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“Hush, Sister,” said Ginevra. She guiltily tapped her own coral amulet, warm and red in the presence of Agnesa’s disease.

“I placed red carbuncles upon swellings but it caused fits of apoplexy and they died.”

“I will say a prayer for them, Sister.”

“I ground pearls into dust and fed them the sparkling powder. But all of them died.”

“But you did not have bloodstones, Sister,” said Ginevra, touching the speckled jewels to the spots on Agnesa’s shins.

“Bloodstones. Hmmph.” She spoke animatedly now. “You do not listen to me. For those who are young and strong, perhaps those rocks will work. But even your bloodstones cannot draw out what is already deep, what is already spread. If you had a lynx, you might use its urine to extract the essence of your jewels. Then the patient could drink it down—and the stone’s powers could reach into all the various folds where plague has taken hold.”

“A lynx, Sister?” Ginevra was onto the right arm now.

“Yes, a lynx. Like you, she possesses wonderful powers. But the animal is cleverer than you. She buries her urine, guards it jealously because she knows it is magic and that men will steal it from her. But you walk around an open book so all may know your secrets and use them against you.”

“Lynx urine? She is going mad,” said Taddea.

“No,” said Ginevra. “She is remembering from a book.”

“You will never find the lynx’s treasure, so your stones will not work and I am dead,” said Agnesa.

“Sister, please. I have seen them work. I am watching them work.”

Agnesa smiled a wicked smile. “Look again.” She held out her shaking left arm: the splotches Ginevra had erased before had bloomed again, large and angry.

Ginevra moved the stones frantically from spot to spot, but now where one disappeared another came back to take its place.

“What is happening?” said Taddea.

“I’m not sure—this worked before, I swear it!”

“Try something else!” said Taddea.

Ginevra, not knowing what else to do, began to fumble with the loose tile on the floor. If the books were still there, maybe they held an answer. The passage about the lynx.

“It is empty, empty!” cried Taddea. “We sold everything, sold those secret books years ago to pay our debts. Try something else.”

But Ginevra did not know what else to try.

Taddea ran away.

Ginevra knelt back next to Agnesa and panicked. The bloodstones worked so easily before. She should have come yesterday, before the disease was so advanced. Right when the smaragdus had first conjured the image of Sant’Elisabetta in its green depths.

“Please, Agnesa. Oh, please, oh, please. You will be well, and I will tell you how sorry I am and we will talk and be friends as we used to be.”

“Don’t fret, girl,” whispered Agnesa. “You arrived exactly when you were meant to.”

Taddea returned with the Relic of the Blessed Bread from the chapel, and laid it atop Agnesa and prayed:

Bread, bread, bread

Keep her from death

As Christ conquered death

Bread, bread, bread

Agnesa began breathing very quickly.