The silence seemed to stretch out for moons, until Sleekwhisker sat up, flattening her bristling fur, a look of concern in her eyes. “Violetpaw, what did he mean”—she glanced at Sandynose—“when he said Rowanclaw? He meant Rowanstar, surely?”

“I’m Violetshine now,” she replied. She glanced at Sandynose, but his gaze was fixed on his paws; she was obviously not going to get any help from him in explaining. “SkyClan has returned to the lake,” Violetshine went on, “and ShadowClan . . . Rowanstar decided he couldn’t go on leading a Clan that hardly existed anymore. So now he’s Rowanclaw again, and what’s left of ShadowClan has joined SkyClan.”

Sleekwhisker and Yarrowleaf exchanged a stunned glance. “But—but how can ShadowClan not exist anymore?” Yarrowleaf stammered.

Violetshine couldn’t think of any way to answer that.

“You both need to think long and hard about what you want to do now,” Sandynose meowed sternly. “Leafstar, the leader of SkyClan, is in charge, and I’m not sure what she’ll say about allowing you into the Clan. If it was ShadowClan you wanted . . . perhaps you should think again.”

Yarrowleaf and Sleekwhisker were silent for a moment, looking deeply troubled. “Then we want to join SkyClan,” Yarrowleaf declared at last.

“Yes, we’ve been through a horrible time since we left,” Sleekwhisker mewed. “We had no idea that things would turn out like this. We’re not here to cause trouble.”

Her voice was so fervent that Violetshine was almost convinced, yet she found it hard to forget what Sleekwhisker had done when she was one of Darktail’s Kin.

“Any Clan is a Clan,” Sleekwhisker continued. “That’s the only kind of life we want.”

“That’s right,” Yarrowleaf agreed. “I’m so sorry for turning my back on ShadowClan. I know now this is where I need to be.”

Violetshine was doubtful about whether they ought to trust either of these cats. I can’t believe that Yarrowleaf is having a rogue’s kits. Should we really be bringing half rogues into Clan territory?

At the same time, she couldn’t deny that the ShadowClan cats looked sincere when they said all they wanted to do was get back to normal.

I wonder if anything will ever be normal again, for ShadowClan cats.

“I suppose we can start by bringing them to Leafstar,” Violetshine suggested to Sandynose. As the brown tom nodded a curt agreement, she realized that she had no idea what the SkyClan leader would say.

Sandynose led the way into the SkyClan camp, with Violetshine and Tree bringing up the rear behind the two ShadowClan she-cats. Yarrowleaf was quickly exhausted; Violetshine was impressed by her resolve to keep going, when the weight of her kits must be dragging at her.