Skin has a smell I had forgotten. A small smell. It’s different from the big smells like Paul’s farts or Brida’s rot. Skin smell you have to be up close for. His smells like raw wood and sharp varnish and the gamey smoke of tallow candles. I breathe into him, and he breathes into me. It is the closest I have ever been to another body since I was a child.

When I am done, when I have swallowed up all his touch, I pull my breath apart from his, his body from mine. We sit looking at each other, his eyes filling me full up.

Gentle-like, his fingers rise towards my face, but they stop just before they get there. At my collar. He touches the S. He touches the heavy brass it hangs from. His fingertips crawl around the collar like a spider until they reach the back. They tug and pry gently, hunting for something. I watch the Instrument Maker’s eyes open in surprise when he finds no latch. I watch his surprise grow to a shuddering anger when he discovers the lock. Then, suddenly, he’s at his worktable, scrabbling for tools.

He stands behind me working at the lock. He stops twice to light fresh candles. He’s a fool, I think, as he works. The Maker sealed this lock. But it feels good just to have him there tending to me, his arms bumping warmly against my shoulders, like when my mother would plait my hair.

And then all at once, there’s a click. It’s quiet, but I hear it like firewood splitting under the axe. The warmth of his body leaves me as he steps back.

For a moment I can’t even breathe. I don’t dare. Then I bring my hands to my neck. The circlet gives under them, hinging open. I pull off my collar.

My chest bone floats up, like a brush bobbing in a tub. I feel so light. Bare.

The Instrument Maker speaks. At first I think he’s said a stranger word, but then I hear it.

‘Free,’ he says.

25. BLACK PUDDING

IN MY LOFT I lie on one side of the mattress. The collar lies on the other.

Free. I don’t know what that means.

I thought I did. I thought it was stealing orange suckets at the market. Or being a curse. But now I don’t know.

I touch the place where the collar sat. Grey skin peels off like cobwebs. The inside of the collar itself is scaled with the stuff. And crumbs too. I don’t know how they got in there.