“Is that her?” Ben asked.
Lumiya was close enough now for it to be obvious that she had seen Jacen and was walking straight toward him. She must also have seen Ben, but she didn’t react at any level. She stopped right in front of Jacen, holding a black folio case in front of her with both hands almost like a shield. She had a soft, shapeless black bag over one shoulder: he suspected he knew what was in it.
“Master Solo,” she said.
Nice touch. And even her voice was different. “I’m not a Master, but thank you, Shira.” He turned deliberately to Ben. “This is my apprentice, Ben Skywalker. In an unofficial sense, of course.”
“I’m sure I’ve seen you before,” said Ben. He sounded genuinely baffled, but there was no hint in his emotions that he recognized her as Brisha, the woman he had taken a dislike to at Bimmiel. “Nice to meet you, ma’am.”
“You might have seen me around the university,” said Lumiya.
“I’m only thirteen,” said Ben.
“Really? Oh, perhaps not, then.” She proffered her folio to Jacen, suddenly a very convincing academic. “I’ve assessed the current military capacities of Corellia and worlds most likely to support it. Would you like me to go through the reports with you?”
Good actress. Lumiya’s skill at creating illusions extended into the physical world, as well.
“I thought we might go to the Jedi Temple,” said Jacen. Temptation and threat in one package, for a Sith. “There are quiet areas where we can talk. Ben, do you want to come, too?”
Jacen expected him to insist on coming; he was desperately anxious to learn, even if that meant sitting through meetings that even adults found boring. But Ben dropped his chin slightly as if about to admit something.
“Is it okay if I visit Fleet Ops? Admiral Niathal said I could.”
Jacen hadn’t expected that. “Of course.”
Ben took his leave of them with a grave bow of the head and walked off across the plaza, every centimeter the young man.
“Luke’s son is growing up fast,” said Lumiya, lifting her veil clear of her eyes.
“Don’t worry, he doesn’t recognize you.”
“Why have you brought me here?”
“I wanted to discuss what we began to explore back in your home.”
“You’ve thought about it a great deal. I felt that.”
“Oh, yes, indeed.” Jacen got up and beckoned her to follow. He didn’t like being a stationary target: there was little-if anything-that could present a serious threat to him now, but old habits died hard. “I’ve thought of little else.”
“Have you decided to let me help you achieve your destiny?”
“Yes.”
She searched his face, turning her head a little as she walked. He could only see her eyes-vivid, green, somehow permanently angry-but he felt her try quite deliberately to touch his mind.
“I’m at your disposal,” she said quietly.
“You’ve never been in the Jedi Temple, have you?”
“No. It’ll be interesting.”
“You can suppress your dark energy, I hope.”
“Is that what you’re testing, Jacen?”
“I need to know how safe it is to have you near me,” he said. “There’s no better way to see if you’ll be detected than to test if you can pass through the Jedi Temple unnoticed.”
He thought she smiled. There was some movement of the fine, oddly unlined skin around her eyes, and it unsettled him. “I managed to infiltrate the Rebellion …”
“You weren’t Sith then.”
“I’ve hidden for decades.” She replaced the veil. “I can hide indefinitely-anywhere.”
This was arcane mysticism on a scale that only a handful of people in the galaxy had ever needed to consider. And yet Jacen found himself hailing an air taxi and getting into it with a Sith Master, as mundane and everyday an act as he could imagine. He savored the incongruity of it. They didn’t speak at all on the way to the Temple.
For a moment, Jacen almost saw the funny side of it. Taxi pilots being what they were, he could almost imagine this one-a Weequay-telling his other passengers, “Yeah, I had one of them Siths in my taxi once.”
But the pilot would never know.
What if she’s using me? Who’ll teach me the Sith way if I have to-Jacen caught himself thinking that he might have to remove her if she proved to be bent on vengeance against the Jedi or one Jedi in particular. He knew exactly what he meant by remove, and he was once again surprised by the ease with which he took one small step further toward doing things he had been raised to regard as evil.