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“She was right,” Akanah said. “I told you on the day we met that I was incomplete—that there was a weakness, an empty space, in me—that the loss of what my mother would have taught me had left me less than whole.”

“I suppose you did,” Luke said. “I guess at the time, I paid more attention to what you were saying about me.”

“It was easy enough for me to forget myself,” said Akanah. “But even a short time with Nori was enough to show me how far I have strayed without guidance. These days in Wialu’s company have shown me how far I have to go to return to the path.”

“Your mother—Talsava—is she with the Circle?”

“No,” Akanah said. “When we are finished here, I will ask Norika to be my teacher.”

Luke folded his arms on the back of the chair and rested his chin on them. “So your journey is over.”

She shook her head. “It is just beginning. I know that I must go back and unlearn before I can move forward again. Do not envy me too much, Luke.”

Luke answered with a tight-lipped smile. “A momentary self-indulgence,” he said. “Well, I suppose I can’t ask you to work with me on the skill of concealment.”

“You will need another teacher if you choose to follow this path and become an adept of the Current,” she said, her expression earnest. “I hope that you will. You have great strength, Luke, but you hunger for lightness. That is part of the gift that you have been denied.”

Frowning, Luke straightened his back and caught the top edge of the chair in his hands. “Maybe you can answer this question, at least—if Enara could conceal the Falcon and create phantom hostages, why couldn’t she protect Shoran?”

“I am sorry for your friend’s loss,” Akanah said, then paused. “I do not know the limits of Enara’s skill. But creating a reflection from the surface of the Current and merging nearby objects with the Current are very different tasks. It is terribly difficult to do both at the same time. And there is something else—a person does not stay settled in the flow the way an object without volition will.”

Luke’s eyes lit up. “Is that why the Circle is still at J’t’p’tan—what you meant when you said they couldn’t leave?” he asked. “Because it sounds as if the Fallanassi could hide the temple from the Yevetha and go away, and it would stay hidden—”

“Yes. Objects which are at rest, or which follow the current without resisting it, will remain merged until they are disturbed,” she said. “All of the effort comes at the beginning, and a single adept can manage it. But hiding the community of H’kig requires the constant attention of a great many adepts, and the effort is never-ending.”

As he listened to her, Luke experienced a flash of intuitive insight. “Yes. Yes, that’s the only way it could be. Do you—”

“I have already said too much,” she said, shaking her head. “Please, Luke, ask me no more questions. Answering you and refusing you bring me equal burdens of guilt.”

“I’m sorry,” Luke said. “I understand.”

“You understand, and you used it to get your answer,” Akanah said sharply. Then she showed a quick smile, taking the sting out of the rebuke. “Please, Luke—go now.”

“All right,” he agreed, standing and replacing the chair where it had been. But when he reached the cabin door, he stopped and looked back. “I’m sorry. I have to ask one more.”

She nodded wordlessly, as though she had expected it.

“Did you see Nashira on J’t’p’tan?”

“No,” Akanah said with regret. “I do not know where she is.”

It was decided early that the “phantom fleet” bluff should be played where it would have the most impact—in the light of N’zoth’s sun, over the capital of the Duskhan League and the home of Viceroy Nil Spaar.

“It’s the strongest Yevethan fleet we’ve located—especially in the wake of the rescue of the commodore,” Corgan explained at the strategy session where the assault plans were first disclosed. “If the Yevetha are still monitoring developments on Coruscant through their spy network, they know that the President’s sending us reinforcements, and that’ll help sell the bluff.

“We’ve planned