Six years later, Fitzjames and Crozier broach a delicate topic in the privacy of a well-heated room.

Sequel to More Fools Than Wise.

Billy Gibson takes a trip downtown.

Solomon Tozer proves harder to tame than other men, and Hickey faces his own mutiny in miniature.

India takes the cup. (Or: people disappear all the time, but seldom to such scenic locales.)

It is the sacrilege of it all, maybe, he thinks: men like him are not meant to lay eyes on the Son of Heaven like this, in the quiet moments he strays too close to human.

January 15: Lucca and Matteo observe the hours of night.

Nathan is there in the kitchen, waiting for him, unwrapping his hands.

Susan and the man in black make a palaver.

Bodyswap!

Ding Rong, in his narrowed dagger-keen focus on his task, is unsure of the time when he is first made aware of Wang Zhi’s approach. He knows only by the dark of his workroom, dim-lit by his low-burned candle, that it is well into the evening. He knows only that it is no other visitor but Wang Zhi, circling into his periphery, portended by a flutter of draping fabric, because no other but Wang Zhi would dare to come unannounced.