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Anakin tried for his old rakish smile. “You worry too much.”

“I have to—”

“—because I don’t worry at all, right?” Anakin finished for him.

Obi-Wan’s frown softened toward a smile. “How did you know I was going to say that?”

“You’re wrong, you know.” Anakin stared off through the morning haze toward the shuttle, past the shuttle—

Toward 500 Republica, and Padmé’s apartment.

He said, “I worry plenty.”

The ride to Palpatine’s office was quietly tense. Anakin had tried making conversation with the two tall helmet-masked figures in the red robes, but they weren’t exactly chatty.

Anakin’s discomfort only increased when he arrived at Palpatine’s office. He had been here so often that he didn’t even really see it, most times: the deep red runner that matched the softly curving walls, the long comfortable couches, the huge arc of window behind Palpatine’s desk—these were all so familiar that they were usually almost invisible, but today—

Today, with Obi-Wan’s voice whispering be wary of Palpatine in the back of his head, everything looked different. New. And not in a good way.

Some indefinable gloom shrouded everything, as though the orbital mirrors that focused the light of Coruscant’s distant sun into bright daylight had somehow been damaged, or smudged with the brown haze of smoke that still shrouded the cityscape. The light of the Chancellor’s lampdisks seemed brighter than usual, almost harsh, but somehow that only deepened the gloom. He discovered now an odd, accidental echo of memory, a new harmonic resonance inside his head, when he looked at the curving view wall that threw into silhouette the Chancellor’s single large chair.

Palpatine’s office reminded him of the General’s Quarters on Invisible Hand.

And it struck him as unaccountably sinister that the robes worn by the Chancellor’s cadre of bodyguards were the exact color of Palpatine’s carpet.

Palpatine himself stood at the view wall, hands clasped behind him, gazing out upon the smoke-hazed morning.

“Anakin.” He must have seen Anakin’s reflection in the curve of transparisteel; he had not moved. “Join me.”

Anakin came up beside him, mirroring his stance. Endless cityscape stretched away before them. Here and there, the remains of shattered buildings still smoldered. Space lane traffic was beginning to return to normal, and rivers of gnat-like speeders and air taxis and repulsor buses crisscrossed the city. In the near distance, the vast dome of the Galactic Senate squatted like a gigantic gray mushroom sprung from the duracrete plain that was Republic Plaza. Farther, dim in the brown haze, he could pick out the quintuple spires that topped the ziggurat of the Jedi Temple.

“Do you see, Anakin?” Palpatine’s voice was soft, hoarse with emotion. “Do you see what they have done to our magnificent city? This war must end. We cannot allow such … such …”

His voice trailed away, and he shook his head. Gently, Anakin laid a hand on Palpatine’s shoulder, and a hint of frown fleeted over his face at how frail seemed the flesh and bone beneath the robe. “You know you have my best efforts, and those of every Jedi,” he said.

Palpatine nodded, lowering his head. “I know I have yours, Anakin. The rest of the Jedi …” He sighed. He looked even more exhausted than he had yesterday. Perhaps he had passed a sleepless night as well.

“I have asked you here,” he said slowly, “because I need your help on a matter of extreme delicacy. I hope I can depend upon your discretion, Anakin.”

Anakin went still for a moment, then he very slowly lifted his hand from the Chancellor’s shoulder.

Be wary of Palpatine

“As a Jedi, there are … limits … to my discretion, Chancellor.”

“Oh, of course. Don’t worry, my boy.” A flash of his familiar fatherly smile forced its way into his eyes. “Anakin, in all the years we have been friends, have I ever asked you to do anything even the slightest bit against your conscience?”

“Well—”

“And I never will. I am very proud of your accomplishments as a Jedi, Anakin. You