Mitch distracts the Recruiters to let Frenchie escape through a window and is captured in the process.

Miig's group of Indigenous survivors finds and rescues Frenchie after he collapses alone in the wilderness.

Miig explains to the group that Recruiters hunt Natives because their bone marrow is woven with the ability to dream.

A young Indigenous girl named Rose arrives alone at the group's camp and is welcomed in.

Miig tells Story, recounting Native history, the climate catastrophe, and how the surviving population lost the ability to dream.

Wab reveals her coming-to story: a fellow Native betrayed her to exploiters who blinded and assaulted her.

Miig tells his coming-to story, describing how strangers betrayed him and Isaac, leading to Isaac's capture by Recruiters.

Miig's group tracks two suspicious Native men, Travis and Lincoln, and agrees to share camp with them overnight.

Lincoln kills RiRi at a cliff edge; Frenchie hunts down and shoots Travis in a dissociated rage.

Minerva sacrifices herself by staying on the barn floor alone, allowing Recruiters to take her while the group hides in the loft above.

After escaping the barn, Frenchie refuses to keep running north and declares the group must go after Minerva.

Another Indigenous group captures Miig's people at gunpoint, but an Elder orders them released after Miig speaks in Anishinaabe.

The new group leads Frenchie's people through a cave to a hidden valley where Frenchie spots his father Jean on the Council.

Minerva is shot and fatally wounded during the convoy ambush, singing as she dies with her last word kiiwen.

Frenchie recognizes a buffalo tattoo on a stranger's hand as Isaac's mark and races back to reunite him with Miig.

This pool follows the central spine of the novel, beginning with Frenchie losing his brother Mitch to the Recruiters and being rescued by Miig's group of Indigenous survivors. The group learns why Natives are hunted for their bone marrow and gathers members with devastating personal histories, including Rose and the Elder Minerva. Betrayal by fellow Indigenous people culminates in the heartbreaking death of RiRi, which transforms Frenchie from a frightened boy into someone capable of killing. The group's determination to rescue Minerva after her deliberate self-sacrifice leads them to a hidden resistance community where Frenchie is reunited with his long-lost father Jean. The novel closes with both crushing loss, as Minerva dies in the convoy ambush, and profound hope, as Frenchie's knowledge of Miig's past allows him to reunite Miig with his husband Isaac.

The core survival journey of Frenchie and Miig's group from first loss to final reunion.

Frenchie and Mitch hide in an abandoned tree house and share a bag of Doritos before Recruiters discover their location.

After Mitch is taken, Frenchie flees north alone, developing a cough and running dangerously low on supplies.

Miig runs Apocalyptic Boy Scouts sessions, teaching the group practical survival skills including hunting and building shelter.

Rose teaches Frenchie the word nishin and promises to share everything Minerva teaches her about their ancestral language.

While hunting alone, Frenchie chooses not to shoot a moose because the group cannot stay long enough to use all the meat.

Frenchie's group arrives at the abandoned Four Winds Resort and each member claims their own room for the first time.

Frenchie tests the electric fence at Four Winds before Miig can, deciding that Miig is too important to risk losing.

Minerva tells the girls a traditional story about the Rogarou, a werewolf-like creature from Métis legend.

Miig continues Story, explaining how losing the ability to dream drove people to madness and led the government to create the schools.

While fleeing Four Winds, Miig privately shares each group member's backstory with Frenchie, including how each lost someone to the schools.

Chi-Boy privately tells Frenchie that Travis appeared to recognize Wab when the two groups first met at the campfire.

Travis and Lincoln ambush Frenchie's group at gunpoint at dawn, revealing they have already called the Recruiters.

Miig finds Indigenous syllabics carved into a tree as the group travels the road toward Espanola.

Rose and Frenchie have a bitter argument after Frenchie pushes her away out of jealousy and shame over Derrick.

The group buries Minerva; Rose and Frenchie each cut off their own hair as a gesture of mourning and tribute.

This pool traces the significant but quieter moments that fill the survival journey, beginning with Frenchie and Mitch's desperate hiding in the tree house before their separation. The group's daily life is shaped by Miig's training sessions and the gradual bonds formed through shared hardship, including Rose teaching Frenchie words from their ancestral language. The discovery and brief luxury of the Four Winds Resort offers a rare moment of rest and deeper character revelation, including Minerva's telling of an old Métis legend. Danger intensifies when the suspicious behaviour of Travis and Lincoln escalates into a violent dawn ambush that shatters the group's fragile safety. The pool closes with the tender grief of the group burying Minerva, as both Rose and Frenchie cut off their hair in a powerful act of mourning.

The everyday survival moments and quiet revelations that shape the group's bonds and identity.

Frenchie recalls his father warning the family about residential schools and their unfulfilled plan to flee north together.

RiRi sneaks out after Story ends to ask Frenchie what Miig said, revealing her curiosity and her sheltered position in the group.

Wab returns late and empty-handed from a solo hunt, visibly shaken but refusing to explain what she saw.

Miig warns the group they cannot assume all Indigenous people are trustworthy, telling them not every Indian is an Indian.

Rose sneaks into Frenchie's room at the resort and they begin to grow intimate before RiRi interrupts asking to sleep with them.

RiRi overhears Wab's coming-to story and begins to panic; Miig decides to invite her to hear Story despite her young age.

Miig privately tells Frenchie that the whites are building a new school nearby, information he is withholding from the rest of the group.

Travis tells Miig he never would have acted as he did if he had known the outcome, implicitly confessing his betrayal of Wab.

Frenchie finds RiRi's single pink boot lying at the edge of a cliff and understands she has been thrown over and killed.

The Council's spy reports that Minerva destroyed the Recruiters' extraction machine and blew up the entire school with her singing.

Frenchie and Miig share a late-night exchange in which Miig admits he is worn down by years of missing Isaac.

Frenchie visits Jean in the camp and confronts him directly about abandoning the family before the worst of the crisis began.

Father Carole, the Council's spy, arrives at camp with news that Minerva is being transported and will pass nearby.

Derrick shoots the convoy driver during the ambush and dissociates afterward, mirroring Frenchie's own reaction after his first kill.

Rose argues that the pale stranger's deep fluency in Cree could make him the new key to resisting the schools.

This pool captures the moments of revelation and decision that fundamentally shift the story, beginning with Frenchie's memory of his father warning the family about residential schools and the escape north that never happened. Crucial discoveries accumulate as Wab's secret unease is exposed, RiRi loses her innocence through a story she was never meant to hear, and Miig privately reveals to Frenchie that a new school is being built nearby. Frenchie's most defining turning points appear here: finding RiRi's boot at the cliff edge, confronting Jean over abandonment, and recognizing that Miig's exhaustion requires him to step into a leadership role. The arrival of Father Carole with intelligence about Minerva's transport sets the climactic ambush in motion, and Derrick's dissociation after his first kill gives Frenchie unexpected empathy. The pool closes with Rose's insight about the Cree stranger's ancient fluency opening a path forward, making visible the hope that sustains the entire novel.

The pivotal discoveries, confessions, and decisions that redirect the story at every stage.