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“You’re welcome to stay as long as you want, you know,” Leafstar told her impulsively. A little startled at herself, she realized that was true. The newcomers fit well into Clan life, and the gorge seemed happier and busier now. “Was there… was there some trouble that made you leave your Twolegplace? Are you waiting for something to happen before you can go back?”

Cora blinked, looking almost panic-stricken. “Well, we—” she began awkwardly, then broke off. “Look! A mouse!”

Leafstar hadn’t seen the prey, and wondered for a heartbeat whether Cora had invented it. Then she spotted the little brown creature nibbling on a seed underneath the roots of an oak tree.

Cora ran toward it without thinking about whether the mouse would sense her paw steps. The mouse heard the crack as she stepped on a dry twig, so it darted away, but Cora picked up speed and slammed one paw down on it before it could escape.

“Well done,” Leafstar mewed as the visiting she-cat carried her prey back. If I caught an apprentice hunting like that, I’d wonder what his mentor had been teaching him! “You might want to watch where you’re putting your paws,” she added tactfully. “Then you won’t tread on twigs or dead leaves. And keep your tail still so that you don’t brush it against crackly undergrowth.”

“Thanks, Leafstar,” Cora panted, dropping the mouse beside Leafstar’s thrush. “There’s so much to remember!”

“Well, you might as well learn it, even if you’re not here long enough to hunt in the trees,” Leafstar meowed. “You never know, the skills might be useful in your Twolegplace.”

“I’m sure they will,” Cora answered, with a warmth in her voice that hadn’t been there before.

I could be friends with this cat, Leafstar realized. I hope she stays.

As she was scratching earth over their prey to hide it until they were ready to collect it, she noticed a squirrel crossing a patch of open ground a few fox-lengths farther into the wood. It paused at the foot of an ivy-covered tree and scuffled around in the debris between the roots. Leafstar touched Cora lightly on the shoulder with her tail-tip and angled her ears toward the prey.

“Can we catch it?” Cora whispered. “It’ll climb the tree.”

“Let it,” Leafstar murmured. “I’m going to climb the tree first, then you chase the squirrel so it runs straight up into my claws.”

Cora’s eyes shone. “Right!”

Leafstar approached the tree in a wide half circle so that she didn’t alert the squirrel. She clawed her way up the trunk on the far side, and crouched on a fork in the trunk in the middle of a clump of ivy. The squirrel was still scuffling among the roots below. Leafstar waved her tail to show Cora she was in position. The black she-cat let out a fearsome screech and pelted toward the tree. The squirrel looked up, froze for a moment in terror, then raced up the trunk.

Leafstar scrambled out of the concealing ivy, her lips drawn back in a snarl. The squirrel let out a squeal of panic and made for the ground again. But Cora was ready for it. Leafstar watched as the she-cat sprang on the squirrel and raked her claws across its throat. It twitched once and then went limp.

Leafstar jumped down to the ground and padded up to Cora, who was standing proudly over her prey. “Great catch!”

“It was yours, really,” Cora replied.

“No, it was both of us,” Leafstar told her. “We worked well together.”

Cora was even quieter as they returned to camp, laden with fresh-kill. Leafstar hoped she was reconsidering what she had said about leaving.

I need to find out what’s going on. What is it that Stick and his friends want from us?

Dropping her prey on the fresh-kill pile, Leafstar heard voices raised in anger. She turned and spotted Ebonyclaw and her apprentice, Frecklepaw, standing at the edge of the pool, facing each other with their fur fluffed out and their eyes blazing. Both she-cats were normally so even tempered that Leafstar padded over to find out what was going on.

“I don’t come to the gorge to sit around grooming my tail while I wait for you!” Ebonyclaw hissed. “You missed a whole training session!”

“I was busy!” Frecklepaw retorted. “Echosong needed me to go fetch herbs because Rabbitkit had a pain in his belly.”

“That’s not your responsibility.” Ebonyclaw lashed her tail. “Echosong isn’t your mentor.”

“I wish she was!” Frecklepaw flashed back.

Before Ebonyclaw could reply, Leafstar stepped forward. “Frecklepaw, you never speak to your mentor like that,” she scolded. “You need to be respectful to Ebonyclaw. Apologize at once.”

Frecklepaw’s eyes widened with dismay as she realized that her Clan leader had heard the quarrel. “Sorry, Ebonyclaw,” she muttered.

Ebonyclaw gave her a curt nod, her neck fur beginning to lie flat again.

“In the future,” Leafstar went on, “you must check with Ebonyclaw before you do anything for Echosong.”

“But—” Frecklepaw opened her jaws to protest, then clearly thought better of it. “All right, Leafstar, I will.”

“Good. Ebonyclaw, there’s still time for some training before you and Frecklepaw have to go home.”

“Right.” Ebonyclaw summoned her apprentice with a twitch of her tail, and stalked off toward the training area.

Frecklepaw followed, her head down and her paws dragging.

When the two she-cats had gone, Leafstar headed for Echosong’s den, but the medicine cat emerged before she reached it, meeting her at the entrance.

“I heard that,” Echosong meowed. “I’m sorry, Leafstar. I didn’t know Ebonyclaw was waiting for Frecklepaw.”

“That’s not the point,” Leafstar began, thinking Echosong didn’t sound all that sorry. “You shouldn’t give tasks to an apprentice unless you ask her mentor first.”

“But I do think Ebonyclaw was too harsh on Frecklepaw,” Echosong went on, as if Leafstar hadn’t spoken. “Anyone would think she’d done something really wrong.”

Leafstar bit back an irritated comment; Echosong clearly wasn’t getting it. “You have to remember that Frecklepaw is here to be a warrior,” she reminded the medicine cat.

“I thought she was here to be a member of SkyClan,” Echosong retorted.

Leafstar’s belly churned with tension. I don’t want to quarrel with Echosong! To her relief, she spotted Sharpclaw returning down the trail with his patroclass="underline" Stick, Shorty, and Sparrowpelt. As he saw Leafstar he called her name and quickened his pace.

“We’ll talk about this again later,” Leafstar muttered to Echosong, and bounded off toward her deputy, meeting him at the bottom of the trail.

“Is everything okay?”

“Fine,” Sharpclaw replied.

He didn’t tell Leafstar where they had been, and they weren’t carrying any prey. But they went out to hunt, Leafstar thought uneasily.

As Sharpclaw padded closer to her she caught a whiff of a Thunderpath, and her pelt prickled. Have they been to the Twolegplace?

She almost asked Sharpclaw straight out, then shook her head. There was no need to interrogate her deputy; if Sharpclaw had been there, he would tell her.

Almost as if he had picked up her thought, Sharpclaw murmured, “May I have a word in private? Maybe up there?”

Without waiting for a reply he turned back to the trail and started to climb. Leafstar followed, her belly lurching with apprehension. Is he going to tell me about some sort of trouble in the Twolegplace?

“What’s all this about?” she prompted as they reached the cliff top.

Sharpclaw stood looking down into the gorge, his expression thoughtful. “It’s about the visitors,” he meowed. “I’d like them to be made full warriors of SkyClan.”

Leafstar wasn’t surprised by the request. Her deputy had obviously been thinking along those lines for some time now. “Is that what they want?” she asked.