Fitzjames and Crozier take comfort in each other, despite everything.
Isabella, future girl-queen of England, receives a visit from a predecessor.
On the one night of their journey that suspends itself in the in-between, not yet Hetao but no longer home, Wang Zhi joins him for dinner.
How can he want for something he does not have when its lack leaves no absence?
Sir John requires Goodsir's assistance in the creation of a heartfelt memento for Lady Jane. Goodsir tries to avoid thinking about it too hard.
The caulker's mate on Terror is pressed into service for a more personal problem of its Captain's.
It feels too honest, somehow. Too desperate. Kuan-hung's too thinned out by the hour, exposed in the liminal space between his dream and now that's still folding closed, scarring over. He rubs his cheek against his pillow, ducking his head down lower, as if he can creep closer to Fu Meng-po's voice. As if there's a body nearby to press himself into, if he just reaches far enough for it.
Shiv Roy has wings.
Old Billy Gibson has an eye for likely prospects.