The Midnight Kingdom has found its territory. Keeping it is another matter.

Life at the River House has begun to take shape around the Pride. Rooms are claimed, boundaries negotiated, and the cats who lived outside long before the Kingdom arrived have their own stories to tell. Oreo, Matron of the Outer Territories, remembers the day eleven strange cats appeared behind the glass. Mr. Grey remembers it differently.

Then Hurricane Florence comes.

As wind and rain batter the River House, the Pride is forced from its territory and carried to safety at Bonnie's house. Twenty-eight cats, unfamiliar rooms, closed French doors, and another cat already guarding the territory below make exile complicated enough. Before long, the displaced Pride has done what cats do best: adapted, reorganized, and established a Court of Upstairs Exile.

Then Ms. Betty White arrives.

A tortie with polished amber eyes and absolutely no concern for anyone else's opinion, Betty walks into the upstairs court, surveys the territory, and promptly claims the highest perch in the room.

The Pride is appalled.

Betty is not.

In Volume II of Tails of the Midnight Kingdom, the history of the Pride unfolds through the cats who lived it, from the first days at the River House to the storm that drives them from it. Territory can change. Kingdoms can be displaced. New cats can cross the boundary without asking.

But wherever the Pride gathers, the Midnight Kingdom goes with them.