When I opened the first envelope from across the Channel, I could barely breathe. There were smudges of dirt from its journey. I imagined the route it must have taken, and the hands it must have passed through. I wondered if all the men who had touched it were still alive. I didn’t recognise the handwriting, but I knew the name on the back of the envelope. I tried to remember him but could only conjure an image of a small, pale-faced young man hunched over his desk at one end of the Dictionary Room in the Old Ashmolean. He usually worked with Mr. Bradley, and Eleanor Bradley had described him as quietly brilliant but socially terrified. His corrections were thorough and needed little from me. Dr. Murray was right, I thought. He must have been grateful for the distraction.

The following week, I met Gareth for lunch at a pub in Jericho.

“It’s a pity Mr. Hart can’t send copy to France for printing,” I said. Gareth was quiet, and I was filling the silence with my story. “I like the idea of giant presses being dragged to the front, and soldiers being equipped with metal type instead of bullets.”

Gareth stared at his pie, poking holes in the pastry with his fork. He looked up and frowned. “You can’t make light of this, Es.”

I felt my face heat, then realised he was on the verge of tears. I reached across the table and took his free hand.

“What’s happened?” I asked.

He took a long time to reply, never taking his eyes from mine. “It just feels pointless.” He looked back down at his food.

“Tell me.”

“I was resetting type for sorrow.” He drew a quick breath and looked to the ceiling. I gave up his hand so he could wipe his face.

“Who?” I asked.

“They were apprentices. Been at the Press barely two years.” He paused. “Started together, left together. Thick as thieves.”

He pushed the pie out of the way and put his elbows on the table, held his head in his hands. He stared at the tablecloth and finished his story. “Jed’s mother came to the composing room looking for Mr. Hart. Jed was the younger of the two, not even seventeen. She came to tell Mr. Hart that he won’t be coming back.” He looked up then. “She was a wreck, Essy. Deranged. Jed was her only child, and she couldn’t stop saying that he was only turning seventeen next week. Over and over, like the fact of it would bring him back because he should never have been there in the first place.” He took a deep breath. I blinked to hold back my own tears. “Someone found Mr. Hart, and he took her to his office. We could hear her wailing as he led her down the hall.”

I pushed my own plate away. Gareth drank half his glass of stout.