The Familiar

“But let it be my ambition and not my fear that seals my fate.”

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

“Writing is the closest thing we have to real magic. Writing is creating something out of nothing, is opening doors to others lands. Writing gives you power to shape your own world when the real one hurts too much.”

“You think you know hardship, but men have a gift for finding new ways to make women suffer.”

“It is a danger to become nothing. You hope no one will look, and so one day when you go to find yourself, only dust remains, ground down to nothing from sheer neglect.”

“every night she shuts the windows tight to guard against drafts, and every morning he dies and is reborn beside her. she reminds his heart to beat again, as she did so long ago. he kisses her fingers, and combs her hair, and he treasures her, as only a man who has lost his luck and found it once more ever can.”

“There are different kinds of suffering, Valentina thought. The kind that takes you by surprise and the kind you live with so long, you stop noticing it.”

“His belief in her was wine on an empty stomach and it left her light-headed.”

“You’re right. I’m stupid and sentimental. When we wed I was a foolish girl who hoped to love you. I grew into a foolish woman who hoped to please you. And now, well, I suppose I’m still a foolish woman who only hopes to be rid of you. Go away, Marius.”

“Maybe there really was a demon inside her. One that craved feather beds and fine food and applause.”

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

“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.”

“And you're not afraid...of the devil? Of his minions? "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.”

“She was allowed to want more for herself. And even if she wasn't, she would find a way to get it.”

“She would build herself a life of plenty. She would force her world to bloom as she’d made the pomegranate tree grow, and Santángel would help her do it. Even if blood watered the soil.”

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

“Clap your hands,” Luzia said, surprised at the command in her voice. It had the snap of a whip over a horse’s back. The man’s laugh died on his lips. Who was a peasant to command a person of his stature? And yet, in this room, on this night, he had asked for her to perform, and so her impudence must be permitted. Such was the temporary power of the singer, the actor, the fool.”

“There are worse things for a woman than being alone.”

“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.”

“She hadn’t so much climbed a mountain as a low hill, but she might as well enjoy the view while she could.”

“Her aunt had warned her long ago that some people brought misery with them like weather,”

“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.”

“You are the burnt bread. You are the broken glass. I cannot put you back together, but you can.”

“Who has more power in a house than the woman who stirs the soup and makes the bread and scrubs the floors, who fills the foot warmer with hot coals, and arranges your letters, and nurses your children?” Her anger radiated from her like heat from a stone left in the sun. She was right, of course. These were the ways women entered the body, through the kitchen, through the nursery, their hands in your bed, your clothes, your hair. There was danger in such trust, and a wise man learned to respect the women who tended to his home and heirs. “Do”

“There was nothing more dangerous than a woman witha pen in her hand.”

“If she was kneeling in prayer, she would at least be off her feet.”

“She might be a conversa or a morisca. Most of the magic that survived in Spain came from Morvedre or Zaragoza or Yepes. But who knew how long any of it would last, lost to exile and the Inquisition, magic bleeding away with the bodies of Jews and Muslims, their poetry silenced, their knowledge buried in the stones of synagogues made into churches, the arches of Mudéjar palaces. The tolerance for mysterious texts like the Picatrix would be stamped out by the Pope, and King Philip would follow.”

“I will tell you if you tell me which language you sing in.""Spanish," she lied."No great miracle has evern been worked in Castilian.""And why is that?""Because it's a language that spends its power in command and conquest.”

“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.”

“I know what it is to lower yourself, to keep your eyes downcast, to seek invisibility. It is a danger to become nothing. You hope no one will look, and so one day when you go to find yourself, only dust remains, ground down to nothing from sheer neglect.”