Part Two opens in Scotland near Craigh na Dun in 1980. Roger MacKenzie, son-in-law to Claire and Jamie, and William (Buck) MacKenzie, Roger’s ancestor who has time-traveled to the 20th century, approach the standing stones (which act as the portal through which characters travel through time) to go back in time for Roger’s son Jem. Previously, Roger, Brianna, Mandy, and Jem traveled to the present to receive medical care for Mandy. Writing from the past, Jamie and Claire left a cache of letters for Brianna, one of which tells of a hoard of gold hidden in North Carolina in a spot known only to Jem and Jamie. Brianna and Roger are sure that Robbie Cameron, Brianna’s colleague, took Jem through the stones into the past to steal the gold. However, Jem is imprisoned in a tunnel under a nearby hydroelectric dam where both Robbie and Brianna work.

At the Lallybroch house, Robbie Cameron threatens to rape Brianna. She knocks him unconscious with a bat and throws him into the priest hole (a hiding place for Catholic priests during times of religious persecution). She threatens to starve him until he tells her where he took Jem. Robbie replies that her son won’t eat either, which tells Brianna that Jem did not travel through the stones at Craigh na Dun.