Jayfeather shot a swift glance at the passage that led to Stoneteller’s den. “Oh…er…that one’s fine,” he reported. If Stoneteller sleeps there, it must at least be watertight.

Whispering Breeze turned her blue gaze on Stone Song. “You’re surely not thinking of staying here?” she asked, shocked. “Not for any longer than we have to?”

Stone Song angled his ears across the cave to where Chasing Clouds was grooming ice out of his gray-and-white pelt. “You can see that the storm isn’t over yet,” he meowed. “We may as well be comfortable while we wait.”

“Comfortable?” Whispering Breeze’s neck fur started to bristle. “You’re crazy if you think any cat could be comfortable here.”

“We should never have left the lake.” A soft voice, ragged with grief and exhaustion, came from the darkness at the edge of the cave, and Broken Shadows limped into view. Jayfeather felt a rush of pity. The mother of Fallen Leaves was even more gaunt than when he last saw her, her orange pelt thin and her amber eyes dull.

“We should never have left,” she repeated. “What if Fallen Leaves finds his way out of the tunnels, and we’re not there?”

Half Moon padded over to her and drew her tail gently down Broken Shadows’s side. “That won’t happen,” she murmured.

“You don’t know that!” Broken Shadows hissed. “He’ll think I abandoned him. He’ll be all alone!” She wrenched herself away from Half Moon and rounded on Jayfeather. “This is all your fault! You cast the final stone! You made me leave my son behind!”

CHAPTER 14

“Why did I ever want to leave the lake behind?” Dovewing panted as she scrambled up a narrow gully, her paws slipping on hard-packed snow. “I can’t believe cats actually live here!”

Foxleap, slogging up the gully a tail-length ahead of her, simply grunted in reply. The two ThunderClan cats were almost at the rear of the patrol; only Swoop, one of the cave-guards, followed them, glancing around as she moved confidently over the ice. Stormfur and the other two prey-hunters, Gray and Splash, were strung out ahead, while Crag took the lead. They were no more than blurred shapes to Dovewing, glimpsed through the flurries of snow.

It’s almost newleaf in the forest! she thought, shivering.

A shape loomed up beside her. “Are you okay? Do you want to lean on my shoulder for a bit?”

Dovewing recognized Stormfur. “No, I’m fine,” she gasped. “I can keep going.”

Stormfur dipped his head, his eyes warm and friendly, amber like the glow of tiny suns in this wasteland of white. “Just say if you need help.”

“They haven’t got their snow-paws yet,” Splash remarked, halting to let Stormfur, Foxleap, and Dovewing catch up. “Don’t worry,” she added with a gentle mrrow of laughter. “You’ll be snow cats before you know it.”

“I’m a snow cat now!” Foxleap meowed with a shiver, shaking lumps of snow from his pelt.