Jaypaw scanned the hollow, suddenly aware of cold stone beneath his paws. He was at the top of the ridge now, not the sky.
Leafpool stood and began to greet StarClan like old friends, padding around the slope and stopping to brush muzzles here and there. Jaypaw recognized none of them.
They had lived before he was born. Only their Clan scents were familiar. He shrank back into the shadows, where he was sure no cat could see him, and watched.
“Bluestar.” Leafpool dipped her head to a she-cat, broad-faced and round-eyed, with long, pale fur.
“You are welcome, Leafpool,” Bluestar murmured. “We thought you might come.”
Beside her sat a pale tom whose eyes shone with warmth.
“It is good to see you again,” he meowed.
“You too, Lionheart,” Leafpool replied.
Bluestar’s eyes sparkled. “You come with good news.”
“Yes, Graystripe is back,” Leafpool purred.
Murmurs of joy rippled around the cats.
“But there is a problem,” Leafpool went on. “Firestar doesn’t
know who should be ThunderClan’s deputy. Graystripe and Brambleclaw were both appointed according to the warrior code.”
A deep mew echoed from across the hollow. “Both cats have an equal claim.”
Leafpool jerked her head around. Behind her, a tom with a pelt as dark as the sky flicked his long, thin tail. Jaypaw tasted the air. He was WindClan.
“If Firestar is wise,” mewed the tom, “he will choose the warrior who knows the Clan best.”
“That will be a hard choice, Tallstar,” Bluestar warned the WindClan cat. “One that no leader has ever had to make before.”
Lionheart flicked his tail. “If only we had known that Graystripe was still alive. We could have let Leafpool know.”
“He was in a place too far beyond our seeing,” Bluestar reminded him. “And ThunderClan needed a deputy.”
“Is that why you sent me the vision of thorn-sharp brambles encircling the camp?” Leafpool asked.
“We had to let Firestar know that it was time to appoint one,” Bluestar meowed.
Lionheart nodded. “When we showed you that vision, Brambleclaw was the best warrior to help Firestar protect the Clan.”
Leafpool looked up sharply. “Is he still the best?”
Bluestar and Lionheart exchanged glances but did not answer.
“Do you wish you had not sent the sign?” Leafpool pressed.
“Brambleclaw has done well,” Bluestar reassured her. “He was the right choice. Firestar would have been foolish to go on without a deputy when no cat knew if Graystripe would return.”
“But who should be deputy now?”
“There is no true answer,” Bluestar warned.
Leafpool blinked. “Then the decision is Firestar’s to make?”
“Yes.” She sighed. “But Tallstar is right when he says Firestar must choose the cat who knows the Clan best. He must use his head, not his heart, to reach his decision.”
“Should I tell him this?”
“Tell him only that he must make his own choice.”
Leafpool dipped her head. “I will share this with him,” she promised. She turned away from StarClan and padded back down to the Moonpool.
Jaypaw stared round-eyed at the cats. A well-muscled tom was murmuring something to the she-cat beside him. Jaypaw guessed from his glossy pelt he was RiverClan. A group of thin, lithe cats whispered together in the shadow of a boulder.
A she-cat was staring straight at him. Her fur was long and pale, and her face was broad and lined with old battle scars.
Jaypaw could not guess her Clan from her shape. Her eyes sparked with a fierce spirit, and he drew farther back into the shadows. Something told him he should not be spying here.
Leafpool hesitated at the edge of the pool. “Cinderpelt?”
she called hopefully, looking at the cats around the hollow, but there was no reply. She blinked, her eyes wistful, before lying down with her paws tucked neatly under her chest.
Resting her muzzle beside the water once more, she closed her eyes.
“Jaypaw!” Leafpool’s shocked mew woke him from where he lay on the cold stone. He scrambled to his paws. The pebbles scraped his pads and he stumbled. He was blind again.
Leafpool’s anger flashed against his pelt. “What are you doing here?”
“I-I—”
“This is a place for medicine cats! I came here to share tongues with StarClan!”
“I know.” Jaypaw gulped. “I saw you.”
“You
“I was watching from the top of the ridge while you were talking to Bluestar and Lionheart.”
Leafpool looked stunned. “You were
“When I closed my eyes, that’s what I dreamed. That’s all.”
Leafpool narrowed her eyes. “What did they say?”
“Bluestar said that Firestar must make his own decision,”
Jaypaw mewed. “But he should use his head, not his heart, which I suppose means he should choose—”
“You understood!” Leafpool cut in. Her mew came in a shocked whisper.
Jaypaw was puzzled. Why wouldn’t he understand? Was it because he wasn’t a medicine cat? Or because he was
“How did you find your way here?” Leafpool asked.
Jaypaw sensed wariness prick the medicine cat’s pelt, as though she were afraid of his answer. “I followed you. . . .”
“You followed my scent, do you mean? All the way from the hollow?”
“Partly. But I’d dreamed of the journey before, so I knew how it looked.”
Leafpool gasped.
“I can’t help what I dream!” Jaypaw protested.
Leafpool turned away. “Something extraordinary has happened here.” Her words were little more than a murmur, half spoken to herself, but they echoed off the water. “I just wish I knew what it meant.”
“Why should it mean anything?” Jaypaw mewed. What was so odd about having a dream at the Moonpool? Wasn’t that what it was there for?
“Come,” Leafpool ordered. “We should return to camp.”
Briskness masked the confusion flooding from her. She padded up the path to the top of the ridge, and Jaypaw followed. He let her guide him down the rocky slope beyond, though he had a clear enough sense of it now to manage by himself.
“Are you going to tell Firestar everything StarClan said?”
he mewed.
“I’ll tell him he must make his own choice about who is deputy.”
“And that’s all?”
“What do you mean?”
“I think Tallstar and Bluestar hinted that Firestar should
choose Brambleclaw. He’s the one who knows the Clan best now.” Jaypaw’s nose twitched. He could smell mouse.
“Are you saying that I should influence Firestar’s decision?”
“You’d only be interpreting what they really meant.” The mouse was close. “Isn’t that your duty?”
