Shade experiences his first snow, and Marina teaches him how to catch snow fleas to eat. They come across a massacre of bats, “Wings no longer attached to bodies…snagged on spiky branches” (140), and quickly realize the owls committed this atrocity by the pellets they left behind.

Meanwhile, Throbb and Goth are flying in search of Shade and Marina. Throbb’s wing sustains frost bite damage, and Goth is thinking about how he will reach Hibernaculum on his own and convince Shade’s colony that he’s their friend; gaining their trust will enable him to have a warm place to roost for the winter and access to all the bats he can eat.

Shade and Marina stop to rest in an abandoned house. Once inside, they realize it’s full of bats, and they’re all banded like Marina. They immediately swarm Marina, admiring her band. They all believe that they are the special chosen bats, and they think that their bands will one day transform them into humans. The leader, Scirocco, believes he is in the process of becoming human. The other bats start chanting “transform,” and Shade can’t believe his eyes: “Scirocco’s body shuddered and suddenly burst its own skin, towering up into the air” like a human (152).