Could he have anticipated this confrontation? Certainly Thalias couldn’t have come up with such a dangerous scheme on her own. And if it was Thrawn, how had he persuaded her to risk her entire future with the Mitth for him?

Just one more reason this man needed to be taken down.

“Of course,” he said, standing up. “I wouldn’t miss it for all the riches in the Ascendancy.”

Che’ri had never been good at reading adult faces. But even so, she had no trouble seeing that Thrawn was surprised and concerned as he put away his questis. “Is something wrong?” she asked anxiously.

He hesitated a moment before answering. “It appears Caregiver Thalias won’t be joining us,” he said.

“Oh,” Che’ri said, looking past him at the little ship he’d brought them to. The last of the crates of supplies were just being taken aboard by the dockworkers, and he’d said they’d be leaving as soon as Thalias arrived.

Only now they weren’t? “So what are we doing?”

Thrawn turned to gaze at the ship. “This mission is vitally important, Che’ri,” he said quietly. “Thalias didn’t say much—I gather she wasn’t free to talk openly—but it was clear she would be occupied for at least the next few days.”

“So we’re not going?” Che’ri asked, still struggling to read his expression.

“That depends on you.” He turned to look at her. “Are you willing to go with me, just the two of us, into the depths of the Chaos?”

For a moment Che’ri’s mouth and tongue and brain seemed frozen. A sky-walker never went anywhere without a shipful of people around her. That was the first rule and promise she’d been given when she first began her training. Girls like her were too rare to risk to anything less than a full warship or diplomatic cruiser. What Thrawn was asking was never done. Ever.

But he’d said it was important. Could it be important enough to break all the regular rules? “Can we do that?” she asked hesitantly.

He shrugged, a small smile touching his lips. “Physically and tactically, of course,” he said. “I can fly, you can navigate, and the ship itself is well enough armed to get us out of any trouble we’re likely to find ourselves in.”

“I meant are we going to get in trouble.”

“You, no,” he said. “Sky-walkers are effectively untouchable by any punishment. You might get a scolding, but that would be all.” He paused. “If it makes a difference, Thalias didn’t suggest that we wait for her, or that we abandon the mission completely.”

“If I don’t go, what happens?”

“Then I abandon the mission,” Thrawn said. “What would take days under the control of a sky-walker would require weeks or months of jump-by-jump travel. I can’t afford months.” His lips compressed. “Neither, I fear, can the Ascendancy.”