But sometimes I am so glad to see the pain go away that if that were the only person I had ever helped it would still be worth it.’

‘There’s a moment when you start a binding, when the binder and the bound become one. You sit and wait for it. You let the room go silent. They’re afraid, they’re always afraid … It’s up to you, to listen, to wait. Then something mysterious happens. Your mind opens to theirs, and they let go. That’s when the memories come. We call that moment the

She leant towards me. I smelt soap and glue and the leather of her apron.

knowledge is always a kind of magic,

Remembering and not remembering overlap with each other.

‘It’s a sacred calling, Emmett. To have another person’s memory entrusted to you … To take the deepest, darkest part away from them and keep it safe, forever. To honour it, to make it beautiful, even though no one will ever see it. To guard it with your own life …’

In the still silence of the workshop I concentrated on small things: the weight of the burnisher, the squeak of beeswax under my thumb.

‘Books should be beautiful,’ Seredith said. ‘No one sees, that’s not the point. It’s a way to honour people – like grave-goods, in olden times.’

Her eyes slid away. A timber creaked above, and suddenly the house felt fragile, as if the thick walls were nothing but a dream.