The Familiar

Santángel is a protagonist of the novel and one of the major point-of-view characters. When Luzia first meets him, she thinks Santángel is ill. His voice has “the lifeless quality of ashes gone cold” (47). His skin is pale and his eyes glitter, and “[h]e looked less like a man than a statue, an icon made from shells and stone” (47). He is tall and lean and seems “at once beautiful and like he was dying” (48). This is because Santángel has been alive for almost 500 years due to a magic spell that made him immortal but also bound his life to Tello, the man who was formerly his servant, and to Tello’s descendants thereafter, who all take advantage of Santángel’s luck and abilities to advance their fortunes.

When Santángel meets Luzia, he becomes curious about her, and her vitality infects him: He finds when he starts working with her that “[h]is health was returning and with it his appetites” (115). Santángel has lived too long to care about much, but Luzia’s spirit, determination, and intelligence draw his interest and his compassion. He enjoys teaching and learning from her, and his protectiveness leads to passion, and then devotion.

Santángel is wary and cautious by nature; he has been jaded by his years of being exploited by the De Paredes, who have punished him, manipulated him, and exploited his abilities. Santángel has developed a reputation as an assassin, while others think he has demonic qualities, earning him the nickname of the Scorpion. Santángel’s character arc in the novel is a redemptive arc thanks to Luzia, who makes him feel human again and whose powers can defeat his curse—a metaphor for the power of love.

Hualit Cana is Luzia’s aunt, her mother’s sister. She serves as both mentor and foil to Luzia, an example of ambition but also one of Luzia’s few sources of affection.

Hualit was raised Jewish and practices in secret. She corresponds with members of the Jewish diaspora, some of whom communicate to her the refranes that she shares with Luzia. Hualit also corresponds with a rabbi in Salonika, Greece, and dreams of joining the Jewish community there and being able to practice her faith without persecution.

Though she cares for Luzia, Hualit cares more for her own comfort and safety, which is one reason she doesn’t take in her orphaned niece. Hualit worked as a sex worker to gain powerful patrons, finally finding a measure of luxury as the mistress of Víctor de Paredes, even though she understands what kind of man he is. To hide her Jewish identity, Hualit pretends she is a widow and goes by the name Señora Catalina de Castro de Oro. She likes fine things, including her luxurious home and clothing, but she is also secretly proud of her heritage and what it means.

Hualit’s vanity fools her into trusting that Víctor will let her escape Madrid when she wishes, but she ultimately becomes his prey when she is no longer useful to him. His henchmen murder her, but an emerald she was wearing finds its way into the body of a fish and to a woman who then uses the emerald to escape to Paris.

Valentina is Luzia’s employer. She plays a role in the novel as a complement and foil to Luzia: they share the same dislike of being overlooked, the same feelings of loneliness, and the same ambition of wanting more. Valentina, however, is of much higher social status. She was brought up in a middle-class home and was given in marriage to Marius Ordoño, who never shows much of an interest in her. Being overlooked leads Valentina to indulge the more petty and petulant parts of her character. Valentina’s wish for attention and admiration leads her to coerce Luzia into demonstrating her milagritos, but Valentina feels uncertain and out of her element when more powerful patrons come into play.

Despite her petty cruelties at the beginning of the novel, Valentina matures in her consideration for others, feeling a sense of obligation to help Luzia when she hears the girl is in prison. Valentina has her own love affair when she connects with the playwright, Quiteria Escárcega, who stirs both her passion and her nurturing tendencies.

Víctor is a hidalgo of Madrid and the man who holds power over Santángel thanks to the trick his ancestor played centuries ago. He is a powerful antagonist of the novel, one of the characters who embodies The Price of Ambition.

Víctor is supremely arrogant, self-absorbed, and cruel, a consequence of never having known want or challenge. He is known as the luckiest man in Madrid, but his luck is Santángel’s, turned to the favor of the Paredes family by the curse. Despite his wealth and his ability to meet every indulgence, Víctor wants more power and status, and he eventually achieves a dukedom granted by the king.

When he loses his influence over Santángel, Víctor devolves into a fearful man who is unable to follow through on any decision. Though he has always thought only of himself, he has never had to depend on himself, and thus never learned how. He is a shallow person, and once deprived of Santángel’s luck, he proves to have no substance, representing the hollow nature of self-aggrandizement.

Fortún, the Prince of Olives, is another competitor in the torneo who first appears as a mentor but then becomes an antagonist and foil to Luzia. Though a secondary character, he mirrors Luzia’s character arc to some extent because he poses as a humble olive farmer who has been manipulated by his patroness, Doña Beatriz.

Fortún’s humility is an illusion, however: He despises Beatriz, whom he has been using for his advancement, and betrays Luzia as soon as he can, using her power—as she has the ability to create—to magnify his own power, which is merely to create illusions and shadows. Fortún’s malicious action of creating the shadows shows the dark side of ambition as he sets out to harm others and remove his competition. Luzia, whose motives are to help others, proves able to defeat him, speaking to the larger moral worldview of the book. As happens to Víctor, when Fortún loses his talisman, his powers diminish—he has no substance of his own.