"Are you okay?" Littlecloud asked anxiously.

"What? Oh-yes, fine."

Jayfeather forced his paws forward again. His mind was spinning and fil ing with flashes of light, and he hardly remembered to say good-bye to the other medicine cats when they reached the border of their territories.

He had always been told that Squirrelflight had no milk, so Ferncloud and Daisy had nursed him and his littermates. Which meant Squirrelflight wouldn't have needed to take parsley. So maybe our real mother had to eat it to hide that she'd just given birth!

Jayfeather's memory carried him back to when he was a tiny kit, struggling through the snow. He had to remember! Think about the scents, he told himself.

That's where the answers lie. His sense of smel had That's where the answers lie. His sense of smel had never before let him down when it was important. It couldn't fail him now.

There was a cat close to him, walking slowly through the snow with the scent of milk clinging to her fur.

It wasn't Squirrelflight-it couldn't be Squirrelflight. Suddenly, Jayfeather took a deep breath. He knew exactly which cat's scent it was.

Everything added up. Which cat could depend on Squirrelflight's loyalty, knowing she would carry out the deception for moons and moons, even if it meant lying to her own mate? Which cat had always poured out love and concern around him and his littermates?

Which cat could never admit that she had borne kits?

Leafpool! Leafpool is our mother!

CHAPTER 21.

Hollyleaf blinked wearily in the misty dawn as the elders and Purdy carried Honeyfern's body out of the camp. The sun had vanished and the sky was covered with thick gray clouds. The breeze carried a tang of rain to come. Al the Clan stood silently watching while their Clanmate went to her burial.

When the elders had disappeared through the thorn tunnel, Brambleclaw began organizing the day's patrols. Hol yleaf spotted Sorreltail padding sorrowful y toward the warriors' den, her head bowed and her tail trailing in the dust. She bounded after her, catching up to her beside the outer branches of the thornbush.

"I'm so sorry," she meowed. "I'm real y going to miss Honeyfern."

"We'l al miss her." Sorreltail's voice was choked with grief. "She was so gentle as a kit. And so quick to learn! She knew most of the hunting moves even before she was apprenticed."

"She was always lots of fun to play with," Hol yleaf told her, touching her nose to Sorreltail's shoulder.

Sorreltail blinked. "She enjoyed being with you and your brothers. And she was always so worried that you wouldn't get enough milk, because Squirrelflight couldn't feed you."

Hol yleaf began to bristle at the mention of the cat she had believed was her mother, and tried hard to make her fur lie flat again. She wouldn't think about that betrayal when it was more important to comfort Sorreltail.

"It wasn't Squirrelflight's fault," the tortoiseshel queen went on, obviously misunderstanding what was bothering Hol yleaf. "And you were wel looked after. Ferncloud and Daisy fed you, and I don't think Leafpool was ever out of the nursery, bringing them borage to make their milk come, and al the strengthening herbs she could find!"

"Leafpool did al that?" Hol yleaf asked.

"Oh, yes, she was always fussing over you! Maybe because you were her sister's kits, or maybe because she was with you when you first came to the hol ow."

"I didn't know that." Hol yleaf felt a prickling in her fur. If Leafpool was with us, she must know who our real mother is!

Sorreltail nodded, then arched her back in a long stretch. "I'm going to see if I can get some sleep,"

she murmured. "Maybe Honeyfern wil walk in my dreams."

As soon as Sorreltail had disappeared into the warriors' den, Hol yleaf looked around for the medicine cat. She had vowed never to ask Squirrelflight anything more about her real parents; she didn't want to speak to the cat who had lied to her ever again. But maybe Leafpool would tel her.

She spotted Leafpool talking to Firestar near the entrance to the thorn tunnel, and padded across to them, hovering a couple of tail-lengths away as she waited for a chance to get the medicine cat alone.

"You've been keeping vigil al night," Firestar was meowing. "You're exhausted. Why don't you go out into the forest and get some air? Stretch your legs and maybe find a quiet spot to have a sleep, without any cat to interrupt you."

"I shouldn't leave the Clan...," Leafpool protested.

"Jayfeather's back from the Moonpool," Firestar pointed out. "We can do without you for a little while."

He stretched forward and touched noses affectionately with Leafpool. "I could make that an order."

Leafpool yawned. "Al right, Firestar, but I'l be back before sunhigh."

"Take as long as you want." Firestar dipped his head and padded away.

Hol yleaf waited until Leafpool had gone out through the thorn tunnel, then fol owed her into the forest. The medicine cat was out of sight, but Hol yleaf tracked her by her scent until she joined her at the top of a treeless rise overlooking the lake.

Leafpool was sitting with her tail wrapped around her paws, gazing out across the water.

She sprang to her paws as Hol yleaf bounded up beside her. "Hol yleaf! Were you looking for me?"

"Yes, I-I wanted to ask you something." Now that the moment had come, Hol yleaf didn't feel so sure about what she was about to do. The answer would about what she was about to do. The answer would change her life forever. Was that what she wanted? I have to know the truth!

Leafpool's eyes were wary as she mewed, "Go on, then."

She knows we've found out about the lie! Hol yleaf guessed, her bel y lurching. Squirrelflight must have told her what happened that day on the cliff.

"Wel ?" Leafpool prompted.

Hol yleaf took a deep breath. "Tel me what you know. Al of it. I have to know the truth!"

Leafpool's amber eyes brimmed with sorrow. She took a pace toward Hol yleaf, sweeping her tail around as if to lay it on the younger cat's shoulder, but left the gesture unfinished.

"You don't have to worry," Leafpool meowed. "I wil never tel any cat. But please tel me why you did it."

Hol yleaf felt as if a massive piece of fresh-kil were stuck in her throat. This wasn't how she had intended their talk to go. "Did what?" she managed to choke out.

Leafpool let out a long sigh, closing her eyes as if she had to nerve herself for what she was about to say. Then she faced Hol yleaf again.

"Why did you kil Ashfur?"

No! Hol yleaf dug her claws hard into the ground.

That wasn't what she had asked! Leafpool couldn't know! She opened her jaws to reply, but the words of denial wouldn't come.

"I know, Hol yleaf," Leafpool mewed gently. "When I was preparing Ashfur's body for his vigil, I found a tuft of your fur caught in his claws. But I hid it away where no cat would find it. I think I wanted to hide it from myself." She paused, swal owed, and repeated, "Why?"

"He had to die!" Fury made Hol yleaf hiss through gritted teeth. "You know why!"

"No, I don't."

Leafpool's eyes were genuinely mystified, and Hol yleaf realized that Squirrelflight had never told her about revealing the terrible secret to Ashfur.

"He had to die because he knew!" Hol yleaf snarled. "That night, on the cliff in the storm, Squirrelflight told him that we weren't her kits. He was going to tel al the Clans, at the Gathering, and I couldn't let him do that! They think we're true Clan cats, forestborn like they are. I couldn't let them find out the truth-that Firestar's Clan was even less pure than they thought. Ashfur would have destroyed ThunderClan."

As she spoke, Leafpool's eyes had grown wider with dismay. "Oh, StarClan, no!" she whispered.

"This is al my fault...."

Hol yleaf's mind was whirling. She couldn't think beyond this moment; she only knew that the cat who held the truth in her paws was standing in front of her.

"Squirrelflight told you about us, didn't she? You were there when we first came to the hol ow. You must know who our real mother is."

Leafpool faced her calmly now. "Yes, I know."

"Then you have to tel me-please!"

For several heartbeats, Leafpool didn't reply. She stood blinking, her muscles tensed as if she were about to leap over a vast chasm. Then she spoke.

"I am your mother, Hol yleaf. Squirrelflight was trying to protect me."

For a moment that lasted a heartbeat or a maybe a moon, Hol yleaf stared at her. No, it can't be! But she knew that Leafpool had spoken the truth.

Whipping around, she bounded away, her paws slipping on the dead leaves so that she slid to the bottom of the rise in a tangle of legs and tail.

Scrambling to her paws, she pelted toward the deepest places of the forest, as far from the hol ow as she could get. She didn't know where she was going, only that she wanted to outrun the lies, and the taste of Ashfur's blood in her mouth.

It was all for nothing! I did it to save us all, but it was no use! Everything has been ruined....

CHAPTER 22.

Jayfeather struggled through snow that reached up to his bel y fur. Frozen lumps of it stuck between his pads, making every step painful. Just ahead of him was another cat; he recognized her tabby-and-white pelt, and wailed for her to come back and help him, but she never turned her head. Then the snowy ground gave way beneath his paws, and he was fal ing, fal ing....

He woke in his own nest, the bedding tossed about by his thrashing limbs. Sitting up, heart stil racing from his dream, he heard Leafpool scrabbling about in the depths of the store. A throbbing tide of anguish came from her, so strong that for a heartbeat he thought she was shrieking aloud.

Jayfeather sprang to his paws and padded over to the cave entrance. A flame of desperation burned inside him, to ask the medicine cat if she real y was his mother, but he couldn't ignore such deep distress. "Leafpool?" he meowed. "What's the matter?"

Leafpool backed out of the store. "I...I told Hol yleaf something I shouldn't have," she confessed.

Jayfeather understood at once; now al the secrets were gushing out like water breaking through a dam.

He raised his chin in a chal enge. "You told her that you're our mother, didn't you?"

He heard Leafpool's gasp of shock. "How long have you known?"

"I didn't know, until just now. But I've been putting things together, and last night everything fel into place. Squirrelflight's loyalty to the cat who gave birth to us. The vague memories I have of that journey through the snow. The way you behave toward the three of us. And the fact that Mousefur remembers parsley accidental y mixed with her tansy about that time. Parsley is used to stop the milk in nursing mothers. You would have needed to take it to stop your own milk."

There was a long silence after he had finished speaking, in which Jayfeather almost thought he could hear his own heart beating.

"If you know so much," Leafpool mewed at last, "then do you know what happens next?"

"No." Jayfeather felt a strong sensation that there was something else Leafpool wanted to say to him, but she kept silent. He thought about entering her mind to find out what it was, but he didn't quite dare.

He didn't like the idea of what he might discover.

"You have to help your littermates," Leafpool told him, her voice sharp and urgent. "You must learn to live with this, for the sake of the Clan."

You've got no right to tell us what we must do. But Jayfeather did not speak the thought aloud. Part of what the medicine cat said was true. Sooner or later, they al had to find a way forward.

"Please," Leafpool mewed, and there was a note of desperation in her voice. "Find Lionblaze and Hol yleaf, before anything else happens."

Is there anything else that could go wrong?

Jayfeather wondered. But he nodded and backed out of the den. Leafpool was scared for her kits-al three of them-just as she had always been when trouble came to the Clan.

He scanned the clearing until he located Lionblaze approaching the fresh-kil pile with a mouthful of prey. Jayfeather bounded over to him.

"Leave that and come with me," he meowed, jerking his head. "We have to talk."

Jayfeather could feel Lionblaze's confusion, but his brother didn't protest, just dropped his prey on the pile and padded beside him toward the camp entrance.

"Where's Hol yleaf?" Jayfeather asked. The sense of approaching disaster loomed even closer as he realized that this new knowledge would hurt her hardest of al . The warrior code means so much to her!

"I've no idea," Lionblaze replied. "I think she left camp, but I haven't seen her since the end of the camp, but I haven't seen her since the end of the vigil."

"We have to find her," Jayfeather mewed as they emerged from the tunnel into the forest. "She...she's found out something that could upset her."

"What?"

"I'l tel you when we find Hol yleaf." Jayfeather lifted his head to taste the air, searching for a trace of their sister's scent.

"Tel me now," Lionblaze insisted. "Haven't there been enough secrets? Even the three of us hardly seem to talk anymore."