“I’m glad nobody’s trying to cheat you,” Affie said, genuinely relieved. “Still—that station is dangerous, Scover. The helix rings, the poisonous plants, even the little gardener droids attack you, and that’s not even getting into all that dark side stuff.” Maybe that was nothing but Jedi mumbo jumbo, but given the terrible luck they’d had on the station, Affie was beginning to wonder if they were on to something. “Our pilots shouldn’t be using it.”

“It is their free choice,” Scover said, “to use the station as they see fit, or not. I do not dictate methods to pilots who prove their capability.”

Which was true. Affie had always thought it showed remarkable open-mindedness; like most Bivalls, Scover valued rules, definitions, precision. The fact that she gave her pilots freedom meant she could see things from multiple points of view.

For the first time, Affie realized—it also meant that sometimes Scover didn’t have to ask questions that might have difficult answers.

“It is only a way station,” Scover said. “You are still shaken by the experience and so giving it undue importance in your mind. With time you will gain greater perspective. Put it out of your mind for now.” She smiled. “Would you like to get some buttersweet puffs? I know they are your favorites.”

Affie managed to smile. “Sure. Sounds great.”

But she couldn’t forget what Scover had unwittingly told her, by denying something she had not been asked to deny:

The Amaxine station, whatever else it might be, was much more to the Byne Guild than a way station.

As isolated as Reath had been before, he wished he were alone again.

He sat at the edge of the briefing, saying nothing, and yet he might as well have been bathed in a spotlight. The other Jedi kept a respectful distance, so markedly aware of his bereavement that they magnified it. Reath felt as though he had to simultaneously show the full weight of his sorrow and hold it together.

No one here is judging you, he reminded himself. This wasn’t yet another exercise he could practice to the point of mastering. He’d always prided himself on his ability to excel, but no longer. Who cared? Why had he ever thought that was worth caring about?

He and Dez had attended a briefing together in that room once, perhaps three years before. What had it been about? Raiding parties harassing Kashyyyk? Reath couldn’t recall. All he could think of was the easy way Dez had sprawled in his chair, confident in his new Knighthood, while Reath had wondered whether he’d ever feel that brash, that assured of his future.

Dez’s future had ended in the middle of nowhere, for no reason at all.