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Ginevra grabbed her hand. “Please, Sister, I am here. I have come back.”

Then she breathed not at all.

Both young women, who thought they had no tears left, sat down on the floor and clung to each other and wept until their eyes puffed and they could not breathe through their noses. And then they tripped over each other to apologize, through their tears, for how they had been apart and for how it took the most awful thing God ever wrought upon the earth to bring them back together again.

When they were spent of crying, because eventually you must be spent, they carried Agnesa’s frail body through the convent, and Ginevra experienced the strange and immediate recall of details—floor tiles, icons painted on the walls, even little chips in plaster, all as it was when she left. The place had not been flourishing.

When they reached the courtyard, they bathed the body of their friend and teacher, and laid her in the shallow pit Taddea had scratched out of the dirt, next to the shrouded thing that was once Fra Simone da Cascia. The rest of the yard was studded with mounds of freshly turned earth and crosses made of sticks. They sat down on the ground then, for a while, in shocked silence. Too stunned to feel the full weight of grief. That would come later, Ginevra knew.

“Taddea, come stay with me—this place is filled with pestilence. I am at the house of the Tornaparte, in Santa Trinita. The master has fled, there is room for you.”

“I can’t go.”

“You can’t be the only one here by yourself.”

“But I am not by myself.” She gestured to the relic of the bloody host, which had overseen the funeral services.

“Bring the bread with you, then.”

“No. Fra Simone built our chapel for it, and here it shall stay—I pray to it daily for the plague to leave. It’s important. It won’t be as powerful outside of its reliquary.”

“I suppose you’re right.”

Taddea looked over. “You look like you could use a meal. I’ll be right back. Today is porridge day.”

She returned with a bowl of cold groats. Ginevra spooned it into her mouth mechanically.

Taddea watched her as she ate. “Why are you here, Ginevra?”

Ginevra ate several more spoonfuls before she answered. “It is so strange, I fear you will not believe me.”

“Just now, I would believe anything.”

She started at the beginning, the message supposedly from Ludovico on behalf of the bishop, the contract with the inquisitor, the relic thief that eluded them.

“So you have been in town since yesterday, and only now you come?” Taddea said quietly, trailing her fingers through the dust of the courtyard.

“I was afraid Agnesa and Fra Simone would not forgive me for the trouble I caused. And my fears have come true, for they are dead and I cannot ask them.”

“I will not deny you brought us trouble—the loss of funding. We had to close the women’s ward.”

Porridge stuck in Ginevra’s throat as she was told what she already knew—she was the reason why the plaster was chipped in all the same places.

“But I don’t believe Agnesa held any of it against you. Bringing your healing magic to so many—you did what she would have liked to, but she was too afraid.”

“She said all that?” asked Ginevra, hopeful, desperate.

“No,” Taddea admitted. “I just assume that’s how she felt.” The two sat in silence for a moment before Taddea sighed and continued, “So. The disappeared relics. It’s bad, isn’t it? Without their protection, the whole city will die.”

“You keep your holy bread locked up, don’t you?”

“Yes—in its crystal case, in its cupboard in the chapel, which I also keep the key for. And I visit it many times a day because there are so many people dead so quickly, I must pray constantly for their souls. Their ghosts come to me every night, complaining of purgatory.”

“You have done better at protecting your relic than the priests in the grand parishes.” Ginevra scraped to the bottom of her porridge bowl, and saw it was made of fine earthenware, decorated with grapevines in purple and green, surrounding a gold chicken.

“I see this style everywhere, with these colors,” she said absently.

“Hmm? Oh, that. It’s really too fancy for everyday use, but what’s the point, now, of saving nice things? It was a gift from the man who bought Agnesa’s books. A rich potter in San Romolo. His workshop is the only place that paints this way...”