DAVID, MAYA, JAMIE and NOA travel to Bangkok carrying the weight of a Middle East operation gone wrong, three children killed, a false report filed, a secret shared by four. In Bangkok, LIN finds them. She knows what they're carrying before they've said a word. She gives them something to drink. She tells them about an island.

Koh Malai is run by SOMCHAI and the Tidebound, former soldiers all, each carrying their dead alongside them. The island's ceremonies crack them open. JAMIE finds a shrine of missing persons and a gilded frame nailed to a jungle tree, inside it, a photo of himself at his worst. He tries to take the boat and run.

Somchai selects David for the island's ancient rite. To free the children of his past, David must offer himself, and decide whether absolution is worth the price.

David threw the grenade. Three children died behind a closed door, he followed orders and made the call in under a second. He has not slept through a night since. The island sees him the moment he arrives.

Third through the door. She saw everything and said nothing, in the field, in the debrief, for three years. She has been holding David together. She doesn’t know the island has chosen her as its instrument.

The easy grin always slightly ahead of the grief. His crime is different, a photograph taken as a dark joke in a dead family’s bedroom. The island found it, and nailed it to a tree in a gilded frame.

She gave the order. She wrote the false report, filed it, initialled it, catalogued under ‘dealt with.’ The island does not accept the filing. The ceremony makes her read the report aloud. Every word.

Seven years on the island, carrying her own military dead. She spotted David at a Bangkok bar and knew instantly what he was carrying. She brought all four here, and fell for Noa, knowing what the ceremony would do to her.

The commune’s ancient spiritual leader. Patient. Absolute. He saw David coming long before David knew he was going. The island is his instrument; the ceremony is his design.

Srebrenica, 1995. One man, eight thousand lost, the arithmetic he told himself. The three children who follow him everywhere don’t care about the arithmetic. He looks, from a distance, content, the most unsettling thing about him.