I stand and wait for another swoon to pass. I stagger to the window. Six, no eight messengers. I must do my duty. I’ll help the Sin Eater when I think of a way.

My shoes have reappeared by the hearth. That’s a kindness, though just pulling them on makes the stitches at my neck ache and sting.

Brida looks to Paul. ‘Surely she can rest a piece more.’

‘I couldn’t care less what she does,’ Paul says.

‘She’s sharing her home with us,’ Brida says.

Paul snorts, ‘And I risked my own flesh to save hers. As I see it, she is in my debt.’

‘She should rest a piece more,’ Brida says again.

‘The boys are likely the heralds of her trade, each one from a soul dead or dying,’ says Paul.

Brida sighs wetly, ‘Then she must go.’

When I open the door, the boys come forward, messages flying. It’s like crows fallen on a dead rabbit in a field, the larger ones pushing out the smaller, who squawk all the louder for it.

I pick out the name Fletcher and Smithy Lane and start on my way. I nearly fall when a spell of faintness takes me by the town square. The boys kick at the dirt till I find my feet under me again. Messengers get their penny only after I arrive.

John Fletcher lies on a bed of straw in the corner of a two-room cottage. He’s young enough, but his breathing comes hard, like his lungs are closing in on themselves. His wife clutches her hands at her middle.

There’s one stool placed beside him. It takes a moment to remember it’s just me for the Recitation. Only me. Shame swells in my chest, so I hastily say the words to begin.

My voice is so low and broken, it startles me. It startles the goodwife too. I notice her skin is chapped from a long winter, and there’s a red sore on her bottom lip. ‘The Unheard is now heard. The Unseen seen. Your flesh—’ How does it go? I’ve never properly learned the words. ‘I will bear your sins to my grave. Speak.’

‘All what you do as a boy,’ John Fletcher wheezes. ‘Teasing and brawling and scrumping from gardens.’ There’s a whistle that comes when he lets out his breath. Like blowing through your thumbs on a blade of grass. ‘Told a pack of lies every which way; forced a girl with two other fellows.’ His eyes dart towards his wife. One of her shoes scrapes against the floor. ‘Nothing boys won’t do. Was a beggar girl. Nothing you can blame boys for. She wanted it anyhow.’

He’s inventing this last bit. I don’t know how I know, but the lie is like a smell or a taste you know right away.