one of their generals, she learns that the Pure Ones are planning to launch an attack on the Great Tree and goes to tell Mist. At St. Aggie's, The Chaw of Chaws devise a plan to make the workers and the spies doubt each other to make them fight. During the commotion, Soren is struck in the rear, damaging his rudder feathers and on the way back to the Great Tree, he became gravely ill. As Soren nears death, a local spotted owl named Hortense brings a flying snake named Slynella, who has venom that can heal illness. After Soren regains his health, Mist reveals that she is the original Hortense and that the Pure Ones were planning to attack the Great Tree. The Chaw flies off towards the Great Tree to warn them of the impending attack and realize the true size of the Pure Ones' forces, which number in the thousands. The story tells of Kludd's initiation into the Pure Ones, as it is learned that he maimed a Non-Tyto, killed a nest maid snake and attempted to kill his younger brother by pushing him out of the nest. At the Great Tree, Ezylryb gives a speech, and the tree gets prep on the Pure Ones. The Shattering The situation at the Great Tree has become ever more complicated. Ginger, a reddish barn owl taken in during a Pure Ones attack, has become friends with Eglantine and Primrose, despite her still harboring their brutal ways (such as when she is caught toying with a mouse). In the aftermath, Eglantine begins to experience strange dreams of her mother, Marella, though she looks different and forgets things about Eglantine's past. A page from a mysterious book entitled 'Flecks' is given to Otulissa, and it is revealed that exposure to flecks can confuse an owl into believing fantasies, a condition called "shattering", leading the Band to discover that Ginger has slipped flecks into Eglantine's nest. In the meantime, Nyra has laid her and Kludd's first egg, referred to as 'The Sacred Orb'. Both Eglantine and Primrose, who followed her on one of her "dream" flights, end up in captivity of the Pure Ones. Primrose is almost shattered but uses a piece of amber to clean the flecks from her nest. During a battle in a burning forest, Eglantine and Primrose snatch the Sacred Orb, but Eglantine, still in her confused state,