“She was resting at Warm-rocks earlier.”
“Thanks.” Silverstream slid away through the grass, her tail-tip flicking.
Jayfeather narrowed his eyes. “No quarrels. No leaf-bare. No hunger,” he observed. “No wonder everyone seems so content.”
Yellowfang’s eyes darkened. “We never cease watching and worrying over those left behind.”
Jayfeather shrugged. “If this is where we’re heading, what is there to worry about?”
“No cat enjoys another’s suffering. And not every path leads here,” Yellowfang answered.
With a shiver, Jayfeather remembered where they were going.
Another familiar pelt caught his eye. Frighteningly familiar. Blazing ginger fur, large pricked ears, emerald gaze—the slender tom weaved through the bushes ahead. He seemed paler than the other cats, almost invisible. And yet he was there.
“Firestar?” Jayfeather breathed.
“Not quite,” Yellowfang mewed gently. “Five of his lives are here, but he won’t be able to hear or speak until his ninth life has joined us.”
Jayfeather watched the ghostly cat disappear behind an oak. Could Firestar feel his lives ebbing away? No. He shook off the thought. How could he stay such a strong leader if he did?
Jayfeather began to realize that other pelts were paler too. Some were so ghostly they hardly seemed there at all. More like mist than flesh.
“Are those cats half-dead too?” he asked Yellowfang as a wraithlike tortoiseshell crossed their path, hardly acknowledging Yellowfang’s greeting nod.
She shook her head. “They’ve been here a long, long time,” she explained. “So long that they’re forgotten.”
“By everyone?” The thought chilled Jayfeather.
“Being forgotten is nothing to fear. Not even the stars last forever. All cats fade and disappear eventually. They’ve earned their peace.”
Jayfeather imagined Yellowfang fading into nothing and was surprised to find grief pricking his heart.
“Don’t worry,” Yellowfang purred, as though she could read his mind. “Who could forget a cantankerous old badger like me?”
“Hey! Yellowfang!” A pretty tortoiseshell hailed them from the rocks above a waterfall churning above a sparkling brook. She leaped down, disappearing into the long grass for a moment before bounding up toward them.
Jayfeather recognized Spottedleaf at once. “Hi.” He dipped his head as she reached them and shook the grass seeds from her dappled pelt.
Her eyes were bright as stars. “Where are you going?” They dimmed as they met Yellowfang’s tough gaze.
“The Dark Forest.”
“You mustn’t!”
“We must.”
Jayfeather watched the exchange, tipping his head to one side. It was hard to tell which cat was most frightened, though both fought to conceal it. “Tigerstar is plotting against us,” he told her. “We have to find out what he’s planning.”
Spottedleaf bristled at the name. “Is it wise to go alone?”
“We have each other,” Yellowfang told her.
“I’m coming with you,” Spottedleaf decided.
Yellowfang flinched. “I don’t want to attract too much attention.”
Spottedleaf held the old cat’s gaze. “Firestar would never forgive me if I let anything happen to Jayfeather.”
Jayfeather lifted his nose. “I’m not helpless,” he objected.
Spottedleaf turned her amber gaze on him. “You’re going to find Tigerstar,” she reminded him. “Against that fiend, every cat is helpless.”
Jayfeather lashed his tail. “Then maybe it’s time for things to change!”
They padded through the trees, the lushness fading with every pawstep. The trunks grew thinner and smoother, the branches too high to reach. The sun faded from the sky, leaving white, eerie light that permeated the woods like water flooding through a reed bed. Jayfeather drew a breath of cold, damp air, tasted nothing but decay, and shivered. The grass had thinned and disappeared, and mist wreathed the bare forest floor. It rose and thickened, enfolding them in fog until Jayfeather realized with a tremor that he could no longer see Yellowfang’s thick, matted pelt or hear Spottedleaf’s soft tread.
Gulping air so thick that it made him cough, Jayfeather quickened his pace, hoping to catch up. He was too scared to call out, in case other ears heard him.
The ground grew peaty underpaw as he hurried into a trot.
Where are they?
His heart began to pound, the blood rising and roaring in his ears. He broke into a run.
Yellowfang! Spottedleaf!
He couldn’t see. The mist was choking him. This was worse than running blind through ThunderClan territory. He bolted through the trees, paws tripping on a gnarled root snaking across his path. Pain seared his leg but he raced on. A yowl echoed through the fog, and paws began to thunder on the ground behind.
Someone was chasing him.
He pushed on harder, weaving around trees, cutting so close that they ripped at his fur. The pawsteps were gaining on him, rhythmic, powerful, pounding the forest floor in his wake.
Panic seized him. He was hardly breathing now, just running.
Crash!
Shock rang through him as he hit a tree. It sent him reeling, chest first, into a puddle. Twisting onto his back, he saw a figure looming over him, a broad face leering down through the mist.
“No!” His voice cracked into a whimper.
“It’s Yellowfang, you mouse-brain!” The she-cat grabbed him by the scruff and hauled him to his paws.
Spottedleaf came skidding to a halt beside them. “You found him,” she puffed.
Yellowfang was trembling with rage. “We have to stay together!” she hissed.
Jayfeather had seen her cranky, but never this furious. That was when he realized how frightened the tough old she-cat was.
He nodded, gulping for air.
“Come on.” Yellowfang began to head away, then paused to make sure that Jayfeather and Spottedleaf were following. They padded through the sucking mud until the fog began to clear.
Jayfeather recognized the trees, the eerie light, the echoing silence. He’d met Tigerstar here once before. Spottedleaf had come and guided him home that time. She wasn’t pleased to be back in the Place of No Stars now, her pelt pricking, her eyes stretched wide. But it was Yellowfang who was really afraid.
Jayfeather glanced nervously at the tattered old she-cat. He’d never imagined she could be scared of anything. But there was a stiffness in her movements that betrayed real terror. He probed her mind.
A flash of panic flooded him. A hulking, dark-furred cat stalked her thoughts. The glow of bright red berries like drops of blood. Searing grief and fury.
Curiosity enticed him on, further into her thoughts. No! He must concentrate on where he was. There was enough danger without losing himself in another cat’s nightmare.
Jayfeather jerked his head as he heard rustling in the sparse undergrowth, the pattering of paws. He glanced questioningly at Spottedleaf.
She shook her head. “No prey here.”
Jayfeather’s fur rippled, chilled by the gaze of watchers in the shadows. He scanned the trees. Eyes glowed from the gloom.
Jayfeather drew closer to Spottedleaf. “Who are they?” he whispered.
“Cats, dead and long forgotten,” Spottedleaf murmured. “Ignore them.”
How? Jayfeather could feel menace in their stares, their minds haunted by evil beyond the reach of every memory but their own.
Yellowfang paused and tasted the air. “We have to find Tigerstar and figure out what he’s up to.”
Spottedleaf blinked. “You think we’re going to stumble over him plotting?” She narrowed her eyes. “He knows this forest too well. He’ll know we’re here long before we find him.”