was as frightened and as vulnerable as she. He’d gotten her tosquander her turn

“Does the kingwish for symbols? Or does he wish for ships?”

Could she not even have the promise of love? Whycould this belong to the women in ballads, to poets and playwrights, butnever to her?

And you?” she demanded. “You must give up what you value most tobreak the curse. How can that work when it’s freedom you prize mosthighly?”“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 theillusion of flight. His words were wings and she was carried by theirmeaning, by the elation of being wanted in return. She was what hetreasured. She was what he valued most.

“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 wantto 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. “Ihave. Every day and every night.”

“Luzia, don’t be foolish. If I could have given you a child, I never wouldhave spent the night in your bed.”

Luzia smiled. She knew there was blood on her teeth

Perhaps there is some novelty in fuckingsomeone so beneath you

“Santángel is running an errand for me.

“Don Marius, Don Víctor, Pérez, maybethe king himself ... they’re all the same really. They spin in their orbits andwe are left to wonder at their movements. You must be careful with ... withSantángel.”It seemed everyone wanted to warn her today. “Because he made a dealwith the devil?”Valentina winced. She shook her head. “Because he is a man, Luzia.”

“I sometimes feel I’ve spent my whole life longing,” she said.“As have I.”

Ihave no talent for miracles or illusions. Maybe that was a lie too.

“She has left the torneo and is returning to Sevilla. She said she wouldkeep you daily in her prayers and give alms in your name for the rest of herdays. She went on like that for quite a while.”

The Inquisition treated allheretics the same way, and a child sinner was no less dangerous to the soulof Spain

Only the Holy Child was fully dressed, as if she had known this momentand this fate were coming. Maybe her angel had whispered in her ear. Ormaybe her guilt had done that work. Her face was streaked with tears, butshe was calm and she was praying loudly, though the prayers were nothingLuzia had ever heard.

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

As dawn broke and Luzia felt for the first time the joy of waking in alover’s arms,

The morning bread tasted of sweetoranges

hey slipped into the shadows of the hedges where the cold groundcaught up their whispers and moans, and where the next day the gardenerwould find a mysterious patch of white blossoms.

But now her room seemed too still, and in themoonlight, she saw the shadows lengthening, long-clawed demons comingfor her bitter, grasping soul

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?”

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

He knelt behind her, looking down upon her upturned face, her pinkcheeks, her parted lips, her many freckles like desert sand. How had he notunderstood how lovely she was? She opened her dark eyes, her gaze direct.

“‘Because I love you best in the world,’ Tello replied. ‘And if thisbargain will put an end to this ceaseless travel and we can go home, I willdo it.’ So the bargain was struck.”

efuse. But they didn’t understand how little Tello had. No family, nofortune, no home. Life was not so precious to him, and the prince’sobsession with hoarding it mystified him. Tello agreed to the bargain

“I still meet grief in sudden places, when I least expect it. A familiarsong. A smell from the kitchen. Then there it is. An enemy that can’t bebested.”

“I’ve been alive a long time.” His youth had been spent in countless beds,on floors, in fields, once between the rows of a vineyard. There had beentimes when the only way he’d been able to cope with his own immortalitywas to fuck himself free, to feel briefly, truly alive in another’s pleasure.

Clothed or unclothed, if you’re found here, I’ll be damned, and I might aswell be comfortable when I’m cursed to hell.”

She kept her eyes on the coals and said, “When we were on your horse, Iwanted you to keep riding. I wanted you to charge through the gates andonto 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. “Ithought the same thing,” he said. “I wondered how far we might go.”

Gracia de Valerahas asked to leave the torneo.”A wise choice. A competition plagued by blood and demons was not theplace for matchmaking.

He looked down at her, his eyes glinting like coins. “This promise I cankeep.”Luzia nodded and he nudged the horse’s sides with his heels.

“Good. I will come to you.”“Swear it.”

“I didn’t come here to win!” Gracia bellowed. “I came here to find ahusband!”

“This is noillusion. Something’s wron

Corpus Christi

Then a new character appeared, dressed in olive green velvet andcarrying a tiny vihuela. The guests broke into laughter and applause.“Fortún,” Gracia said with a smile, “you’ve never looked so well.”“It’s me!” he exclaimed

“Every time you use your gift, every time you use me, you let me take abit of your power for myself. Just as I make you stronger, you do the samefor me. You make the blood flow in my veins once more. You remind myheart to beat.”“A heart cannot forget to beat,” she scoffed.His face shuttered. “All things can be forgotten given enough time. Nowcease your complaining and fix your mind on the task ahead.”He strode away and she had to resist the urge not to let a little song slipfree and trip him with a tree root.

“Doña María is kind and gentle, and being eaten alive by her ownlonging. An astróloga read her chart and told her that she wouldn’t conceiveuntil the Dutch were brought back under Catholic control.”

Shefelt something brush against her fingers. Teoda stood beside her, and thoughshe didn’t turn, Luzia was certain it had been her hand that she’d felt

“Perhaps her dreams demanded it,” Teoda said quietly.

But would she be used to putdown rebellions, to murder heretics and indios and Jews and any otherenemy of Philip’s God? Would she be covered in the blood Teoda Halcónhad seen in her dreams?

Only last night, he had spoken to her, alone in her room, as if theywere lovers, tall and white as a phantom, and yet seeming to grow strongerand more beautiful with every day that passed. He had looked at her in themirror and again she’d had the sense of rising out of her body. She hadremembered the dream of the orange grove and she knew that if she didlose her tether and somehow drifted up into the night sky and over the city,he would find a way to meet her there. She’d been certain of it.

“It’s said she has anapartment in Toledo where men come and go at all hours.”“Women too,” said the widow

Next tohis wife

But now he seemed eager to share with her, turning to her at meals tosuggest she taste an interesting dish, returning from the hunt brimming withstories, even inquiring over her own day.Last night he’d told of a man being thrown from his horse, a near deadlything.“Well,” she’d said without thinking, “I had to spend the afternoon withSeñora Galves, so I’m lucky I didn’t expire from boredom.”When he’d burst out laughing, she’d nearly toppled from her chair insurprise. Had she ever made her husband laugh?“Isn’t she the one with the son who writes poetry?” he asked.“Yes. She recited some of his verses for us.”“Please tell me you remember them.”“Only the very worst lines,” she confessed. They had spent the rest of thenight making up awful couplets and getting very drunk, and as the hourgrew late, the talking turned to kissing, but still they laughed when theystopped to catch their breath. She hadn’t known such a thing was possibleor permitted, and though she’d woken with a headache, she felt the price ofdiscovery was well worth it.

He needed to be gone from here. This sickness would pass, given time anddiversion.

That he had come to respect this woman,even like her, was understandable, if an unwanted burden given what hemust do. But that he should desire her, that he should be left addlepatedwhen she mentioned the pleasure of a hot bath? It was unacceptable. Justthat morning, when Luzia had said she thought anticipation might unravelher, his mind had been overtaken by the thought of twining a strand of herhair around his finger, of releasing it and watching the curl spring back.Unravel. A single word might drive him mad. It stuck in his mind like athorn, infecting him with a kind of fever, the thought of Luzia Cotadounraveling.

He pursued poor loveless DoñaBeatriz. He brought his guitar and played outside of her palace for days toget her attention.”“Maybe it was greater attention than he wished for.”“Or he is trying to blunt your appetite for victory, to weaken your resolve.You have as much to lose as he does.” Santángel certainly did.

The Dutch and the English will build markets fortheir goods, colonies for their taxes, new routes of trade. They will bleed theworld for an age.

He was sorry to see her remarkable hair was still in its tight braids, butthat was for the best. His grasp of this tangled situation had begun to slip,maybe in the moment of Álvaro’s death, maybe long before it. He didn’tneed further temptation.

his cock hardened.

but he knew thatwas not the only reason

As for the scorpion, Santángel had ridden out to place him in a warm spotby a rocky crag and spoken the same words he’d said when he’d subduedthe little creature: “You are not where you belong.” The scorpion had creptfrom his hand, free until death found it

is appetite for food had returned, but not for the pomp ofsuch meals or the dull conversation that accompanied them.

“I loathe her.” The words rumbled in his throat, like a pot brought to boil.“It’s why I must win. If the king makes me his champion, I will havemoney, and silks, and fine food, and I will not have to fuck her to get it.Maybe then I won’t hate myself so thoroughly.”

“Señor Donadei, if we are to be friends, don’t flatter me. It makes youlook a fool and makes me feel like one.”“I know you’re not a city beauty. But ...” He shrugged. “You look likethe girls from my town.”Was this flirtation? Luzia didn’t know, but the Holy Child was right—hewas charming.

“I’m a farmer’s son. My days were shaped by sunrise and sunset, byrainfall, fear of blight. When Doña Beatriz found me she gave me music,art, the finest food I’ve ever eaten. I should tell you I loved the simple life,that I long for home, but ...” That brilliant smile appeared again, smallerthis time, a kept secret. “I don’t! I don’t want my father’s life. I don’t wantto work until my back breaks. I don’t want to clear fields of stones andharvest the fruit and work the presses. I like this easy life.”

It was only that she was fairly sure no onehad ever told her they were glad to see her.

Her small shoulders rose and fell. Her gaze was distant. “It’s this house.My dreams are troubled here. There’s too much silver, too much gold. Allof it plunder. All of it stinking of death. At night the walls bleed.”

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

Santángel hesitated. “I suppose that’s a way of looking at it.”

“Speak plainly, señora.” Santángel stood in the hallway where thefootmen had been moments before. He wore boots and hunting clothes, andonly now, seeing him without his long cloak, did Luzia understand how

He would bring them home to Spain and safety. Theywould join his collection and the monks would see to the making of thereliquaries under his supervision.He knew soon he would have to turn his mind to the matter of Pérez. Hisspies had reported great workings at the torneo, but he would wait to hearwhat the vicar had to say. He would close no doors that God wanted leftopen.

She glanced atLuis, half-dressed and hoping for attention, and sighed. When she couldn’twrite, it was almost always a sign that an affair was at an end, and thatmeant crying and recriminations and many ballads badly sung. She wouldwait until they left La Casilla to end this romance, and make what use she

She smiled again and Marius caught himself preening. It had neveroccurred to him that his wife could be happy, or that he might be the one tomake 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 ofchocolate after all

He was moving slowly toward her. She was afraid to look away from thescorpion but she could sense him drawing nearer. He had said he was akiller. Why hadn’t she feared him then?

She didn’t know how to answer. Her refranes were Spanish and Hebrewand Turkish and Greek. They were none of those things. They changeddepending on what part of the world the letter came from. They were wordsbattered and blown to all corners of the map, then returned to her, as thepeople who spoke them could never return.

I would be called a familiar

She sat down in the chair placed before her dressing table. The woman inthe watery glass before her was a stranger, her thick hair free of its braids,her dark eyes wild. She had never seen herself angry before.

“Do you? I know what it is to lower yourself, to keep your eyesdowncast, to seek invisibility. It is a danger to become nothing. You hope noone will look, and so one day when you go to find yourself, only dustremains, ground down to nothing from sheer neglect.”

Maybe she had wanted him to. See me. See that I am more than thischarade of mumbling humiliation.

“Well,” Hualit said, as Donadei descended the stairs to be greeted by hispatroness, who wore matching green and gold. “I think the whole room justfell a bit in love with Fortún Donadei.”“But only one woman has paid for his love in return,”

He looked beautiful in thegolden light of the stage, his curls darker, his sun-bronzed skin

“What is the matter with you?Why do you look like you’re ready to do murder?”Santángel mustered a smile. “I am merely thinking of what challengemay come next and how to meet it.”Assuming the liar Luzia Cotado survived the night.OceanofPDF.com

“Horseshit,” said Santángel, and Doña Valentina gasped.

thought make him want to find this mysterious suitor and bury a knife in hisheart?

There is noholier man, no holier country, no holier cause.”

A child. A farmer. A scullion. And a young woman who looked like theVirgin herself had stepped from the frame of one of Pérez’s many paintings.Luzia could taste the pomegranate in her mouth, the flavor of her ownambition, her appetite for more. She eyed the golden curtains of the stageand knew she would prove Santángel right. She was done going hungry.

ould she have felt the lossless keenly, if she had known her mother would die? Or would it have beenworse? A death drawn out over weeks or months, the knowledge taking onits own life as if feeding on hers? Would she have wondered if she hadbrought about her mother’s death by dreaming it like Lucrecia with Philip’sarmada?

Luzia wanted to ask why a centaur would stand at the center of thelabyrinth and not a minotaur, but that was too heady a question for a

image of a centaur at the center of alabyrinth.

“Close your mouth, señora,” Luzia said gently as she gathered her skirts.“You look like you’re waiting for someone to push a cake into it.”

“I feel certain your husband would take Don Víctor inhis mouth himself for the price of a fine racehorse.”

freckles

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

“No,” said Santángel. His voice was like a sudden change in temperature,the sign of bad weather to come.Valentina and Hualit both startled.“You shouldn’t be here,” said Valentina. “It isn’t decent.”“I instruct her every day in this room.”“It’s not the same. A man—”Hualit’s laugh was forced. “Santángel is not a man. He doesn’t care forwomen or men or anything at all besides his books.”Santángel’s face remained impassive. “A book may disappoint, but it isfar easier to be rid of.”

Luzia turned. That was when she saw Santángel, his eyes glittering in theshadows beyond the doorway, sparks that didn’t burn, cold fire. She wasn’tsorry he was there. Maybe she wanted him to see something about her thatwasn’t a dirty neck and a lack of manners

What does it mean? she had asked.I don’t remember, her father admitted. I’m not sure my own fatherremembered.But her mother had the words, not just the echoes. Blessed are you, Lordour God ... Luzia couldn’t remember the Hebrew. Latin had seemed moreimportant at the time.

It stayed damp long after washing, heldthe scent of almond oil in its coils. Hair that had survived the destruction ofthe temple, the Roman legions, the long road to Morocco, that had enduredconquest, and conversion, to be tied up like a secret in her little white cap.Hair of the sands, of sun-washed stones, of a horizon she would never see.Desert hair.

When had the widow arrived? Had Juana let her in? Why had no oneknocked? How had Valentina agreed to grant a stranger such access to herhome? She voiced none of these questions.

She felt aheat pass through her, a liquid pleasure that made her press her thighstogether.

Luzia had always been a liar and now she was a killer. For it to meananything, she had to keep going. She had to find a way to win. She wouldbuild herself a life of plenty. She would force her world to bloom as she’dmade the pomegranate tree grow, and Santángel would help her do it. Evenif blood watered the soil

Eat it or don’t. Enter the torneo or turn your back on it. It isyour choice.”

A kind of stone, atalisman. They were rare and used for concentrating a sage’s abilities. Thesespells were of such great power they would crack the stone with a singleattempt.”

“Ah,” said Santángel.“Ah?”He reached for a segment of pomegranate and bit into it as if it were anapple.“I’ve never seen someone eat a pomegranate that way.” She was annoyedat how tidily he’d done it, not a fleck of juice or pith gone astray.

He dug his fingertips into the skin and pulled the fruit open, revealing itsblood-colored seeds, its juice staining the linen. “Eat, Luzia.”Luzia folded her arms even as her mouth watered. She’d had littleappetite since Álvaro had died in this room. She had killed a man—andworse, she hadn’t intended to. She wasn’t sure if it was guilt or fear thatplagued her, but she somehow knew that to eat this fruit would compoundher sin.“This feels like a trick,” she said. The kind that the devil might play.

There was comfort in this easy exchange and she realized she’d beenafraid that what had happened in this room, what she’d done to Álvaro,would alter something between them. It wasn’t that she trusted him, but sheenjoyed their lessons. She liked the feeling of his concentration on her, thepleasure he seemed to take in her success. And she liked looking at him.Strange as he was, she’d had few occasions to study a man, and he wasmore beautiful than Don Marius or the farmers and butchers down at themarket. He was finely made in the way of a seashell, the silvery gleam of anoyster, the tight, bright-edged spiral of a nautilus.

Instead he stood inher doorway and said, “Your dress doesn’t fit. I’ve brought you apomegranate.”“Is this a new way of saying good morning?”

“Luzia, I might be the holiest and most pious of Christians and it wouldnot be enough for them. Their great religion can make bread into flesh andwine into blood. But they don’t believe that any amount of holy water orprayer can truly make a Jew a Christian.”

But what are we, their descendants, who say falseprayers and kneel in their murderers’ churches?”

Luzia turned her head away, but Hualit grabbed her chin just as DonVíctor had. “Listen, Luzia. Do you know where I got the money for thecoach I took to the Prado every night to wait for Víctor? For the gowns thatso enticed him? For my own linajista to make me a good Christian widowworthy of more than a nobleman’s cock? I let a man wash my hair with hispiss because it gave him pleasure. I dressed as a milkmaid and let thealguacil fuck me in a field while I pretended to weep. And those were theleast of my humiliations. Learning to curtsy, to perform for the king, it isnothing. You must seek to please Don Víctor and Pérez or we will both payfor it.”

Yes, mama, she’d said. A good remedy is worth some pain. Blanca hadlaughed and called her daughter bold.

scorpion oil could be used to heal all kinds of ailments. But you have tocatch them and fry them up first, mi tesoro. Is the danger worth it?

He was said to speak to angelsas the Holy Child did. But if his God was not Catholic, whose voice did hehear? Was it the same devil who had spoken in this room? Who had movedthrough Luzia to tear a man in two?

She went to the window. Acrossthe street, the music room was dark, the dim shape of the harp like the prowof a ghost ship.

while Santángel was left to contemplate thetruth of what had split Luzia’s tongue and the uglier truth of his own nature.

and Santángel wassurprised to discover he was hungry. He hadn’t thought about the strength ithad taken to lift Luzia until he’d settled her in Valentina’s bed. His healthwas returning and with it his appetites. Because of her.

The danger was always that he would heal too quickly, before thebones had been properly aligned, and then they would have to be brokenagain.

“Good,” said Santángel. “And if my master would be so kind to send forsomeone who might set my broken bones so that they heal straight?”He waited for Víctor to meet his gaze.“Yes,” Víctor rasped.With his scullion in his arms, Santángel strode past the luckiest man inMadrid.

He knew this song, fromlong ago. He had heard it in a garden. His nostrils filled with the scent of anorange grove in bloom.

He grasped her hand in his. “I was wrong when I told you to fear menand their ambition,” he murmured in her ear. “Fear nothing, Luzia Cotado,

“Luzia,” he said again, her name repeated, an incantation. “Luzia, payattention to my voice and nothing else. You must find a song. You are theburnt bread. You are the broken glass. I cannot put you back together, butyou can.”

The pomegranate tree burst to life beside him, its branches slammingagainst the ceiling, heavy fruit tumbling from its branches.

She had been lulled by this room, by Santángel’s patience, by velvetdresses and lessons in comportment. She hated this house and everyone init. She hated this city too. Anywhere but here, she thought. I would beanywhere but here. She fought to find the melody and then there, the song,she followed it, humming, the sound blooming from her chest with thestrength of a hive, a swarm of bees singing with her, the words takingshape, traveling across the sea, across time, the words of exile, of newbeginnings, of survival.Aboltar kazal, aboltar mazal.The song emerged in a shout and Luzia screamed as pain tore throughher.

Santángel said nothing. He didn’t fight or resist or cry out. His gaze waslocked on Víctor, but there was no light in his eyes, only a long cold night.

“Álvaro, break his fingers. If ourstudent is making such wonderful progress, she will be able to repair them.”

“Pomegranate,” she gasped, delighted.

ut in thisroom, in the quiet of the morning or the afternoon, there was only the lessonand the pleasure of letting magic take shape, of feeling it expand and growstronger. It was why she forgot herself so easily with him, why sheneglected to curb her tongue or hunch her shoulders

Heremained in his chair, staring at Luzia, still as a cat that has spotted its prey.

the faint glimmer of anisland in the darkness

kind of dye to burnishred.

She had heard of heretics and witches being burned alivealongside Jews and Muslims suspected of keeping to their laws after beingbaptized.

Later Luzia would understand that when it came to anything worthhaving, there was no end to more. She would reflect on the path she’d seenbefore her and how wrong she’d been about where it would lead.But on this day she only smiled at her aunt and said, “They will tire ofmy tricks eventually and then I will return to my sad servant life.”“If you’re lucky,” Hualit said. She gave Luzia a little shove through thegate. “And our family has never been lucky.”

and rage and something nameless that had the shape of a bird, lost inthe rafters of a building, searching for sky.

“Señorita Cotado, I am employed at Casa Olmeda and my mistress bademe inquire if you might consider a change in position. She can offer you afar better wage and situation.”

“I hear Quiteria Escárcega has two lovers and lets them both take her atthe same time,”

Valentina’s handswere trembling as she took it.The tear was gone

Lucrecia deLeón had dreams of the future, the disgraced prophet Piedrola claimed hespoke to angels, and the Mendozas were said to have a holy sage in theiremploy who could move objects with his mind.

It felt like a mouse inher hand,

At well past twenty,

None of it was strictlyMoorish, but it was all decadent enough to give De Paredes the feeling ofthe forbidden.