The Sailor’s Home was all the way at the river, a squat brick pile whose turret overlooked the inky black strip that was the Hudson. The riverside wall had collapsed into rubble, and the rooms were exposed as neatly as an open dollhouse. We climbed across bricks and broken glass, and over the jagged lip of the building. We lit a match. Ruined furniture filled the lobby, and a weather-beaten mural of a shipwreck dominated the wall.

“When those poor bastards who made it off the Titanic came in,” Cherub said, “they tried to house them here. First-class toffs wouldn’t have it. Refused to step off the dock until they booked them at the Hyperion.”

“I remember.”

“How many of the steerage passengers did the shadows take that night?”

“Nineteen.”

“Lord. You’re going to make us climb to the top, aren’t you?”

I took his hand, and we found the stairs. They were on the western edge of the building, where the wall had collapsed, which left them completely open to the night. I kept a grip on what remained of the railing and tried to ignore the wind tugging at my skirt.

At the third-floor landing, Cherub stopped to light a new match. I made the mistake of looking down. My mind flooded with images of myself tumbling through the air, handing my body over to death. Two steps to the left would do it. I pressed myself against the wall, holding tight to what remained of the bannister, palms sweaty and throat dry.

“Oh god,” I murmured. Cherub didn’t say a word. He took a firm grip on my left arm and marched me up the stairs. Even if I’d wanted to jump, he wouldn’t have let me. By the time we got to the top, I was breathing again.

There was nothing to see from the turret. The windows were blown out, and in the furious wind I felt the first bite of winter. The moon was faint. Across the river, New Jersey twinkled stupidly. I sat on a broken marble bench and tried to remember why we’d come. He sat down, close enough for me to feel the stubble on his cheek.

“I shouldn’t be here, you know?” he said. “My poor boys. We used to dream of such a brawl. Lower West against the Upper, fists and chains and knives and clubs. Crossing the Borderline and coming home garlanded in the blood of Van Alen’s guards. The Borderline. Christ. It’s just Fourteenth Street.”

“You dying wouldn’t have changed a thing.”

“I should have died five years ago, before I ever got in their ears, before I ever filled their heads with songs of glory, legends of the Westside. I led them on that last stupid charge. I wrapped their heads in shadow. I put the bullets in their skulls.”