The Sight

poisonous gratitude.

Firestar stared levelly at him. “I am pleased to hear that you are getting so much out of a piece of land prey-poor by ThunderClan standards,” he meowed.

“Yes!” Hollypaw hissed. A subdued ripple of approval passed through the ThunderClan cats.

Then Firestar turned his green gaze on the crowd.

“ThunderClan are fortunate to have more than one”—he lingered over the word —“new apprentice this moon.”

Lionpaw’s ears twitched. Pride and anxiety churned in his belly.

“Jaypaw couldn’t come tonight.” Murmurs of surprise rose from the other Clans, but the ThunderClan leader carried on. “But Hollypaw is here.” Hollypaw’s green eyes shone like stars, her black pelt almost invisible in the gloom. Then Firestar’s gaze flicked to Lionpaw. “And Lionpaw.”

Lionpaw could hardly hear anything for the blood rushing

in his ears. He puffed his chest out and held up his chin, feeling his pelt burn under the stares from the other cats. In a moment that was at once too short and too long, it was over, and Firestar was carrying on with his report.

“We have been lucky this leaf-bare,” he meowed. “There has been frost but little snow, and the prey has continued to run.”

Lionpaw’s pelt prickled. There was a new scent in the air, something he hadn’t smelled before. Some of the other cats clearly scented it too—he could see their heads turning, searching the edge of the clearing.

There was a rustle in the bracken close to where the WindClan cats were gathered and in the shadows Lionpaw saw movement.

Firestar fell silent and watched with the other cats as two lithe shapes emerged from the undergrowth.

“Intruders!” The alert spread through the Clans like wild-fire. All around Lionpaw felt pelts bristling in alarm and battle-hungry muscles tensing, ready to spring.

The WindClan warriors who were nearest lunged at the strangers. Yowling and hissing, they wrestled the trespassers to the ground.

Are they going to kill them? Lionpaw turned back to the Great Oak, wondering what the leaders would do.

Firestar’s fur was standing on end. His tail was stiff with shock, and his ears were pricked as he sniffed the air and sniffed again.

“Stop!”

The WindClan cats froze and drew back, leaving the two strangers standing alone on the edge of the Clans. Lionpaw strained to see over the heads of the other cats.

In a voice that was taut with shock and disbelief, Firestar called a name Lionpaw had only ever heard mentioned in nursery stories.

“Graystripe!”

,

Chapter 11

Hollypaw stared in amazement. Graystripe?

“But he’s dead!” she hissed to Lionpaw.

Her brother did not reply. He was too busy trying to balance on his hind legs to get a better view.

Hollypaw ducked down and weaved among the legs of the Clan cats until she reached the edge and peeped out between the pelts of Crowfeather and Breezepaw.

A gray tom with a stripe of darker fur along his spine stood in front of the bracken. His pelt clung to bone and wasted muscle, the fur matted and dull. His left ear was torn, and there were whiskers missing from his scratched and filthy muzzle. Beside him shivered a light gray tabby she-cat. Her short fur stuck out in clumps, and her tail hung limp and bedraggled.

But Graystripe’s dead!

“You’re alive!” Firestar burst out from between Onestar and Tornear. He faced Graystripe round-eyed, his fur on end.

Graystripe stared back. His companion flattened her ears and lifted her front paw defensively. She was trembling, her eyes bright with fear as she tried to look at all the cats at once.

“Easy now, Millie,” Graystripe cautioned.

Firestar stretched his muzzle forward, sniffing tentatively, as though he could hardly believe what he saw. “The Twolegs didn’t kill you. . . .” He lifted his face to the moon. “Thank StarClan,” he whispered.

Startled mews erupted among the watching cats.

“Graystripe’s come back!”

“He must have escaped from the Twolegs!”

“How did he survive?”

“What about Brambleclaw?”

What about Brambleclaw? Hollypaw looked at her father.

Firestar had held a vigil for Graystripe as he would for any dead Clanmate, and made Brambleclaw his deputy instead.

But Graystripe was alive, and now he had come back. . . .

The ThunderClan deputy was staring at Graystripe. “I can hardly believe that you found us.” His voice was filled with admiration, but his gaze glittered uneasily as he stepped forward and brushed muzzles with the gray warrior.

Firestar flicked his tail. “Where did they take you?”

Graystripe didn’t answer. He was staring at Firestar. “So you didn’t wait for me.”

Pain flashed in Firestar’s eyes. “I couldn’t.”

Graystripe dipped his head. “You could not risk the Clan by keeping them in the forest.”

Firestar leaned forward. “If it had been only my life at stake”—he glanced around the Clans, then lowered his voice—“I would have waited.”

Hollypaw felt a rustling behind her. The other ThunderClan warriors were pushing their way forward to greet their old denmate.

“Graystripe!” Dustpelt dashed over. “You’re alive!”

Berrypaw, Hazelpaw, Ashfur, and Spiderleg crowded excitedly around, sniffing his fur, poking him with their muzzles.

Graystripe flinched away.

“Give him some space,” Leafpool warned. “He’s exhausted.”

“But he’s a legend!” Hazelpaw complained as Leafpool shooed her and the others away with her tail.

Squirrelflight was staring at Graystripe’s companion.

“Who are you?”

“This is Millie,” Graystripe meowed. “I met her in Twolegplace.”

Squirrelflight gasped. “A kittypet made the journey with you?”

“I couldn’t have managed it alone,” Graystripe meowed.

Brambleclaw narrowed his eyes. “Did you follow our trail?”

“No,” Graystripe told him. “We found our own way.”

“We searched for Graystripe’s home first,” Millie explained. Her voice had a hard edge that surprised Hollypaw. She thought all kittypets would speak with the same soft mew as Daisy.

Graystripe’s ragged pelt bristled. “The whole forest was devastated when we got there. No cats, no prey, nothing but

torn-up trees and monsters.”

“How did you know which way we had gone?” Leafpool asked.