A former Ministry of Defence translator, she takes a lucrative, top-secret job as a "bridge" to assist a time-traveling expatriate. As the child of a Cambodian refugee, she connects deeply with the dislocation her assigned expatriate feels, though she struggles with her employer's questionable ethics. Her professionalism is constantly tested by her growing attraction to the Victorian naval commander she monitors.

An 1847 Royal Navy commander extracted from the doomed Franklin Expedition in the Arctic. He is a polite, capable, and charming Victorian officer experiencing intense culture shock in the 21st century. Despite his easygoing exterior and musical talents, he harbors deep survivor's guilt over the crew he left behind to freeze.

The Vice Secretary of Expatriation at the Ministry. She is a tough, wiry woman with straw-like blond hair, an eye patch, and a heavily reconstructed face. She projects absolute authority and steel-plated confidence, taking a special interest in the narrator's career progression and closely monitoring the time-travel project.

Two mysterious men operating around the Ministry. The Brigadier wears a uniform, and both men employ an odd, almost unintelligible manner of speech filled with outdated slang. They closely monitor the Ministry's activities and the expatriates, operating with unknown intentions that make the narrator deeply uncomfortable.

A time-traveling expatriate extracted from the Battle of the Somme in 1916. He is a tall, handsome former army captain who suffers from severe combat trauma, often mistaking modern city noises for gunfire. Kind, gentle, and intelligent, he adjusts to the changing social attitudes of the 21st century while exploring his own identity and orientation.

An expatriate pulled from the 1665 Great Plague of London. She is a stunningly beautiful woman in her late twenties with a witty, cheeky personality. She approaches modern society with curiosity and directness, confidently embracing 21st-century social freedoms while recovering from her lack of modern viral immunity.

The narrator's handler at the Ministry. He is responsible for managing the logistics of Graham's assimilation and tracking his psychological well-being. As the project progresses, he exhibits signs of severe stress and paranoia regarding the Ministry's internal surveillance.

A former Behavioral Science department employee who acts as the bridge for Arthur Reginald-Smyth. She is sharply intelligent and highly critical of the Ministry's methods, frequently questioning the ethics of their human experiments and the psychological toll on the expatriates.

An expatriate extracted from the 1645 Battle of Naseby. He struggles significantly with modern gender norms, maintaining deeply ingrained sexist attitudes that alienate him from the women in the program.

An expatriate extracted from 1793 France. Described as having a complex psychological profile, she struggles to maintain a physical presence in the 21st century, eventually failing to register on the Ministry's medical scanners.

The bridge assigned to monitor Margaret (Maggie) Kemble. He struggles to manage Maggie's integration, feeling woefully unqualified to handle her personal life and orientation.

A Cambodian woman who fled the Khmer Rouge regime to live in the United Kingdom. Her experiences of displacement, trauma, and assimilation profoundly shape her daughter's worldview and serve as a psychological parallel to the time-traveling expatriates' struggles.