Where’s Stoneteller? Shouldn’t he be supervising this?

But there was no sign of the Tribe’s old Healer. Jayfeather couldn’t even pick up his scent.

“Will you be okay, left behind?” Squirrelflight asked Jayfeather as her patrol was moving off.

“Yes, of course,” Jayfeather replied, wondering why she bothered to ask. No harm is going to come to me in here. He could sense Squirrelflight’s awkwardness, and wondered why she was delaying when Brook and Stormfur were already waiting beside the waterfall for their turn to take the path that led out onto the mountain.

“Jayfeather…” she began quietly after a couple of heartbeats, “have you worked out why we’re here?”

Jayfeather shook his head. “No,” he admitted. “I have no idea.”

Squirrelflight suppressed a sigh. He knew that she wanted to ask more, but just then Brook called to her from across the cavern.

“Coming!” Squirrelflight called back. “We’ll talk later,” she added to Jayfeather before she bounded away.

Once the patrols had gone, the cave fell quiet, except for the roar of the water; Jayfeather was growing so used to the sound that he hardly noticed it anymore. It’s so different from our camp, he thought. There’s always something going on there, even when the patrols are out. He went on with his grooming; before he had finished he heard the kits come bouncing back into the middle of the cavern, followed by the slower paw steps of Talon and Bird.

“Okay, we’re going to play a game,” Talon instructed, raising his voice over the excited squeaks of the kits. “This bunch of feathers is a bird.”

“What sort of bird?” Lark mewed. “A lark like me?”

“An eagle!” Pine suggested.

“It doesn’t matter what sort of bird,” Talon told them. “Let’s make it a crow, okay? And you’re going to catch it.”

“Yes!” A scuffling sound told Jayfeather that Pine had tried to pounce on the feathers already.

“Wait a moment.” Bird’s quieter voice broke in. “It’s not as easy as that. You have to creep up on the crow across this patch of stones.” Jayfeather heard the sound of pebbles sliding across the cave floor. “If you disturb one and make a noise, the crow will fly away.”

“Oh, cool!” Lark exclaimed. “I bet I can do it.”

“So can I,” Pine declared. “I’m going to be the prey-hunter.”

Leaving the kits to their game, Jayfeather crossed the cavern to the tunnel that led into the Cave of Pointed Stones. The stone closed around him as he padded forward; after no more than a few paw steps he blundered into the wall, his paws almost skidding out from under him on the damp floor.

He let out a hiss. He hated having to squeeze through the narrow passage, and found it hard to check his position by the echoing drip of water when all other sounds were muffled by the rumble of the falls. Recovering his balance, he edged forward more slowly, frustrated by the way that every paw step felt the same; he missed the forest, where the covering of moss, twigs, ferns, and grass could tell him everything he wanted to know about where he was.