Vicenta Santos was (or is, according to some) a groundbreaking figure. She was born in the Philippines to a poor family as the sixth daughter, joined the local convent as a nun, and climbed the ranks of the Vatican until she could access their resources and fund her medical education on church dime. Her status as a nun left no doors closed to her; She could immigrate anywhere, attend anything, be accepted by any establishment that desperately needed to remain in the Vatican's good graces. Any contempt for women these establishments held was set aside for the pure, noble facade of a respected nun. And she did not squander these chances.
The moment she became a doctor, she no longer needed the shield of being nun; She dropped that act and began breaking ground on a new area of medicine: Witch Practitioning, the combination of modern medical science and old world mystical healing to combat supernatural illnesses. She created a treatment for the Plague known as Virgin's Tears, using afflicted orphans provided by the Vatican in exchange for granting the church the glory of being associated with her accomplishment.
But her student (turned assistant, turned lover), Salma, who she'd been grooming to take the fall for her less than moral tactics (should they ever be leaked), tumbled her kingdom in a matter of weeks. Salma realized that her mentor planned to make her a scapegoat and struck first: Whistleblowing to every form of authority that would listen. Vicenta lost everything she'd spent her life working towards, now left rotting in prison as a criminal.
And the worst part is that Vicenta still can't ignore her ex-student's request for aid, despite herself.