Jeremiah Cohen

Jeremiah Cohen doesn’t owe anyone an explanation for who he is or why he does what he does. Born to Polish-Lithuanian Jewish immigrants in Whitechapel, he grew up in the narrow, crowded tenements of Wentworth Street where Yiddish and cockney mixed in the streets, and survival was its own kind of trade. His father, a tailor, spent his life bent over a workbench, always believing things would get easier. His mother knew better—she was the one who six mouths fed, who understood that waiting for fairness was a fool’s game. Jeremiah learned fast that if you weren’t strong enough, you had to be useful; and if you weren’t either, you were nothing. By the time he was a teenager, he had carved out his own space in Whitechapel’s economy, running messages, handling deliveries, and keeping the wrong people from pushing in where they weren’t wanted. He never planned on making a living with his fists, but by the time he was working the door of The Gilded Cage, he had stopped pretending that knowing how to fight wasn’t an asset. That was where he crossed paths with Skye McDaniels, and where, in 1873, they spilled blood together for the first time. But when she left the Cage in 1878, he stayed behind. He had his own work, his own space. Nevertheless, when she came back in 1883 and asked if he wanted a job, he didn’t hesitate.

Now, he keeps The Moth & Lantern in order—running security, managing business, handling the things that don’t make it onto the books. He keeps Skye from going under and her twin, Eoin, from getting himself killed too soon, and he doesn’t pretend there’s a moral dilemma in that. He’s never been interested in making himself easy to understand, and whatever holds him here, it’s his choice.