The earliest example was more than six hundred years old, and the words that made it were malformed and difficult. As I read through the slips the quotations got easier, and when I was almost at the bottom of the pile I found one I liked. The quotation was not much older than me, and it was written by a Miss Braddon.

I found myself abandoned and alone in the world.

I pinned the slip to Ditte’s letter, then read it again. Alone in the world.

Alone had a pigeon-hole all to itself, with bundles of slips piled one on top of the other. I took out the topmost and untied its string. The slips had been separated into various senses, each with a top-slip showing the definition. I knew that if I got A and B off the shelf, I would find the definitions on the top-slips transcribed into columns, their quotations below.

It was Da who had written the definition I settled on. I read his tight script: Quite by oneself, unaccompanied, solitary.

I wondered briefly if he had spoken to Lily about all the ways to be alone. Lily would never have sent me to school.

I unpinned the top-slip from its quotation slips—its job was done, after all—and put the quotations back into their pigeon-hole. Then I returned to the sorting table and pinned Da’s definition to Ditte’s letter.

Then a sound. A long note in the quiet. It was the gate: its unoiled hinge.

I looked around the Scriptorium for somewhere I might hide. I felt the galloping beat of panic. I couldn’t have the words taken from me. They explained me. I reached under my skirt and shoved the letter with its attached slips into the waistband of my drawers. Then I took up the candle from the table.

The door opened and moonlight flooded in.

“Esme?”

It was Da. Relief and anger rose.

“Esme, put the candle down.”

It tilted. Wax dripped onto proofs spread across the sorting table, sealing them together. I saw what he saw. Imagined what he imagined. Wondered if I could actually do it.

“I would never—”

“Give me the candle, Esme.”

“But you don’t understand, I was just…”

He blew out the candle and collapsed into a chair. I watched the wisp of smoke wobble upward.

I turned out my pockets and there was nothing, not a single word. I thought he might ask to check my socks, my sleeves, and I looked at him as if I had nothing to hide. He just sighed and turned to leave the Scriptorium. I followed. When he whispered to close the door quietly, I did as I was told.