QUICK LINKS: Rites of the Starling Recap by Chapter P–8 | 9–20 | 21–30 | 41–51 | 52–59 | 60–64 // Shield of Sparrows Book 1 Summary
Rites of the Starling Chapters 31–40 Summary
This chapter-by-chapter summary of Rites of the Starling by Devney Perry contains spoilers.
Rites of the Starling Chapter 31
Caspia has been unraveling since the ritus returned. Her appetite is gone, her hands shake, and she’s begun scratching grooves into furniture without realizing it, echoing what she did aboard the Cirrina. Caspia watches Andreas and Kos head to the library, then spots the ship from her vision docked in the harbor below.
She races to the docks and finds the vessel, the Malynn, and asks its captain about the length of his longest voyage. His answer isn’t enough to cross the Marixmore. Caspia leaves without explaining.
Outside a newspaper office, a man hands Caspia a paper with Andreas’s name at the top of a full article. Whatever it says devastates her, and she walks away in a daze.
Caspia drifts into a ruined neighborhood and stops at a collapsed house, destroyed in the last migration and never rebuilt. There she recognizes Hali, a figure from her vision aboard the Cirrina, tied to a mysterious green liquid and an overheard secret. Hali offers help, but Caspia refuses.
Alone among the rubble, Caspia presses her hand to the thrum in her chest and whispers, “Not yet,” tossing her ruined slippers into the wreckage as a small, desperate plea to hold off what she knows is coming.
Rites of the Starling Chapter 32
Odessa and Ransom sail into Roslo Bay with Evie and Brother Dime, whose Voster magic shortens the journey by a full day, leaving Odessa anxious and unprepared to face her father.
At the castle, guards fail to recognize Odessa and try to turn her away twice. Ransom identifies Odessa as Turah’s future queen, and the guards escort them inside.
In the throne room, a party is underway. Ransom is recognized almost immediately, drawing the crowd’s attention, and the king dismisses everyone.
The king greets Brother Dime first, ignoring Odessa entirely. She refuses to let it pass, introducing the Mavins who saved her life and demanding her father pay them twelve thousand zillahs before dawn. The king tries to brush Odessa off, but she holds her ground.
Ransom formally presents Odessa to her father as his queen.
Rites of the Starling Chapter 33
Caspia returns to find Andreas teaching Kos how to draw. Andreas notices her distress and draws her a bath.
Pulling out the crumpled newspaper, Caspia confronts Andreas. He already knew. The article reveals he’s betrothed to another woman, a politically arranged marriage set for the winter solstice.
Caspia asks if Andreas loves his betrothed. He says no and explains he’s trying to void the contract. She tells him he should’ve told her himself. He agrees.
Instead of arguing, Caspia kisses Andreas, and they spend the night together. Afterward, she breaks down, grieving the future she’d imagined with him. He holds her and apologizes until she falls asleep.
Caspia wakes in the night and spends hours on the balcony, staring at a white‑sailed ship in the harbor below.
Rites of the Starling Chapter 34
In their suite in the castle’s west wing, Odessa notes her father placed them there deliberately, away from the family wing and the royal guest quarters. Once Evie is settled, Odessa finds Ransom at the window.
She tells him she found it suspicious that her father showed no surprise at his true identity. Ransom thinks the king is simply good at hiding his emotions.
Their conversation shifts to the larger crisis. Ramsey hasn’t warned any kingdom beyond Turah about the approaching migration, leaving countless people unprepared. Odessa worries her father doesn’t know about the crux scout either, since the nobles at the party were celebrating instead of preparing.
Ransom then reveals what he’d been holding back. He isn’t convinced the crux they encountered was actually a scout, since there should have been others with it. If Ransom is right, they may have more time than they thought.
He plans to go to Allesaria to confront his father and stop him from infecting his militia with Lyssa, but wants to leave Odessa behind in Perris. Odessa refuses, and they agree to revisit the matter in the morning.
Rites of the Starling Chapter 35
Caspia has been in a low state for eleven days since learning of Andreas’s betrothal, spending her days in the castle library searching for a way home with little progress. She and Andreas have barely spoken.
That morning, Andreas brings Caspia a note from Faxon, saying he’s found someone in the city who might help. Andreas warns her not to be alarmed by the man’s appearance and takes her to the library.
When they arrive, Kos is watching books float through the air on their own. Before Caspia can make sense of it, a priest in burgundy robes steps out from the stacks. The moment he appears, she’s overwhelmed by intense pain, a burning sensation spreading across her entire body.
Andreas introduces him as Brother Nold. Caspia recognizes him as a Velvi’os‑telfer, a nearly mythical race from her home continent of Kenn, believed to have been nearly wiped out by the Beesans in a war long ago. She has no idea how one ended up in Calandra.
The pain becomes unbearable, and Caspia collapses. Brother Nold reaches her before Andreas does and touches her first. Caspia screams and loses consciousness.
Rites of the Starling Chapter 36
Odessa is woken by Evie’s scream. Odessa’s half‑sister, Mae, has broken into their suite and tried to take Faze, prompting Evie to bite Mae on the leg. Odessa defuses the standoff before a steward arrives to summon them to breakfast with the queen.
At breakfast, Odessa reunites with her stepmother, Margot, who’s cool but civil. Through the window, Odessa sees her little brother Arthalayus flying a kite in the garden with the help of Brother Dime’s magic, and notices Arthy has a new black puppy he names Titus on the spot. Both match Luella’s journal descriptions exactly, shaking Odessa deeply.
Odessa shares a warm reunion with Arthy and the family nursemaid, Nathalia, before a general named Hawksley summons Odessa alone to see her father.
In the throne room, Odessa’s father questions her about Allesaria and whether she found the road there. She tells him she didn’t. She warns him about the crux scout, urges him to prepare the kingdom for the migration, and demands access to his healers to research a cure for Lyssa.
Her father grants her the healers but refuses to answer her real questions, including why he wanted Ransom dead and what in Allesaria could stop the migration. When Odessa pesters him, he tells her that he’ll never trust her with the truth.
Rites of the Starling Chapter 37
Caspia wakes in the library after fainting. Andreas is furious with Brother Nold, but the priest insists he did nothing to harm her. Caspia tells Andreas privately that Brother Nold’s magic is physically painful to her and asks Andreas to keep the priest at a distance.
Even so, Caspia decides she needs to speak with Brother Nold. Faxon uses the library’s unusual acoustics to place them on opposite mezzanine levels, far enough apart that the pain is manageable. Andreas waits below.
Caspia learns that the Voster fled to Calandra hundreds of years ago during the wars in Kenn, aided by three Starling ancestors. Two shifted and couldn’t shift back. The third flew away as a swift and disappeared. Caspia concludes that this Starling is likely the reason it became forbidden for Starlings to travel to Calandra, and that her own journey here may have been what first drew the crux to the continent.
Brother Nold confirms the crux didn’t migrate to Calandra until after the Voster arrived, meaning Caspia’s ancestors inadvertently brought the crux. Caspia’s pain is the consequence of being a Starling in a land she was never meant to enter.
Before departing, the priest warns Caspia to leave before it’s too late. She senses she’ll never see Brother Nold again.
Rites of the Starling Chapter 38
Caspia wakes from a vision of herself in her shifted Starling form, standing over a room filled with bodies she’s killed. A man she loves begs for his life, and she strikes him down anyway. The man is Andreas.
Shaken, Caspia decides she has to leave. Andreas finds her on the balcony and immediately senses her decision. He tells her the Malynn is in the harbor and that he trusts its captain to take her home.
They spend one last night together. Before dawn, Caspia slips out while Andreas sleeps, leaves a note for Kos, and makes her way to the docks with Andreas’s coat.
At the docks, the captain agrees to sail wherever Caspia directs. As the crew prepares to cast off, Caspia realizes the thrum is gone. Without it, she has no way to navigate home, and she can’t bring herself to board.
Before Caspia can decide, Andreas comes running down the dock. He asks her to stay, telling her none of the complications matter anymore. Caspia agrees to remain until the Divine calls her home.
Rites of the Starling Chapter 39
After her difficult meeting with her father, Odessa retreats to her cliffside outside the castle. Ransom joins her, and she tells him she wants to leave for Perris before the migration strikes. He shares a letter from Cathlin confirming that Zavier is alive and that he and Cathlin are sailing to Quentis for Evie. They agree to wait, which Odessa estimates could take up to a week.
Odessa convinces Ransom to let her use her father’s healers to search for a cure for Lyssa. He reluctantly agrees and gives her a vial of his blood to bring to the infirmary, disguised as blood from an infected monster, to protect his secret.
In the infirmary, Odessa discovers the longtime head healer has been replaced by a woman named Alore, a skilled healer from Laine. Odessa recognizes her from Luella’s journal and confides in her fully, sharing everything about Lyssa, Ransom’s condition, Luella’s elixir, and Ramsey’s failed attempts to recreate the Guardian. Odessa leaves Alore with the vial of blood and Luella’s alchemy journals.
On her way back, Odessa visits the crux art gallery. Brother Dime finds her there and tells her cryptically that magic is built on intent and consequence. He advises her to stay in Quentis, saying the gallery is where she’ll find her answers.
Rites of the Starling Chapter 40
Eight days have passed since the Malynn sailed without Caspia. A summons from Andreas’s father pulls him into castle meetings, leaving Caspia to work alone in the library.
Caspia has begun a journal to record her world and culture, determined that future Starlings called to Calandra won’t arrive without knowledge of their origins or what awaits them.
Faxon delivers a stack of books on Calandran history, lore, and past migrations. Among them is a small storybook titled Sonnet’s Ninety, which tells of a gladiator who survived a migration by distracting the crux with stories. Afterward, Faxon asks for Caspia’s blessing to adopt Kos, and she gives it without hesitation.
While sorting through the books, Caspia cuts her finger on a page and sees her blood run dark green instead of red. She concludes that Calandra’s magic is reshaping her body and wonders if the same transformation once happened to the Voster when they arrived from Kenn.
Andreas stops by briefly, and they agree to read through the books together that evening. Kos bounds in, swallowed by an oversized librarian’s robe.