The wind pushes hard against him, and Alek grips his coat more tightly closed with the hand not on his cane. It's colder than he remembers.

He steps to the railing and looks out across the city, trying to find something familiar.

"Everything's changed," he says, torn between wonder and dismay.

His granddaughter lays a hand on his arm, and he looks at her. "It's been almost sixty years," she says gently.

"Yes, I know," he says. Everything changes – oh, God, everything changes.

But he needed this to be the same.

He rests his hand on the railing and closes his eyes. Lets the wind rake its stiff, cold fingers over him. The memory is still there, luminous and real, even if the landmarks are not.

"We save each other." Soft lips pressed to his.

Suddenly he is shaking – not from the cold. Alek opens his eyes and blinks, trying to dispel the tears, trying to pretend that the pain in his chest is only because he's had to climb stairs today.

His granddaughter touches his arm again, concerned. "Grandda?"

Sunlight glints on the river where it joins the harbor, and if he lets his glasses slip just far enough, he can imagine that he sees a great, living airship anchored there.

Happy anniversary, Liebe, he thinks. Surely she will hear him; he is atop the tallest building in the world. The closest he can get to heaven without leaving the ground – and Deryn wouldn't want him in an aeroplane. She never liked the things.

I miss you.

If it's a prayer, it's a paltry one… and yet he hasn't any more to say. He was never very good at princely speeches.

"Grandda, maybe we ought to go back in?"

I miss you.

The wind abruptly gusts up, grabbing hats and tossing scarves, and for a moment he thinks he hears a woman's laugh.

He takes a breath. Blinks hard, several times.

"I'm ready," he says, turning away from the phantoms of New York harbor, one hand still on the observation deck's safety railing. "I'm ready."

His granddaughter takes his arm, and he lets her lead him inside.