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She felt a stirring below her ribs. Away from us, she amended, and there was so much love and fear and joy and loss all swirling and clashing within her that she dared not speak. She only stared blindly out across the smog-shrouded cityscape as Obi-Wan came close to her shoulder.

“Padmé,” he said softly. Gently. Almost regretfully. “I will not tell the Council of this. Any of it. I’m very sorry to burden you with this, and I—I hope I haven’t upset you too much. We have all been friends for so long … and I hope we always will be.”

“Thank you, Obi-Wan,” she said faintly. She couldn’t look at him. From the corner of her eye she saw him incline his head respectfully and turn to go.

For a moment she said nothing, but as his footsteps receded she said, “Obi-Wan?”

She heard him stop.

“You love him, too, don’t you?”

When he didn’t answer, she turned to look. He stood motionless, frowning, in the middle of the expanse of buff carpeting.

“You do. You love him.”

He lowered his head. He looked very alone.

“Please do what you can to help him,” he said, and left.

The holoscan of Utapau rotated silently in the center of the Jedi Council Chamber. Anakin had brought the holoprojector from the Chancellor’s office; Obi-Wan wondered idly if the projector had been scanned for recording devices planted by the Chancellor to spy on their meeting, then dismissed the thought. In a sense, Anakin was the Chancellor’s recording device.

And that’s our fault, he thought.

The only Council members physically present, other than Obi-Wan and Anakin, were Mace Windu and Agen Kolar. The Council reached a quorum by the projected holopresences of Ki-Adi-Mundi, en route to Mygeeto, Plo Koon on Cato Neimoidia, and Yoda, who was about to make planetfall on Kashyyyk.

“Why Utapau?” Mace Windu was saying. “A neutral system, of little strategic significance, and virtually no planetary defense force—”

“Perhaps that is itself the reason,” Agen Kolar offered. “Easily taken, and their sinkhole-based culture can hide a tremendous number of droids from long-range scans.”

Ki-Adi-Mundi’s frown wrinkled the whole length of his forehead. “Our agents on Utapau have made no report of this.”

“They may be detained, or dead,” Obi-Wan said.

Mace Windu leaned toward Anakin, scowling. “How could the Chancellor have come by this information when we know nothing about it?”

“Clone Intelligence intercepted a partial message in a diplomatic packet from the Chairman of Utapau,” Anakin told him. “We’ve only managed to verify its authenticity within the past hour.”

Obi-Wan felt a frown crawl onto his forehead at the way Anakin now referred to the Chancellor’s Office as we …

“Clone Intelligence,” Mace said heavily, “reports to us.”

“I beg your pardon, Master Windu, but that is no longer the case.” Though Anakin’s expression was perfectly solemn, Obi-Wan thought he could detect a hint of satisfaction in his young friend’s voice. “I thought it had been already made clear. The constitutional amendment bringing the Jedi under the Chancellor’s Office naturally includes troops commanded by Jedi. Palpatine is now Supreme Commander of the Grand Army of the Republic.”

“Pointless it is, to squabble over jurisdiction,” the image of Yoda said. “Act on this, we must.”

“I believe we all agree on that,” Anakin said briskly. “Let’s move to the operational planning. The Chancellor has requested that I lead this mission, and so I—”

“The Council will decide this,” Mace said sternly. “Not the Chancellor.”

“Dangerous, Grievous is. To face him, steady minds are needed. Masters, we should send.”

Perhaps of all the Council, only Obi-Wan could detect the shadow of disappointment and hurt that crept into Anakin’s eyes. Obi-Wan understood perfectly, and could even sympathize: to take the field would have slipped Anakin out from under the pressures of what he saw as his conflicting duties.

“Given the strain on our current resources,” Mace Windu said, “I recommend we send only one Jedi—Master Kenobi.”

Which would leave Mace