A few tail-lengths away, Larksong was talking to Finpaw, making arrangements to take him on a tour of the territory the following day. Finpaw was bouncing up and down, hardly able to contain his excitement.

Somehow her friend’s enthusiasm made Twigpaw feel even more uncertain. Staring at him, she waited for the swell of excitement to come back to her. Instead she felt strangely flat.

Oh, StarClan! This is my home now. So why don’t I feel happier to be back among my Clan?

Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

Violetshine clamped the fern stems more firmly in her jaws and began dragging the bundle of fronds into the SkyClan camp, through the tunnel between the brambles that reinforced the fern walls. It was almost sunhigh, and she had been gathering bedding for the new ShadowClan nests since just after dawn.

This is an apprentice task, she grumbled to herself. But there’s so much to do, and the new apprentices are so young. . . .

She had never imagined that fitting the ShadowClan cats into SkyClan would be so difficult. Expanding the cave where the warriors slept to make room for the new arrivals was only one of the things that had to be dealt with. Her father, Hawkwing, was up to his ears in problems, encouraging the cats from SkyClan and ShadowClan to work together, and they were all tripping over one another’s paws.

I’d complain, she thought gloomily, but who am I going to complain to? No cat listens anymore!

Sometimes she wanted to blame ShadowClan for all this extra work, but then Violetshine would remember that it wasn’t just ShadowClan or SkyClan alone, but the strength of all the cats around the lake that had finally defeated Darktail and his rogues. She knew she should do everything she could to help the ShadowClan cats adjust to their new life, because the lake territory needed all the good and honorable warriors who had survived.

But it’s kind of weird to be so close to ShadowClan cats again, she thought, giving her bundle of fern fronds another tug. It reminded her of the time when she had been a lost kit and then a ShadowClan apprentice, with a sister who lived in ThunderClan.

It wasn’t our choice back then. The cats who found us decided we should be divided between their Clans. . . .

Once, when they were young, Rowanstar had held Twigpaw at ShadowClan’s camp for a few days, and Violetshine had been so happy to share a den with her sister, to be together at last. She had thought Twigpaw felt the same. But then Twigpaw had chosen to go back to ThunderClan. And just recently, after they had joined SkyClan together, she had decided to return to ThunderClan yet again, instead of taking her warrior name in SkyClan.

Twigpaw made her choice. . . .

Violetshine didn’t want to think about Twigpaw. It made her sad that her littermate had twice chosen ThunderClan over her.