“He’s fine,” Firestar told her. “I met him in the woods and we walked back together.”

Jaypaw was grateful that Firestar hadn’t mentioned the stick.

“Come fetch some mouse bile with me,” Leafpool ordered Jaypaw. “Daisy has a tick.”

As Jaypaw headed for the medicine cat den, Leafpool padded beside him, not speaking. Was she still angry after their quarrel? He tried to read her thoughts, but his own kept interfering. He pictured the stick floating in the water. It hadn’t sunk. According to Firestar, it couldn’t sink. Jaypaw had always thought of water as a treacherous creature, sucking whatever it touched to its freezing depths. It had tried to swallow him when he was a kit. But it hadn’t sucked the stick down. It had held it. Kept it on the surface, next to the air.

RiverClan cats could swim. Jaypaw had even heard stories of Firestar and Graystripe swimming through a flood to rescue a nest of kits. And after the tunnels had flooded, they’d all managed to get to land, hadn’t they?

He remembered that night, flailing in the water with nothing to cling to. The water had dragged at his pelt until he had stopped fighting it. Then he had floated, like his stick. He remembered the sensation of his paws churning, the water pushing and pulling at him like wind. He had felt as light as thistledown.

He halted.

“What’s the matter?” Leafpool stopped beside him.

“Nothing,” Jaypaw answered. But an idea was forming in his mind.

A screech made him jump. Poppyfrost was yelping in pain beside the nursery.

“A thorn’s poked her eye!” Honeyfern yowled. “A branch was sticking out of the nursery wall!”

“I thought I’d weaved them all back in!” Graystripe came pounding across the clearing.

“Don’t panic!” Leafpool darted from Jaypaw’s side. “The thorns aren’t big. At worst it’ll be a scratch.”

Jaypaw raced to the medicine cat’s den. Poppyfrost would be fine. He had something more important to do.

He burst through the brambles and heard moss crackle as Cinderpaw stirred in her nest.

“What is it?” she called in alarm.

“You have to swim!” Jaypaw mewed excitedly.

“Swim?” Cinderpaw gasped. “But I can’t swim!”

“You could if you tried.” Jaypaw hurried to her nest. “RiverClan cats do it all the time.”

“But they’re RiverClan.”

“Don’t you see?” Jaypaw paced beside her, unable to keep still. “You can practice using your leg in water. That way you won’t have to put any weight on it, but it’ll get stronger.”

“Stronger?” Cinderpaw echoed, sounding dazed.

“It’ll be like walking on it, but easier,” Jaypaw pressed.

“Where will I swim?”

“In the lake, of course!”

“How will I get there?”

“You managed to walk back to camp, didn’t you?” Jaypaw reasoned. “And you’ve rested since then.”

“How will I know what to do?”