When Unca Joe’s shrink declared me stable enough to leave the Ward, I took a lousy bunk assignment without a murmur: top-level, third floor corner. A lucky break, it turned out. I was still real tender in close company, and a far bunk got me up and out of the constant mob scene in the tiers. With no one above or to the left, and hard plaster wall on two sides, even the regulation four by eight felt reasonably spacious and secure. And the climb would help me get back in shape.

But the real payback was the tall, arched window overlooking the Lagoon. A source of light and air, fresh as it ever got. Of course, half the glass was blown out and replaced with water-stained plywood. Might be glad of it if it ever got cold again.

As if. Standard picker joke when we turned up some evac’s old parka or woolens, stashed in a forgotten storage closet or trunk: gettin’ ready for winter?

But one lower pane still had all its glass. Plus, I’d chipped off a bottom corner of the ply to let in the breeze, then tacked on a scavenged scrap of screen to keep out the vermin. Plenty of glass lying around on the streets to fix up a few more, but wrangling big pieces home would be tricky. Anyway, too much open glass was a security risk.

Best of all, a massive chunk of cornice clung to the ceiling corner, tall as my arm span. Its plaster curves and curlicues were soot-stained and chalky with damp, its broken ends raw. Rubio had put his architect’s eye on it, said he wouldn’t want to be sleeping under it.

“Friggin’ sword of Damocles.” Rube’s bunk was second below mine.

But I liked the look of it. No one else had one, and midway down its elaborate profile, a secondary dado gave me a handy storage shelf.

Dado. Fancy word for s-curve. Rubio’s, of course. When I’d first showed it to him, he’d gone on for twenty minutes about the use of the cornice in building design.

I was more interested in why this big lump of plaster appealed to me. “Maybe there was stuff like that where I lived before.”

“Maybe. If you were old money. That kind of detail was spendy even two centuries ago when those buildings were built.”

“So maybe I was!”

Once again, the Rubio eye roll. “Oh, you’re not gonna start claiming celebrity dad or lost Russian royalty . . .”