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His gaze narrowed. “Then the rest of the Circle—they’re on the ship already?”

“We are no longer needed at J’t’p’tan,” she said.

“And so the Fallanassi disappear again.”

“We do not require or desire the attention of outsiders,” said Wialu. “And events have already cost us much privacy. We will go away long enough and far enough to earn it back.”

“I don’t suppose I was expecting an invitation to come along,” Luke said, turning his gaze on Akanah.

“I wish there were more time,” she said, showing a sad smile. “I wish that I could finish what I started. It was unfair to you for me to make that promise, not knowing if there would be a chance to keep it.”

“Unfair,” Luke repeated. “I’m not sure that’s a strong enough word. Because when you made me another promise, the one that brought me on this journey, you must have known that you couldn’t keep it—that I’d run into a wall of silence if we found the Circle.” He looked back toward Wialu. “Unless you asked me here to tell me more than good-bye.”

“You can’t ask that of her, Luke—”

“Why not?” he said, his gaze hardening. “She went to the trouble of scattering signs and markers across five sectors so that one child could come home. But she won’t even come to the door when another one’s standing outside knocking. Can you explain that to me, at least—why Akanah is welcomed back, and I’m being turned away?”

“Akanah is of the Fallanassi, by blood and affinity both,” said Wialu. “We do not claim you, Luke Skywalker.”

“You do not claim—what are you saying? That Nashira isn’t my mother? That my mother wasn’t of the Circle?”

Wialu nodded toward Akanah. “This is the one who must provide your answers.”

Blinking, Luke stared at Akanah questioningly. She looked away uncomfortably, then sank down onto the edge of the bunk as though it were something fragile.

“I know nothing about your mother, Luke,” she said in a small voice. “And I have not told you the truth about mine.”

All of Luke’s emotions save for curiosity were numbed by her words. “What does your mother have to do with this?”

“You remember what I told you of how it was for me, living on the underside on Carratos, and how my caretaker took my money and left me there—”

“Talsava,” Luke said. “I remember.”

Akanah looked up and met his eyes. “Everything I told you about her is true, save one—her name was Isela Talsava Norand, and she was my real mother,” she said in a whisper. “And she was the one who brought the Empire down on the Circle.”

Wordlessly, Luke sank into a chair. Wialu took up the narrative.

“We could not allow Isela to remain with the Circle after her betrayal,” she said. “We could not trust her to know where we were bound when we left Lucazec. She was banished from the Circle before that decision was made. But Akanah was not banished—we would have kept her with us, cared for her, continued her training. She would have been loved.

“But Isela refused our offer, and took Akanah away with her. Isela’s decision distressed us all. She was punishing Akanah for her own transgression. There was much grief and anger in the Circle on the day they left. And in my own grief, I made Akanah a promise—that the way back to us would be marked for her, so that when the choice was hers, she could rejoin the Circle.” She looked at Akanah with an affectionate smile. “So many years went by that I thought we would never see her again.”

“And I thought I would never leave Carratos.”

“Why didn’t you?” Luke asked.

“What I told you of my life there was the truth. The war came, and then I was left alone, with nothing,” Akanah said. “I had to learn the ways of a world run by different rules, with no one to guide me or protect me. I have already admitted to Wialu how I misused what they taught me, to survive. How I became like the ones who had what I needed.”

Akanah looked down at her hands and smiled as though at a fond and tender reminiscence. “Then there was the miracle of Andras, who created a safe place for me, and brought love back to me—and though I could have left Carratos then, I did not