When she reached the grass beside the Thunderpath, Hollyleaf tasted the air. She could pick out the mingled scents of several dogs, but none of them were close by. And no monsters appeared as Jingo paused to listen, then waved her tail for the Clan cats to cross.

Once on the other side, Jingo jumped up onto another wall, this one built of gray stone. Padding along it, Hollyleaf saw that the Twoleg nests here were smaller, with narrower strips of grassy territory behind them. A couple of tiny Twoleg kits were playing on one of the patches of grass, but they didn’t notice the cats as they padded past.

“Is it much farther to Purdy’s nest?” Brackenfur asked. “I think every cat is getting tired and hungry.”

Hollyleaf muttered agreement. Every muscle in her body was aching, and her belly felt like a giant hole. The sky was covered with cloud, but she sensed it was long past sun-high, and no cat had eaten since the fresh-kill in the abandoned Twoleg nest the night before.

“Not far now,” Jingo responded. “We can—”

She broke off as a gust of wind swept across them, bringing with it a slap of icy rain. Birchfall let out a yowl of alarm. Hollyleaf flattened herself to the top of the wall, terrified that the wind would blow her off.

“This way!” Jingo ordered.

She ran along the top of the wall to the fence dividing the Twoleg territories. A bushy pine tree grew close to the wall; Jingo sprang up onto the nearest branch and forced her way in among the needles. Peering out, she called, “Come on! We need to shelter.”

Unbalanced by the buffeting wind, the Clan cats stumbled along the wall and climbed into the tree. Hollyleaf’s pelt was soaked by the time she reached it. The pine needles raked through her fur as she plunged into the branches, clawing for paw holds so she could climb higher.

“What does she think we are, squirrels?” Lionblaze gasped as he struggled upward. The branches dipped and swung under his greater weight, and Hollyleaf suddenly felt the whole tree spinning around. She drove her claws hard into the branch and closed her eyes until the dizzy sensation faded.

“I thought you came from a forest,” Jingo meowed, a tail-length above where Hollyleaf was clinging. “Aren’t you used to trees?”

“We don’t climb that often,” Brambleclaw replied. He had stayed lower down in the tree, just above the spot where it overhung the wall. “If we’re caught in the rain in the forest, we’d rather shelter among the roots of a tree, or under a bush.”

“Well, you learn something new every day,” Jingo responded, sounding amused.

By the time the rainstorm was over, Hollyleaf could tell that the daylight was beginning to fade. I hope we reach Purdy’s den before nightfall. I don’t want to be wandering around this Twolegplace in the dark. Scrambling out of the tree after her Clanmates, she tried to groom the pine needles from her fur, but the whole of her pelt was clumped and messy. I might as well be a rogue, she thought crossly, not a Clan cat at all.