The chapter opens in Rowan's memory of first meeting Hank Jones on the Snowy Mountains land she has just bought. Hank appears as a trespassing American biologist studying the decline of snow gums, but his excitement about the place, its ecology, and its possibilities quickly shifts Rowan's irritation. When Hank imagines a wildflower meadow and helps Rowan see how the land could become a home, their shared love of the place becomes the beginning of their life together.

In the present, Rowan holds onto that memory because finding Hank is the reason she came to Shearwater. She sets out to find Fen and ask for help retrieving a radio, and Orly secretly follows her down the hill. During the walk, Rowan tells Orly about the house and wildlife corridor she built before a bushfire destroyed it, and her bleak honesty about climate change unsettles him. Rowan also asks about the old research base and learns that Dominic once claimed he could see through Hank, which suggests Dominic never trusted the missing base leader.

On the beach, Rowan sees Fen moving easily among elephant seals, fur seals, and penguins, and Orly explains that Fen is so accepted by the animals that normal research rules do not seem to apply to her. Fen greets Rowan with immediate affection, takes Rowan and Orly to her rough boatshed home, and proposes using the Zodiac to reach Yen's wrecked boat and try its radio. Rowan knows the Drift is dangerous and initially resists keeping the plan from Dominic, but her need to find Hank and escape the island leads her to agree to go.

The ride along the coast shows Rowan both the beauty and the brutality of Shearwater. Orly points out shags and huge penguin colonies, while Fen and Orly explain that rusted barrels on the shore were once used by sealers who boiled penguins alive for oil, deepening Rowan's sense that the island is marked by old violence. When they reach the bay, Rowan is shaken by the sight of Yen's shattered boat and realizes the current and rocks make the radio attempt far too dangerous. She stops Fen before Fen can try the crossing.

As Fen turns the Zodiac away, Rowan, Fen, and Orly see Yen's body mangled on the rocks near the wreck. Rowan pulls Orly against her so he cannot look, orders Fen to leave at once, and returns to shore with both children badly shaken. Dominic and Raff are waiting on the beach, and Dominic angrily blames Rowan for taking his children to the wreck and exposing them to the corpse. Rowan admits she made a terrible mistake, but her fear and grief keep spiraling: there is still no radio, no way off the island, no sign of Hank, and no explanation for his disappearance. By the end of the chapter, Rowan's dread hardens into a new suspicion that Hank may not be missing at all, but dead, and that Dominic's family may know more than they have admitted.