Luzia trained her eyes on Donadei, on his smug face, and on the fat green emerald at the center of his golden cross, the cross he put his hand to whenever he sought great magic. The only gem that hadn’t been altered by her refrán in the third trial, that hadn’t become a scarab or a spider or any other crawling thing. When he’d appeared in the audience chamber to denounce her, when she’d seen that emerald just as large and perfect as it had been on the lake, she’d heard Santángel’s voice in her head. A kind of stone, a talisman. They were rare and used for concentrating a sage’s abilities.
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