Sunrise

Quickly finishing his examination of Longtail’s fur—and finding a real flea, which he crunched between his teeth—he said good-bye to the elders and headed into the forest to gather moss. As he tugged mouthfuls of it from between the roots of a tree, he wondered what Mousefur’s mystery herb could have been. It was strange that Leafpool hadn’t told Mousefur what the herb was or who it had been meant for. And stranger still that Leafpool, who was always so careful, had made a mistake.

I need to find out what the herb was, Jayfeather thought, gathering up his moss to carry it back to the camp.

When he returned to the medicine cats’ den, he found that Leafpool had already gathered more bedding while he was talking to the elders. “Did you go to RiverClan to find that moss?” she demanded. “Or have you been mooning about in the forest again?”

“Uh…no.” Jayfeather dropped his bundle and started to arrange it in his own nest. “I thought I’d check on the elders first.” When Leafpool didn’t respond, he added, “Mousefur told me a weird story. She said you gave her a funny-tasting herb once, mixed up with her tansy.”

A pulse of alarm came from Leafpool, but she mewed, “I don’t remember that. When was this?”

“Oh, a long time ago.” Something told Jayfeather not to be too specific. He didn’t want his mentor to know that he had been asking questions about his birth. “Do you know what it was?”

Leafpool let out an annoyed hiss. “How am I supposed to know that? For StarClan’s sake, do you think I don’t have more important things to worry about?”

“I was just—”

“If you’re so bored that you have to start asking about something that happened last leaf-bare, I can soon find you something to do. We’re still short of moss in here, so you can get on with that.”

“Okay.” Jayfeather was glad to leave. But I never mentioned last leaf-bare, he thought as he padded across the clearing. He had sensed his mentor’s fear, too. Leafpool was lying. She knows what the herb was, and she knows it’s important. I must be getting close to the truth—and Leafpool doesn’t want me to find it.

CHAPTER 13

Hollyleaf blinked in surprise when she woke among the stone walls of the Twoleg nest instead of under the branches of the warriors’ den in the ThunderClan camp. Then she remembered their journey to find Sol, and how Jingo had brought them to this abandoned Twoleg nest to save them from the dogs.

As Hollyleaf sat up, her brother yawned and stretched. “I don’t like this place,” he muttered. “It’s time we left.”

Hollyleaf murmured agreement. It wasn’t right for warriors to be so close to all this Twoleg stuff, even though there were no Twolegs here.

The pale light of dawn flooded into the den through the gap in the wall. Looking around, Hollyleaf saw that Birchfall and Hazeltail were still asleep. Brackenfur was perched on the ledge under the gap where Hussar had sat the night before. There was no sign of Brambleclaw, but a moment later he sprang up from outside and squeezed through the gap to sit beside Brackenfur.

“All’s quiet,” he reported. “But there’s a strong smell of dog.”

Hollyleaf twitched her whiskers; she could pick up the rank scent even here.

“We have to get moving,” Brackenfur meowed. “Have you seen Jingo?”

Brambleclaw shook his head. Speckle and her kits were curled up in a furry heap on one of the soft boulders, while Fritz and Pod were sleeping on the other. There was no sign of the other Twolegplace cats.

“She’ll be here somewhere.” Brambleclaw jumped down inside the nest. “I think we can trust her.”

He padded over to prod Birchfall and Hazeltail awake. As the two younger warriors were blinking sleep away, Jingo padded in through the entrance to the den.

“Good, you’re ready,” she mewed, with a brisk nod of greeting. “Let’s go.”

She led the way into the Twoleg territory through the gap in the wall. “This journey’s going to be a bit different,” she warned the Clan cats when they were all in the raw, damp air of the leaf-bare morning. “We won’t be setting paw to the ground until we get where we’re going.”

Hollyleaf shot a startled glance at her Clanmates, and saw that they were all looking equally surprised. How could they get anywhere if their paws didn’t touch the ground? Was Jingo expecting them to fly?

“It’s not safe to walk around on the ground since the battle with the dogs,” Jingo explained. “The dogs lie in wait for us and hunt us like prey.”

Shuddering, Hollyleaf leaned closer to Lionblaze. “That’s exactly what happened to us yesterday.”

Her brother nodded; his amber eyes were gleaming and his claws flexed as if he was imagining his chance to slash a dog that attacked him or his Clanmates. Better to stay out of their way, Hollyleaf thought.