‘When the food is et, your sins will be mine,’ the Sin Eater ends the Recitation. ‘I will bear them in silence to my grave.’

‘May it be,’ he says back with the words that finish all prayers.

The Sin Eater does the Maker’s sign across his body, left shoulder to right hip, then right shoulder to left hip. It’s the one time a sin eater touches you.

When the Sin Eater opens the bedroom door, it startles the goodwife and maid. They look to their shoes. The Sin Eater lists the foods to be got. The Recitation of sins is usually private, unless the dying wants it otherwise, but the food must be prepared by somefolk, so the sins come out, at least to the household. Sometimes the dying will ask that only a maid or only a husband hear the list of foods and prepare them. Of course then the gossip goes wild, everyfolk claiming they saw the husband buying fresh grapes for bearing a bastard or cooking up a pig’s heart for killing.

The goodwife and maid nod along with the list of foods, but their nods sort of falter on the dried raisins for adultery. I take a gander at the goodwife. She’s not supposed to look at me, but there’s no rule about me looking at her. She has pimples on her chin, even though she’s fully grown, and her eyes look like she’s lost sleep. And for a fornicator.

Was it worth it? I want to ask. I ask it silently to the wall behind her head.

What choice did she have? the wall says back.

After the list is finished, the Sin Eater turns her bulk, lifts her skirts, and steps down the stairs as easy as if she were at a dance. I climb down each stair slow and wary, my heart in my throat, catching my balance with every step.

The door closes behind us. Behind me and my first Recitation. If I live a long life, I might have sixty years more of this. Sixty years of hearing folk’s sins. Not their joys or their blessings, just their sins. I stand outside the house, while this knowledge digs down into my heart.

I’m there but a moment before the Sin Eater reaches back and pulls me by the ear down the road.

We go next to a lane where guildsmen live. Houses neat and clean, you can tell even from the outside. I know which one we’re heading to because a man stands in the doorway openly weeping like I don’t know what. His smock’s white with flour and brown with blood. The Sin Eater goes right past him into the house.