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Starstone shot him a gimlet look. “Don’t even think about being number twenty-one.”

Shryne let his sudden seriousness show. “Despite your claims for me, I’m not a Master, and there is no order. How many times are you going to have to hear it before you accept the truth?”

She compressed her lips. “That has no bearing on being a Jedi. And you can’t be a Jedi and serve the Force if your attention is divided or if you’re emotionally involved with others. Love leads to attachment; attachment to greed.”

So much for Olee and Filli Bitters, Shryne thought.

At the same time, Jula was regarding Starstone as if the young Jedi had lost her mind. “They certainly did a bang-up job on you, didn’t they.” She held Starstone’s gaze. “Olee, love is about all we have left.”

Instead of reacting to the remark, Starstone said: “Are you going to help us or not?”

“I already said I would.” Standing up, Jula gave Shryne a look. “But just so we understand each other, Roan? You and I both know that you don’t have access to any ‘secret funds.’ You make one more attempt at using Force persuasion on any members of my crew, and I may forget that I’m your mother.”

Darth Sidious had had most of his beloved Sith statues and ancient bas-reliefs removed from his ruined chambers in the Senate Office Building, where four Jedi had lost their lives and one had been converted to the dark side. Relocated to the throne room, the statues had been placed on the dais, the scuptures mounted on the long walls.

Swiveling his throne, Sidious gazed at them now.

As some Jedi had feared from the start, Anakin had been ripe for conversion when Qui-Gon Jinn had first brought him to the Temple, and for well over a decade all of Sidious’s plans for the boy had unfolded without incident. But even Sidious hadn’t foreseen Anakin’s defeat by Obi-Wan Kenobi on Mustafar. Anakin had still been between worlds then, and vulnerable. The failure to defeat his former Master had worked to prolong that vulnerability.

Sidious recalled the desperate return trip to Coruscant; recalled using all his powers, and all the potions and devices contained in his medkit, to minister to Anakin’s hopelessly blistered body and truncated limbs.

He recalled thinking: What if Anakin should die?

How many years would he have had to search for an apprentice even half as powerful in the Force, let alone one created by the Force itself to restore balance, by allowing the dark side to percolate fully to the surface after a millennium of being stifled?

None would be found.

Sidious would have had to discover a way to compel midichlorians to do his bidding, and bring into being one as powerful as Anakin. As it was, Sidious and a host of medical droids had merely restored Anakin to life, which—while no small feat—was a far cry from returning someone from death. For thousands of years, the ability to survive death had been pursued by Sith and Jedi alike, and no one had been successful at discovering the secret. Beings had been saved from dying, but no one had cheated death. The most powerful of the ancient Sith Lords had known the secret, but it had been lost or, rather, misplaced. Now that the galaxy was his to rule, there was nothing to prevent Sidious, too, from unlocking that mystery.

Then he and his crippled apprentice might hold sway over the galaxy for ten thousand years, and live eternally.

If they didn’t kill each other first.

In large part because Padmé Amidala had died.

Sidious had deliberately brought her and Anakin together three years earlier, both to rid the Senate of her vote against the Military Creation Act and to put temptation in Anakin’s path. Following the murder of Anakin’s mother, Anakin had secretly married Padmé. When he had learned of the marriage, Sidious knew for certain that Anakin’s pathological attachment to her would eventually supply the means for completing his conversion to the dark side.

Anakin’s fears for her, in actuality and in visions—and especially after Padmé had become pregnant—had been heightened by keeping him far from her. Then it simply had