heads of the cats who surrounded her.
At last she spotted Ivypaw hanging back from the crowd, casting a shy glance at her sister and then gazing down at her paws. Dovepaw shouldered her way through the cats until she reached her sister.
“Ivypaw!” she mewed. “I’ve missed you so much!”
Ivypaw looked up at her with sad eyes. “I was afraid you wouldn’t!” she confessed.
“Don’t be such a mouse-brain,” Dovepaw murmured affectionately. “We’re best friends, aren’t we? I thought of you all the time!”
“Hey, Dovepaw!”
At the sound of her mentor’s voice, Dovepaw turned. Lionblaze was standing with Firestar and Brambleclaw near the bottom of the tumbled rocks.
“We need to make our report,” he called. “Firestar wants us to tell the whole Clan what happened.”
“Coming,” Dovepaw replied.
As she padded toward him, she saw Lionblaze’s gaze shift to focus on something behind her. “Jayfeather,” he mewed with a nod.
Glancing back, Dovepaw saw Jayfeather approaching from the direction of his den. She swallowed a gasp of shock: The medicine cat looked seasons older than when she and Lionblaze had left the camp. His eyes were haunted, his body had the gaunt look of an elder, and he had a fresh scar down one side. He put one paw slowly in front of another, as if he wasn’t sure his legs would hold him upright.
“Welcome back,” he rasped.
“Thanks, Jayfeather.” Dovepaw couldn’t take her eyes off him. What had happened while they were away to make him look like that?
Looking back at Lionblaze, Dovepaw saw her own shock reflected in his eyes. She followed Jayfeather as he headed over toward the Clan leader and the other cats, with a quick glance over her shoulder at Ivypaw.
“I’ll be back soon,” she promised.
“That’s very bad news about Rippletail,” Firestar meowed when Lionblaze and Dovepaw had finished their report. “We are all Clanmates in this. We have lost a brave warrior.”
All the Clan bowed their heads in silence.
Spiderleg was the first to break it. “You mean you actually asked
“And you fought these…what did you call them, beavers?” Dustpelt meowed. “You’ll have to teach us the right battle moves in case they come here.”
“They’d better not, or I’ll give them somethin’ to think about,” Purdy grunted.
Firestar raised his tail for silence. “That’s enough for now,” he meowed. “There’ll be plenty of time to talk to Lionblaze and Dovepaw later. Let them eat and rest first.”
Lionblaze retreated to the fresh-kill pile, where he tucked into Cloudtail’s rabbit with Jayfeather and a few of the other warriors. Even though she couldn’t remember when she had last eaten, Dovepaw felt too exhausted to join them. She tottered across the clearing and pushed through the ferns into the apprentices’ den.
Briarpaw followed her in. “Look!” she mewed proudly, pointing with her tail toward Dovepaw’s nest. “We made it especially comfortable for you.”
Dovepaw saw that her nest was lined with soft gray feathers. “Thank you,” she purred, warmed by the friendship of the older apprentices. “That looks great. It must have taken you ages.”
“You deserve it!” Bumblepaw added, poking his head through the entrance.
“Yes, you’re a hero!” Blossompaw chirped, popping up beside him. “The Clans won’t ever forget what you did.”
The three apprentices left Dovepaw alone to settle down and rest. It felt strange to curl up in her own nest again.
Her nest had never felt so warm and comfortable, but Dovepaw kept shifting around in the feathers, unable to sleep.
She opened her eyes at a rustling sound to see that Ivypaw had pushed her head through the ferns.
“I thought you’d be asleep,” she mewed.
“I can’t,” Dovepaw confessed. “I feel as if I’ve got ants in my pelt.”
“Want to go for a walk?”
Maybe she needed to do something to make her even more tired. Dovepaw scrambled out of her nest and followed her sister through the thorns and into the forest. This was better than trying to sleep, alone with her thoughts. Her paws tugged her toward the lake and the water that she had freed. The sun had set, leaving the forest shrouded in twilight. The rain had stopped and the wind had died down; the air was damp and fresh, moving softly against her pelt. The grass already felt lush and juicy under her paws.
Reaching the lake, the two she-cats leaped down from the bank to stand on the very edge of the mud, looking out toward the distant ripple of water.
“Am I imagining it, or does it look closer?” Dovepaw whispered.
“I think it does,” Ivypaw replied. She gave an excited little skip. “I can’t wait to see what it looks like when it’s really full, with the water all the way up here.”
Dovepaw took a pace forward and halted as something sharp dug into her pad. “Ow! I’ve trodden on something.” Looking down, she saw two parts of a stick marked with scratches, the broken ends splintered. With an annoyed flick of her tail, she pushed the scraps away and examined her pad.
“Are you okay?” Ivypaw mewed.
“Yes, fine.” Dovepaw swiped her tongue over her pad. “The skin’s not even broken.”
She stood close to her sister again, their pelts brushing. Ivypaw twined her tail with Dovepaw’s, letting out a soft purr. “I’m so glad you’re back, Dovepaw.”
“So am I.” Dovepaw buried her muzzle in her sister’s soft pelt. “I’ll never leave you behind again,” she promised.
Jayfeather paused with his paw resting gently on Poppyfrost’s belly and let out an exasperated sigh. “Because it’s not quite time, Berrynose,” he meowed, forcing his voice to remain calm. “You don’t need to worry.”
He could feel powerful ripples passing through Poppyfrost’s body as her kits prepared themselves to be born. The young she-cat lay on her side on the soft moss of the nursery; Daisy was crouched beside her head, licking her ears, while Ferncloud stroked her pelt with a calming paw.
“Yes, Berrynose, why don’t you go catch a shrew or something?” Daisy suggested. “We’re getting on just fine.”
“Then why is it taking so long?” Berrynose demanded.
Jayfeather rolled his eyes. When Daisy had first roused him to come to the nursery, Berrynose had insisted on staying with his mate. But he had been such a nuisance, getting in the way and questioning everything the
