S. agrees to stay behind with Stenfalk while Corbeau, Pfeifer, and Ostrero search for somewhere to hide. S. notices that Corbeau’s fingers are blistering from where they touched the mysterious black tar. The tip of S.’s boot is also slowly burning.

S. tells Stenfalk that he will carry Stenfalk’s valise for him when they climb up the rock face. Stenfalk does not tell S. what is in the valise. Instead, he remarks that S. has “some terrible bad luck” ending up in the city of B–.

Jen wonders whether Corbeau’s burning fingertips have any connection to Durand.

After doing some research she discovers that there is a character in Durand’s novel who burns her fingers warming up a bottle. There is also a character in Straka’s Washington and Greene who cuts her fingers in a factory.

Eric writes that he does not know what to do with these connections. Jen and Eric are constantly trying to make connections between Ship of Theseus and the real world, but this scene suggests that such connections do not always exist. Perhaps Eric and Jen sometimes try too hard to decipher what they are reading, and they forget that some details may in fact be fictional. One of the major themes of S. is the duality of fact and fiction, and S. often blurs the line.

Jen writes that if Ekstrom rescued Vaclav, Vaclav would have felt horrible if he had led Bouchard’s people to the Deux Martens. Deux Martens is the name of the Hotel where Ekstrom had been defenestrated. Although officials reported that Ekstrom committed suicide, many people, including Jen and Eric, believe that Ekstrom had been pushed out of the window.