A strange cat padded out of the shadows, a scrawny tom with ginger fur and wide, haunted eyes. “Oh!” he gasped. “I was expecting the other one.”

“What other one?” Ivypool demanded, her voice cracking.

The stranger ignored her question; he was examining her and Blossomfall with puzzled eyes. “Two of you?” he meowed. “Are you all right?”

“No.” Ivypool was too scared to waste time wondering who this strange cat was, or what he was doing here. “We need to get out. My Clanmate is hurt!”

“But if I show you the way out,” the strange cat told her, “I’ll be on my own again. You always promise to come back, but you never do.”

Ivypool stared at him. “We’ve never been here before!” she meowed. “Please, you have to get us out of here.”

The ginger tom flicked his ears crossly. “There’s no need to shout. You shouldn’t have come down here if you didn’t want to stay. It’s not safe, not unless you know what you’re doing.”

“Well, we don’t,” Ivypool replied, wondering what she could do to make him listen to her pleading. “We just want to go home.”

The stranger came nearer, his eyes narrowed in suspicion; Ivypool tensed as he sniffed her, then Blossomfall. His scent spooked her: He smelled of earth and water and cold ancient stone.

“You’re right, you don’t belong down here,” he murmured, and added more briskly, “All right. Go down this tunnel and take the turn after the rock shaped like a mushroom. Follow that passage for ten fox-lengths, and you’ll see that the tunnel splits into three. Take the middle one. That should start leading upward, and you’ll come to a heap of stones. There’s enough space at the top for you to squeeze through, and from there you can see the way out.”

Ivypool’s mind buzzed like a hollow tree full of bees as she tried to remember the directions. “Can you show us?”

“No.” The ginger tom was already backing away. “You must go on your own.”

Before Ivypool could protest, he had vanished into the shadows. “Mange-pelt!” she muttered, lashing her tail. For a couple of heartbeats she stared down the tunnel where he had disappeared, then turned back to Blossomfall. “Come on. Let’s get moving.”

Sending Blossomfall in front, in case the tortoiseshell warrior collapsed again, Ivypool headed along the tunnel. They found the mushroom-shaped rock the ginger tom had mentioned, but the tunnel they had to turn into was completely dark, and there was no way to tell where they were.

“I’m sure we’ve come more than ten fox-lengths,” Ivypool meowed as they padded cautiously forward, “but we haven’t found the place where the tunnel divides.”

“Maybe we’ve passed it without realizing,” Blossomfall suggested. “I think we should go back.”

“Okay.” Ivypool turned and padded into the darkness, straining her eyes for the first signs of light. But the shadows were never-ending.

“We should have reached the first turn by now,” Blossomfall mewed, her voice quavering.