“Uh, Jedi…this is…no. Don’t wanna get involved. But there’s a homesteader family, about thirty kilometers to the southwest of town. Two parents, two kids. The Blythes. I caught a transmission to the Ogden’s Hope security station, I monitor that channel on my comlink, like a hobby. Anyway, they were calling for help. The family’s being attacked…by the Nihil. Ogden’s Hope security won’t go. Afraid, I think. I’d be afraid, too—the stories we hear about the Nihil…But the person who called in…it was a kid. He sounded…it sounded really bad. Maybe you could go out there? Help somehow? I’m sending the coordinates. I can’t get involved, not with the Nihil. But I just…thought you should know.”

The message ended.

Ember sensed the tension in the room. From below the table, she coughed out one small sound, like a boot stepping on a piece of charcoal.

“The Nihil,” Indeera said.

“The family,” Porter Engle said.

His voice had gone very cold. Perhaps for the first time, Bell looked at the man and no longer saw the joking, bearded Ikkrukki chef he knew so well, inventor of the Nine-Egg Stew. Instead, he saw the Jedi they once called the Blade of Bardotta.

“Let’s go,” Loden said.

Chapter Twenty-three

Avar Kriss leaned on the ornate, carved-stone railing and looked out across the lake to a small, forested island rising to a low peak in its center. A small settlement of low, orange-shingled buildings crouched together by the lakeshore, but otherwise the island looked like pristine wilderness.

“Varykino,” Elzar Mann said, stepping up beside her.

She glanced at him. He looked good. Happy, his dark eyes shining, a grin lighting up his face, though that could be due to the drink in his hand, some green stuff in a stemless glass bowl. She didn’t know what it was, but she knew Elzar, and so odds were it was the finest intoxicant their hosts had available. And considering their hosts, that meant it was probably very fine indeed.

“Very what?” she asked.

“Varykino,” he said, gesturing with his drink toward the island. “That’s the name of the island. It’s an artists’ retreat, a place for creative outcasts to live together and think deep thoughts. There’s a poet there, a man named Omar Berenko. Supposed to be brilliant.”

Elzar glanced at her. He ran a hand through his dark hair, cut short, with a natural wave to it.

“Sounds nice, actually,” he said. “We should remember it, once we’re too old for the Order to make use of us anymore. I wouldn’t mind spending my days in quiet contemplation. Maybe figure out how to catch fish with the Force.”

He took a sip of his drink, and his face took on an impressed expression.

“As long as we lay in a steady supply of this stuff. By the light, that’s good.”