I had watched that faith cost him everything, and for a long time I had not been sure I still shared it.

There were years when I suspected the truth would simply sit in my keeping forever, too dangerous to move, and that Julian’s faith had been the naive hope of a boy who did not understand how the world really worked.

But standing on those steps, having just handed the whole thing over to people whose sworn duty was to act on it, I felt his faith return to me, tentatively, like feeling returning to a limb that has been asleep.

Maybe he had been right all along.