The Familiar

Overview

Plot Summary ⚠️ Spoilers

Characters

• Luzia Cotado
  A scullion in Casa Ordoño who hides a Jewish identity and a song-based magic learned from her family. Her forced rise from kitchen drudgery to public “milagros” entangles her in patronage, court politics, and the Inquisition. Her growing power and choices ultimately reshape the fates of those who try to own her.
• Guillén Santángel
  Don Víctor de Paredes’s long-serving, uncanny agent who trains Luzia for the Torneo Secreto and later becomes her lover. Revealed to be a “familiar” bound to the de Paredes line, he navigates violence, secrecy, and the cost of protecting Luzia while trapped by his curse. His bond with Luzia alters both of their bodies and their possibilities for survival.
• Don Víctor de Paredes
  An ambitious nobleman who treats miracles as political capital and seeks to package Luzia as a holy champion to gain influence and titles. He controls Santángel through inherited bondage and tries to control Luzia through forged lineage, intimidation, and leverage over those she loves. His schemes drive the tournament’s stakes and the tightening net of danger around Luzia.
• Doña Valentina Ordoño
  The bitter mistress of Casa Ordoño whose discovery of Luzia’s magic turns a private survival tool into a social spectacle. She exploits Luzia to chase status, then is forced to confront the human cost of what she unleashed when the Inquisition closes in. Her arc shifts from control and vanity toward guilt, defiance, and witness.
• Don Marius Ordoño
  Valentina’s husband, a status-hungry man who sees Luzia’s miracles as a financial and social ladder. His self-preservation repeatedly clashes with others’ risks, especially when escape and protection demand sacrifice. His choices help determine who is abandoned when power turns predatory.
• Hualit (Catalina de Castro de Oro)
  Luzia’s aunt who survives by reinventing herself as a glamorous court figure while secretly remaining Jewish. She both warns Luzia about the Inquisition and maneuvers her toward powerful protection, balancing familial care with hard pragmatism. Her plans for escape and her ties to Víctor show how survival can require dangerous bargains.
• Antonio Pérez
  A disgraced royal powerbroker who hosts the Torneo Secreto to regain the king’s favor by producing a miracle champion. His shifting rules and political desperation make the tournament a lethal arena where rivals plot and patrons weaponize faith. His flight turns the spectacle into a crackdown that sweeps up the vulnerable.
• Fortún Donadei
  A gifted competitor in the Torneo Secreto, styled the “Prince of Olives,” who uses music and illusion to captivate the court. Driven by coercion and ambition, he becomes a direct rival to Luzia and plays patrons against one another to survive and rise. His actions contribute to the tournament’s violence and the Inquisition’s focus.
• Teoda Halcón
  A famed contender called the “Holy Child,” presented as a prophetic prodigy but revealed to have a far more complicated reality. Her arrest shows how quickly miracle, politics, and heresy collapse into one another under inquisitorial scrutiny. In prison, she becomes Luzia’s ally and a catalyst for escape attempts.
• Doña Beatriz Hortolano
  Fortún Donadei’s wealthy patroness whose control shapes his participation in the tournament. Her presence exemplifies how patronage can resemble ownership, with talent leveraged for social and political gain. She is part of the courtly machinery that pressures contestants toward betrayal.
• Doña María de Paredes
  Don Víctor’s sincerely devout wife, whose reverence for Luzia highlights the moral ambiguity of staged holiness. Her private desperation to conceive, tied to astrological prophecy, shows how even the powerful cling to miracles for personal salvation. Her faith becomes another instrument in Víctor’s household politics.
• King Philip
  The ailing king whose hunger for signs and relics makes miracles politically valuable and dangerous. His court’s shifting favor drives Pérez’s tournament and the rivalries around selecting a champion. His public spectacles of piety help legitimize the Inquisition’s theater of power.
• Mateo Vázquez de Leca
  The king’s secretary who replaces the king at the final trial, turning the contest into a sharper political test and humiliating Pérez. His presence forces contestants to perform for bureaucratic power rather than sacred awe. The arrests that follow underscore the crown’s use of spectacle as control.
• Fray Diego de Chaves
  The king’s confessor who presides over the tournament’s purity scrutiny and frames miracles as potential devilry. His public demands for confession weaponize fear, positioning the Church to decide whether a wonder is saintly or heretical. His role tightens the noose around contestants like Luzia.
• Juan Baptista Neroni (Vicar of Madrid)
  A church authority tied to the tournament’s “proof of faith” and the looming threat of inquisitorial evaluation. His name functions as a warning that clerical scrutiny can turn performance into prosecution. He symbolizes the institutional power contestants must placate to survive.
• Quiteria Escárcega
  A prominent playwright whose social reach intersects with the tournament’s aftermath and Luzia’s imprisonment. She helps raise aid and later becomes Valentina’s partner, turning witnessing into a form of resistance and remembrance. Her presence shows how art and influence can shelter—or endanger—those touched by scandal.
• Águeda
  Casa Ordoño’s cook, a volatile presence in the kitchen who witnesses Luzia’s transformation from servant to spectacle. Her gossip and fear reflect the household’s precarious position under religious surveillance. She anchors the story’s depiction of labor and the costs of “miracles” on the working poor.
• Juana
  The new scullion hired to replace Luzia once Luzia is pulled into courtly training. Her arrival signals that Luzia’s old life is being erased and redistributed as the household adapts to new patronage. She also becomes part of the enforced silence after violence erupts in the house.
• Ana
  Hualit’s trusted maid and co-conspirator, later revealed to share Hualit’s secret Jewish identity. She supports the logistics of survival—meetings, movements, and preparations—while remaining careful under the threat of discovery. Her role underscores the hidden networks sustaining conversos and anusim.
• Concha
  A maid assigned to Luzia at La Casilla, paid by Víctor and loyal to his interests. She provides practical help—dressing, searching for threats, keeping watch—while reminding Luzia that even “care” can be surveillance. Her presence illustrates how control is maintained through servants as well as masters.
• Rudolfo
  A guard in the Toledo prison whose desire for a love spell becomes a lever for Luzia’s survival tactics. By feeding his hope and directing his actions, Luzia gains small advantages inside the Inquisition’s machinery. He embodies how desperation can be manipulated on both sides of a cell door.
• Neva
  An older prisoner in Toledo who shares confinement with Luzia and Teoda and speaks bluntly about fear, torture, and endurance. Her refusal to join escape plans and her hard-earned cynicism provide a counterpoint to Luzia’s defiant hope. She represents the many lives ground down by institutional punishment.
• Lucrecia de León
  A jailed visionary whose fate is used as a warning about the thin line between prophecy and heresy. Her proximity in the Toledo cells and the news surrounding her coerced confession amplify the terror awaiting Luzia. She also links the prison world to the broader cultural sphere through fundraising efforts.
• Perucho
  The tailor-merchant who outfits Luzia for court and helps craft her strategic persona as “La Hermanita.” His choices emphasize optics over authenticity, teaching that survival at court requires controlled narrative as much as real power. He is part of the machinery that turns Luzia into an asset.
• Álvaro (El Peñaco)
  Víctor’s brutal bodyguard who enforces coercion during Luzia’s training and helps trigger a disastrous magical rebound. His violence forces Luzia to reach for power under terror, escalating the stakes of what her magic can do. His death becomes a catalyst for cover-ups and deeper fear.
• Gonzalo
  One of Víctor’s men used for cleanup, enforcement, and later the attempt to eliminate Hualit. His fate illustrates how Víctor treats subordinates as disposable tools in protecting his position. He shows the reach of Víctor’s control beyond salons and tournaments.
• Celso
  A loyal operative in Víctor’s service who assists in containing disasters and carrying out lethal orders. His presence during key cover-ups and betrayals underscores how violence is routinized as “service.” He helps make Víctor’s power practical rather than merely social.
• Garavito
  A trapper and informant whose loose talk threatens Víctor’s schemes and prompts Santángel to silence him. His death scene exposes Santángel’s unnatural durability and the moral fractures in how Santángel carries out orders. The episode reveals the underworld cost of courtly ambition.
• Manuel
  Garavito’s abused son whom Santángel spares despite knowing Víctor would prefer otherwise. His brief role highlights Santángel’s capacity for choice within bondage and the human collateral around power games. He also shows how violence ripples through families at the margins.
• Teoda Halcón's father
  Teoda’s parent, arrested alongside her and accused through the discovery of Calvinist texts. His capture becomes part of the narrative that turns the Torneo Secreto into an Inquisition spectacle. He represents how quickly family ties become evidence under religious persecution.
• Ovidio Halcón
  Teoda’s brother who coordinates an escape attempt from the Toledo prison by arranging disguises, bribery, and a route through the gates. His intervention briefly turns prophecy into action, at catastrophic personal cost. His death underscores the lethal price of trying to outmaneuver the Inquisition.

Themes