“Over here,” Velvet mewed, showing Alderheart a corner where some small bushes were growing.

Alderheart examined the woody stems and sniffed the broad, pointed leaves. “Is that thyme?” he asked. “It looks a bit like it, but it’s different from the thyme that grows in the forest.”

“Yes, it’s a different kind of thyme,” Velvet explained. “Twolegs plant it, and I think it’s stronger than the kind you have. It’s good for coughs and colds and indigestion.” She began scratching at the soil until she had uprooted one of the small bushes. “There. I’d like ThunderClan to have it.”

“Thank you,” Alderheart responded, touched that Velvet had been so thoughtful. “I’ll plant it and take care of it.”

Velvet leaned into his shoulder, and for the last time he drank in her sweet scent. “Good-bye, Velvet,” he murmured. “I’ll never forget you.”

“Good-bye, Alderheart.” Velvet gazed at him for a moment longer, blinking affectionately, then whisked away around the side of the Twoleg den.

For a moment more, Alderheart stared after her. He tried to imagine a life for himself here, eating kittypet food, sleeping in a Twoleg nest, and waiting beside the door for a Twoleg to let him in or out.

No, I can’t. Jayfeather was right. I’m a medicine cat, and a good one.

Yet he could not deny the pain in his heart as he remembered Velvet’s beautiful eyes and soft gray fur, and more than that, her gentleness and care for every cat. But I can’t let myself think about that.

Picking up the thyme bush, Alderheart leaped up onto the garden wall. In the sky in front of him he could see a pale half-moon rising.

Alarm clawed through him. Oh, no . . . I’d better hurry if I’m going to make it to the Moonpool for the half-moon medicine-cat meeting!

Night had fallen, and the half-moon floated high in the sky by the time Alderheart reached the Moonpool. He had raced there straight from the Twolegplace without returning to the ThunderClan camp, and as he climbed the last rocky slope, his spine prickled with nervousness.

Jayfeather will have something to say to me about this!

The water cascading down the rocks into the Moonpool looked like liquid starshine, and the surface of the water reflected the silver light of the moon. The beauty calmed Alderheart and made him feel that this was the place, above all others, where he belonged.

As Alderheart pushed his way through the bushes and began to follow the spiral path down to the Moonpool, he could see the other medicine cats waiting for him at the water’s edge. Satisfaction warmed his pelt when he saw that Mothwing and Willowshine were there, reunited with their fellow medicine cats for the first time since Darktail had attacked their Clan.