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“Laranth, stop it. Don’t make this so hard. You know what I’m trying to say. You can sense what I’m trying to say.”

And suddenly he knew she could because, in the space of a breath, she had let him in. He was swept up in a strange, heady recursive emotional loop. A Force-enhanced empathy.

He looked at Laranth and saw himself as she saw him and was awed by the emotions that he evoked in her. He experienced the echoed revelation of that in her as she caught the tenor of his feelings and explored the texture of his innermost being.

He moved past the reserve and the hurt and the careful defenses she had erected and felt her breaching his barriers in return.

When they came fully back to themselves they were standing in a stygian alley, foreheads touching, fingers entwined, quivering.

“What was that?” Laranth murmured. “What did we just do?”

“I was about to ask you the same question.”

“I know. I don’t know what to call it.”

Jax exhaled. “Let’s not call it anything for now. Okay?”

“Okay.”

They separated, physically at any rate, and began walking again by mutual agreement.

“While we’re on the subject of mysteries,” said Laranth, and Jax smiled. “What made you take a chance that the bota would push Vader over the edge—literally as well as figuratively?”

Jax was quiet for a few strides, then he said, “It’s a debate as old as the Force itself: Is it generated by and for living beings, and so subject to their desires and their demons, or is it transcendent—something ineffable that we can only hope to glimpse occasionally in its entirety? Something that’s not meant to be experienced in its entirety. As long as there are living beings to wonder about it, the question will exist.”

“Be careful what you ask for, you might get it? That’s not an answer. It’s just another question.”

“There’s also another factor—the fact that I-Five had been carrying the bota around for two decades. True, it had been processed, and was much more stable than in its raw state, but still—I was betting that such a complex molecule was starting to fray a bit around the edges.” He shrugged. “Whether you opt for the mystical explanation or the practical one, Vader wasn’t expecting a bad trip.”

“You were betting our lives,” Laranth said. She didn’t smile, but there was amusement in her thoughts.

Jax marveled at their texture and nuance. “What choice did I have?” he asked. “He could have killed us all in a breath, using just the Force he has access to every day. I had to gamble that, at the very least, the bota would make him lose track of the ephemeral world and give us half a chance to escape.”

He didn’t mention the third factor: this was the first time he’d been this close to Vader, close enough to touch him. And though he hadn’t dared to try to probe the man, he’d noticed something about the patterns of Force that had swirled around the Dark Lord. Patterns that seemed strangely, unbelievably, familiar.

Master Piell had told him once that the moiré swirlings of the Force were as individual as a person’s DNA. He could not be sure—and likely he’d never know the truth—but, if Master Piell was right and those patterns were not to be duplicated … well, it had been enough to gamble on.

He had evidence through the Force that Anakin Skywalker was still alive. And the Anakin he knew, steeped though he had been in the Force, would not have had the self-knowledge to realize what the bota might mean for someone with his particular set of character flaws.

Yes, it was a mad thought, but it was a thought Jax dared to have because of something Darth Vader had said: And now, if you would return the pyronium …

“Do you think he’s finally dead?” Laranth asked, breaking into his thoughts.

Jax shook his head. “He’s harder to kill than that. But I think maybe the game has changed. And that could be good news … or bad.”

“But you’ll still stay.” It wasn’t a question.

He didn’t reply. What was there to say? Inquisitors or no, Vader or no, the Emperor or no, Jax couldn’t conceive of anyplace he’d rather be, any job he’d rather be doing. For better or worse,