The Last Memorist's Summer Apprentice

About this book:

In the river town of Linden Reach, memory is a municipal utility—measured, taxed, and guarded by the Memorist in his tower on Weaver's Hill. For three centuries, disputes have been settled not by law books but by the ledgers of Master Orlo Wright, who holds the town's forgotten bargains in a volume bound in pigskin: the Ledger of Forgotten Things, where grudges are laid to rest so peace can hold.

When sixteen-year-old Silas Vance is summoned to the Archival House as summer apprentice, he expects dust and drudgery. Instead he finds a living craft: ink brewed from oak galls and iron, quills cut from goose feathers that catch a liar's tremor, and the terrible weight of knowing which secrets keep a town whole. The council has bought iron filing cabinets and given Orlo until autumn to transfer three hundred years of memory onto dead paper—or watch the office close forever.

As the equinox approaches, Silas learns that forgetting is not loss but sacrifice, and that every erased name, buried feud, and surrendered claim is a thread in the fabric holding Linden Reach together. But someone is pulling threads loose. With ink staining his fingers like a second skin, Silas must decide what he's willing to remember—and what price he'll pay to keep the dark still.