In South Wood, Prue remains hidden in her wicker hamper while SWORD police search the room. When the coast is clear, she emerges and finds a single sparrow named Enver who escaped the raid. They make a plan to get Prue to the Avian Principality where someone can fly her the rest of the way to North Wood. Before that, they need to cautiously make their way across town to Richard’s post office.

In Wildwood, Alexandra asks Curtis if he will join her army. He refuses and tries to rescue Mac. Alexandra orders her guards to lock him up as a traitor. He is taken to a part of the warren where massive cages are suspended from the underground root system of an enormous tree: “The viney maple boughs that made up the cages’ bars joined in a crown at the top; they looked like birdcages in a giant’s aviary” (228). One of the other prisoners is a coyote soldier; the rest are captured bandits. 

In Wildwood, Curtis endures the insults of the other prisoners. When the bandits get tired of abusing their enemies, they ask one of their fellow bandits to give them a song to lift their spirits.