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Allana considered this a moment, then checked her chrono. “Can’t,” she said. “We’re already gonna be late.”

Bazel was afraid of that. He switched on his own glow rod, then took a deep breath and stepped through the hatchway into a small, hot, humid chamber. He paused a moment, checking the place with the Force, then informed Allana that there was someone inside.

“Who?” She stepped around his massive thigh and, shining her glow rod ahead of her, led the way forward. “Hello?”

Something sissed ahead, then clattered, and Anji gave an inquisitive mewl. A moment later, Allana’s glow rod fell on a wall of tiny rodent bones as tall as she was. She could tell that they were rodent bones because a lot of the little bodies still had their heads, and a few had pieces of fur. Anji was eating one.

Allana stopped in her tracks. Without turning around, she asked softly, “Barv … do you see that?”

He asked if she meant the nest.

“The nest?” she repeated. “That can’t be a …”

Allana let her sentence trail off as the bones began to clatter and rustle in front of her. Anji gave a startled yowl and sprang away. Allana backed up—and ran straight into Bazel’s boulder-sized knee. A moment later four big scaly heads popped out of the bones, glaring at her with slit-pupiled eyes. Anji hissed and went to hide behind Bazel.

“Tesar?” Allana gasped. “Dordi?”

“And Wilyem and Zal,” Zal added.

“Amelia?” Tesar sounded as surprised as Allana was. He glared at Bazel, then demanded, “How did you find us?”

Bazel started into a long, nervous explanation about trying to teach Allana how to read building schematics by exploring the sub-basements of the Temple.

Allana waved him silent, then said simply, “We didn’t mean to. We were just exploring.”

“Exxxploring?” Tesar hissed. “Our hunting groundz?”

“You didn’t tell anyone they were yours,” Allana objected. “You just disappeared.”

As she spoke, Tesar and the other three Barabels slithered out of the nest, leaving several small cavities through which Allana glimpsed a clutch of large spotted orbs.

“Hey, those are eggs!” Allana looked up at Tesar, then asked, “Did you guys lay them?”

It was clearly the wrong thing to ask. In the blink of an eye, three of the Barabels had their lightsabers ignited and stood surrounding her and Bazel—who had the good sense to keep his own blade deactivated. The fourth, Zal, had Anji by the scruff of her neck, ignoring the infuriated nexu’s clawless attempts to rake apart the arm that was holding her.

“Now you have done it!” Dordi informed her.

Allana looked from Tesar to Dordi, but a Barabel was pretty much a Barabel—the females looked just as ferocious as the males. “Uh … is there any chance that what I did is a … good thing?”

“Maybe.” Wilyem thumped his tail, scattering tiny rodent bones everywhere. “It dependz how you look at it.”

Bazel rumbled a question, asking what Wilyem meant by that. But the Barabels did not understand Ramoan, so they just narrowed their eyes and looked like they might be thinking about eating him.

Allana turned back to Tesar. “Depends on how I look at what, exactly?”

“Spending the next two monthz down here,” Tesar informed her. “Now that you have seen the nest—”

“And the eggz,” Zal reminded him.

“And the eggz,” Tesar added, “you must stay for the hatch.”

Allana’s heart clawed its way into her throat. “Two months?” she gasped. “We can’t. Mom will kill me!”

“Better Jedi Solo than this one,” Wilyem said darkly.

“And at least you will have two good monthz before you die,” Dordi agreed. “It will be fun. We can hunt.”

Allana frowned and tapped the chrono on her datapad. “You don’t understand. Barv and I are supposed to be in the infirmary in fifteen minutes.”

Tesar took the datapad and tossed into the nest. “This one is sorry,” he said. “You’re going to be late.”

Barv rumbled an ominous Ramoan warning, swearing on his ancestors’ tusks that he was going to be there when Valin and Jysella awakened.

The Barabels, of course, ignored the sacred vow—which