I looked at the four of them, their clothes and bearing as ridiculous as their faith. They were pathetic, but they were kind. In a city and a winter that fought so hard to crush those who believed in anything but greed and death, they pressed on. Delusional, certainly—Enoch couldn’t really believe the whole city was counting on them—but their intentions were pure. If they thought the finger would help them continue with that mission . . .

“I’d be honored,” I said.

“I still don’t like her,” said Helen.

“And I don’t like you, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have a bit of fun.”

Helen gave me the kind of look you normally expect from a Gorgon. Judy pulled her mother back and whispered, “She’s the only one.”

“Fine,” said Helen. “Fine.”

“A ringing endorsement,” I said. “I can’t wait to get started.”

“Thank you, Miss Carr,” said Enoch. “And while you’re working for Mam, of course, you can let the blue ink go.”

I appreciated that. I’m sure Bex would feel it was far more healthy to chase just one impossibility at a time.

I could have gone back upstairs for another drink, but instead I let them walk me home, as they had done so often for my father, to the town house that stood alone on an empty block on the western edge of Washington Square.

I stepped from the frozen street into my frozen parlor, lit a fire, and tried to drive the frost from my chest. I drew a fat album from a high shelf and laid it on the floor before the dancing flame. Inside were dozens of Bex’s drawings of the old man and the young woman, drawings of them walking and eating and bathing and living lives too ordinary to be believed. He was the Glen-Richard Van Alen who lived in another New York, far gentler than our own. She was Juliette Copeland. Him I’d shot in the chest. Her I’d drowned. These drawings, which I’d started commissioning from Bex when I realized my guilt would not fade with autumn, were glimpses into the sorts of quiet days my victims would never enjoy.

I pasted the new pair onto blank pages. There was one more drawing inside Bex’s envelope that I could not bear to see. I left it inside and fell asleep by the fire, hoping that if the finger of Saint Róisín couldn’t save the city, it could at least save me.

The next morning I breakfasted in the Upper West, on a sliver-thin side street nestled between Fifth Avenue and the fence, where the smell of old money still hung in the air. In a double-wide town house painted a chipped, fading blue, I was greeted by a woman with tight white curls whose skin was as wrinkled and clear as cellophane. This was my grandmother: the distinguished Anacostia Fall.