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I need your grace to remind me to find my own. — Snow Patrol, Chasing Cars
EVERLY
THE SUN is setting by the time Lucifer and I finally head back up Thorn Mountain. I am sorry to leave Riverfrost and Dawnlight, but I forget all of that as I look behind me, out onto the valley. What a beautiful sunset it is.
"Stop walking while looking over your shoulder. You look like you're having a seizure," says Lucifer. His eyes are focused stoically on the peak. So goal-oriented.
I roll my eyes. I'm in a good mood. I saved Dawnlight and Riverfrost. They'll be all right; even Lucifer couldn't find the hiding spot without help. No cat could, not unless someone told them about it.
I bound up to Lucifer, take him by the shoulders, and turn him around. "You're going the wrong way."
Baffled, he gives me a frown. "No, I'm not. I'm going back to the peak."
"But how're you going to see the sunset?"
He gives me a condescending smile. "Let me tell you a little secret, Everly. That thing in the sky? It's just a big, blazing ball of fire, a million tails away. Farther than you could run in your entire life. It doesn't give a rat's tail about us, whether we live or die. It set on the world ten moons ago. It'll set on the world tomorrow. It'll set on the world a hundred moons later, when we're all dead and gone. But I don't have a hundred moons. And I don't have time to watch the path of things that do."
I smile, almost condescendingly, which I know will make him mad. "The sunset is different everyday. Look at it today. Cloudless--that's a lot different from when there are clouds in the sky. Look. The sun's fire, yes, but that patch where it melts into the horizon is blood-red. Patches of lavender, and then blue, like those really deep ponds that you look down into and think you can see into the center of the Earth. And on the very edges of the sky--don't roll your eyes, Lucifer, the sky has edges, even if it has no end--the first stars." I let out a breath of contentment.
He is still not looking at the sunset. He's looking at the ground, clearly bored out of his mind. "Can we go now?"
"It's something Juniper and Starlight and I would do. Look at ordinary things, everyday things, and come up with this long-winded spiel to describe them."
Lucifer finally looks up from the ground--not at the sunset, but at me. He doesn't say anything; his face is unreadable.
"Juniper was the best at it. He was so quiet usually, but I think that's why he was so good at that game. He was really observant. Once he talked for ages about a speck of dust. My mother and father were so annoyed, but Starlight and I thought it was hilarious. I tried to do it--I sat and talked about a twig, but it just didn't work."
A muscle jumps in Lucifer's jaw. He stiffens, as if fortifying himself against something. All he says is, "You don't seem to have any problem coming up with things to say, if you ask me." Then he gets up and jerks his head towards the top of the mountain. "We've been gone long enough."
"I-"
"Come on, Everly," he says, and there's a snarl in his voice.
I nod, and we cover the rest of the way in total silence. I sense that this brief period of... whatever it was, Lucifer letting his guard down the tiniest bit and talking to Riverfrost and Dawnlight, not betraying us to Greer... it's over. That shell of ice may have broken to allow the tiniest hint of feeling into his heart, but he's crawling back into that shell himself. I guess I get it. It's all he's ever known. But what would it take to shatter the ice for good?
"Where have you been all day?" Farrah wants to know when I join the Guard cats for supper.
"Around." I accept the mouse Ruta hands me. "How have things been?"
"Guard duty was boring without you," complains Sasha.
Dubiously, Farrah says, "Everly, you're lucky Greer doesn't know you very well, or else you'd be in such big trouble. You're so... so careless."
I stare at her. "I'm used to being free, Farrah. I lived in the valley, and I had to work hard to scrape a living, but I could hunt where I pleased."
Calder butts into the conversation. "We're free. Are you insinuating that we're not?"
I wasn't. I was insinuating that the Snow Guard was preventing the Clans from being free. I study the faces of my friends. Do they know what Collection is? They are devoted to maintaining the Triad, but I long to believe that if they knew its darker side, they would abandon it without a second thought. I want to believe the best of them. But I can't take it for granted, and I don't dare ask right now, surrounded by so many cats. Anyone could overhear, and as much as I want to trust Jett and Sasha and Farrah and the others I've befriended, I can't trust the entire Snow Guard.
"Has anyone seen Lucifer?" I ask. "I want to talk to him."
From the looks everyone gives me, you'd think I'd said, "Has anyone seen a wolf? I want to ask it to put my head in its mouth."
"He's not in the main cavern, and it's supper time, so I wondered..." I trail off.
"He's probably off training or murdering an innocent creature or another," says Calder dismissively.
Jett looks at me intently. "Why, Everly? What do you need to talk to him about?"
"I--Nothing, it's not important."
His eyebrows go up. "It doesn't seem like it. Did he hurt you, Everly? Did he threaten you?"
"No-"
"We're not all under Greer's spell, you know. You can say something about Lucifer to us. We won't tell," says Jett. "And if he goes near you-"
"It's not that!" I jump to my paws. The others exchange looks. Jett looks disbelieving; Farrah and Sasha look concerned. I tell myself to quit being an idiot and play it off cool--if anyone investigates what Lucifer and I were doing all day, we're both dead. Or at least, I am. I don't know how big of a crime Lucifer is allowed to commit before Greer decides she doesn't like him anymore.
I remain silent for the rest of the evening, but the other cats don't. In fact, the cavern is more raucous than ever. A Snow Guard she-cat called Britta and a ForestClan tom called Icetooth get into an altercation over a piece of prey. The tom claims he caught the prey for his own Clan, and Britta snaps back that he wouldn't have anywhere to park his fat tail if the Guard hadn't let the Clans stay in the peak caverns. He shouts that the Guard's only purpose is to maintain the Triad, that she is worthless if she cannot do that, and she is about to leap on him when Shadowstar enters and yanks her back.
Despite the fact that he lost a life fairly recently, the leader's eyes are shining with fury. "Don't you ever touch one of my warriors again, you filthy gresser."
I hear Farrah gasp softly beside me. "What's a gresser?"
Calder answers for her, his eyes narrow and dark with anger. "It's a really offensive word, and he's going to pay for it--"
"Calder, stop. The Clans are trying to provoke us," says Sasha.
"Exactly. They can't provoke us once I've ripped out their entrails."
"Calder, shut up," hisses Farrah. "Greer will be so angry if you get into a fight."
"Like Greer cares. She hates the Clans."
Farrah's eyes nearly bug out of her head. She drags Calder back and growls, "You know it doesn't matter if that's true or not--if she or the Clan leaders hear you saying it, it'll be chaos. We're not to engage in outright battle with the warriors."
Meanwhile, Britta and Shadowstar have ended their stand-off without a physical fight, but the murderous look in both of their eyes warns that the issue is not resolved. I feel a prickle of unease.
"Greer's not going to let anything happen, though, right?" squeaks Plover, who is sitting in between Eider and Ruta, a frightened look on her face.
Farrah gives Calder a look-what-you-did look and wraps her tail around Plover. "We're going to be okay. The Triad of Thorn Mountain is unbreakable."
Calder mutters something rather unsavory about the Triad and about Shadowstar, and Farrah is still reprimanding him when I back out of the main cavern and hurry away. I don't belong in this Snow Guard versus Clan enmity, and I don't dare get involved--I've already entangled myself far too tightly in these cats' lives by interfering with the Collection. If Riverfrost and Dawnlight are ever found...
The sound of voices up ahead compels me to duck behind an overhang. I have to suck in my belly, but I manage to wedge myself beneath the outcrop of rock and the ground.
Barely peeking out from my hiding spot, I see Lucifer and a lovely silver she-cat walking side-by-side. "Cecily, I told you," says Lucifer, sounding exasperated, "nothing happened. I was hunting."
"Lucifer, you're the best hunter on Thorn Mountain--besides me," says Cecily. Her voice is clear and melodious, like a cold mountain brook. "There's no way it took you the entire day to hunt."
"I got some extra prey. You see what it's like--cats constantly fighting for food."
"You know as well as I do that those fights have nothing to do with food and everything to do with the Triad being questioned."
Lucifer shrugs. "Stupid. Wolves in the valley, and we're too busy with infighting to address it."
Cecily ignores this. "So you were hunting extra. That's... considerate."
He stiffens, as if the word is foreign. "I was acting on Greer's orders."
She nods. Green eyes flashing. They stand almost nose-to-nose, her fur like silver moonlight and his like the snow it shines on. I am struck by the strange idea that if Lucifer could care for another cat, this would be her, this beautiful, intelligent mountain she-cat called Cecily.
"I'll tell my mother you followed orders," says Cecily.
I know Greer gave Lucifer no such orders, but he hardly seems concerned by Cecily's words. "Would you like to go on a hunt tomorrow? Got some tactics I need to show you."
Cecily purrs. "Sure. But how about a piece of prey together now?"
"As if. You know we each need a piece each if we want to keep our strength up. And in my case, muscles."
"Shut up, Lucifer."
The ghost of a smile traces the icy lines of Lucifer's face. I shrink further back under the overhang, my mouth dry. One slip of the tongue... if he tells Cecily where he really was all day... I see no reason for him to be loyal to me over this she-cat.
But all he says, "Shall we?"
Nodding, Cecily says, "Go ahead and pick a piece of prey for me. I'll be right there."
She watches him go, and then races down the narrow tunnel in the opposite direction. I am just about to back out of my hiding spot and make a run for it when she returns. I see a glimpse of something in her jaws: deep violet leaves. I frown; I've never seen any plant like them before.
After Cecily is gone, I crawl out from under the overhang, stretch, and head to the sleeping quarters, where my Guard friends have formed a circle with their nests already. "Hey, Everly," says Eider, giving me a warm smile.
"Hi."
Jett beckons me over. "We made you a nest already."
I purr my thanks and curl up, resting the tip of my tail over my nose as I listen to the others murmur softly. Britta is talking in a sharp, insistent tone to Ruta, who is shaking her head and apparently trying to calm her down. I feel a warm puff of air near my ear and turn to see Sasha gazing at me with her big pale blue eyes. "Are you okay?" she asks me.
"Sasha, d'you know much about Cecily?"
"Greer's daughter?" Sasha looks surprised. "What do you want to know about her for?"
"Just... wondering. Is she like her mother?"
Sasha hesitates. Then she says, "That depends who you ask. See, not every cat has the same opinion of Greer. To some, she's a tyrant who has twisted the reason for the Snow Guard's existence to her own agenda. To others, she's a savior, someone who is finally breaking our subservience to the Clans and elevating our power. There are Guard cats who think we deserve it."
"The Clan cats must not be too thrilled about that." I close my eyes, preparing myself. "So... Greer uses methods to keep them under control. Collection."
The look on Sasha's face tells me all I need to know. "You know." I stand up, scattering bits of my nest across the floor. "You know what it is, all of you. And you let her do it."
Miserable, Sasha whispers, "It's the only way... for us all to survive... it's for the greater good."
"You don't believe that, Sasha. But you still haven't spoken against it."
"Everly, please--don't--I'm not that heartless... There's nothing I could do!"
But I can't listen to her anymore. Sasha is one of the kindest cats I've met in the Guard, and even she knew about Collection, about the mindless slaughter of Clan cats just to suck them further into the funnel of Greer's manipulative tornado of power.
I bolt out of the cavern and through the halls, till I reach the main cavern. The air is ferociously cold outside, but I go out anyway, breathing hard.
It takes me a moment to identify the hot streaks on my face as tears. I tilt my head towards the stars and wish for a countless time that my parents and siblings were here with me.
I don't want to get involved. I want to live here till the wolves are gone, and then I want to go home and pretend all of this never happened.
But home was in my family's eyes, which means I have no home now. And I am already hopelessly tangled in this mess of apathetic, morally twisted mountain cats. I have befriended the bystanders of murder. I cannot get myself out now.
I saved Riverfrost and Dawnlight. What if I could save more? The next time there's a Collection...
"Everly?"
A black shape moves out of the cavern and comes to stand beside me. "Are you okay?" Jett asks quietly.
"I'm fine," I mumble.
"You're shaking. Come on inside," he says.
I nod at him. "Sorry for... freaking out like that--"
"You found out that we knew about the Collection." It's not a question. I look up nervously, but his face is soft and sad. "I'm sorry. For what we are. We live in the true north of the planet, yet our sense of moral direction is skewed beyond repair."
"Nothing can't be fixed."
He studies me thoughtfully. "Maybe if we had more cats like you, the Triad would be different. Grace. Faith. Forgiveness. Light."
I shrug. "I don't know if I'd be the best example of forgiveness. You don't want to know the things I want to do to the wolf who killed my family..."
He chuckles and touches his nose to my ear at the same time, a comforting gesture. "C'mon. Let's get some sleep."