The failed attempt to retrieve the birdcage

The failed attempt to retrieve the birdcage is a rescue effort that becomes a trap. After Dr. Golan throws the cage from the lighthouse into the sea, Jacob and Emma follow its red beacon into dark, rough water. They reach the cage only to find a German submarine rising beneath them, where an armed crewman drives them back and a Wight takes a bird aboard. The cage’s fall carries the rescue out of the lighthouse battle and into a new danger at sea.

The cage falls

As Dr. Golan confronts Emma, he shakes the cage and accuses Peculiars of hiding from the human world rather than ruling it. When Emma protests, he takes her concern as proof that she cares about the captives. He swings the cage toward her, then releases it over the rail. Its red light grows brighter just before he turns toward the darkness, but the cage is already falling beyond reach.

Jacob and Emma react at once. Emma throws herself against the railing, following the cage as it tumbles toward the sea. Dr. Golan uses the confusion to attack Jacob and try to seize his gun; Emma intervenes. The immediate struggle shifts when Jacob fires and Dr. Golan falls from view. Emma then points out to sea: the cage’s red beacon is still visible on the waves. Their attention leaves the lighthouse fight and fixes on the endangered birds.

Into the open sea

The pair rushes down the lighthouse staircase. Outside, they find Millard with a tourniquet and Bronwyn beside him; Millard’s call is enough to tell Jacob that he is alive. Jacob points out the canoe, but it is too far away, on the wrong side of the lighthouse, and there is no time to reach it. Emma chooses the direct route instead. She and Jacob run into the open sea.

They swim toward the beacon as it bobs in and out of sight. The cold recedes behind the urgency of reaching the cage, but the current carries both the swimmers and the cage farther out. When the light disappears for a third time, Jacob fears that they will not find it before exhaustion or drowning overtakes them and calls for them to turn back. Emma refuses. She swims ahead, and when Jacob tries to stop her by grasping her feet, she kicks free. Their shared goal has become a point of conflict: Jacob wants to abandon a rescue he believes they cannot complete, while Emma continues toward the captives.

A submarine surfaces

The swimmers cannot make sense of what rises beneath them until its mass pushes them up on a powerful swell. They are swept onto metal grates; in the lighthouse beam, what first resembles a monster or wreck resolves into a submarine, with a conning tower and a large gun on deck. Jacob recognizes that its arrival is no accident and suspects it is what Dr. Golan had been waiting for.

Emma gets to her feet and runs across the rolling deck toward the cage. A wave knocks both swimmers down, and a man in a gray uniform emerges from the conning tower hatch and aims a gun at them. Jacob sees that Emma is still moving toward the cage, unaware of the gunman. He tackles her off the deck and into the water as bullets strike around them. Once they surface, Emma demands to know why he stopped her: she had nearly reached the captives. Jacob tells her the gunman was about to kill her, then directs her attention back to the deck.

The rescue is lost

The gunman reaches the cage and lifts it. Its door hangs open, and Jacob thinks he sees movement inside, a possible sign that the rescue is not yet hopeless. The light sweeps across the man’s face, however, revealing him as a Wight. He reaches into the cage and removes a single bird; when another soldier whistles from the conning tower, he carries it toward the hatch.

The submarine begins to rattle and hiss, and the water churns around it. The attempt has not brought the cage or its captives to safety. Instead, the cage has served as the point where Dr. Golan’s plot at the lighthouse meets the submarine and its crew: Jacob and Emma reach the object they pursued, but armed enemies take control of it, and a bird is carried away. The shift from lighthouse to open water therefore deepens the danger rather than ending it, leaving the rescue unresolved.