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His hair, a shade lighter than black, was fastened at the nape of his neck with a leather thong instead of hanging free down to his shoulders.

Jacen had never seen Zekk's hair like that. His friend's clothes were also different: clean, dark, padded, as if they were a uniform, and much more stylish than the suit he had worn to the diplomatic banquet for the ambassador from Karnak Alpha.

Sitting on chairs or sprawled on ragged cushions sat a dozen tough, hard-bitten kids, all in their middle to late teens. Most were boys, but the few girls looked wild and rugged enough to take Jacen apart piece by piece, like an obsolete droid.

"Hey, Zekk!" Jacen cried. "Where have you been? We've all been worried!"

Startled from his speech, the dark-haired young man drew himself up, frowning at Jacen and Tenel Ka. His green eyes flashed with momentary surprise and delight, but he quickly masked the expression with a scowl.

Zekk appeared to have aged a dozen years in the few days since his disappearance.

"Jacen, now isn't the time," he said in a rough voice.

A brawny boy with close-set eyes and thick eyebrows stood up, glaring. "I don't recall inviting you two." Jacen recognized the bully Norys.

Zekk gestured behind him to calm the burly gang leader. "Let me handle this." Anger showed clearly in Zekk's face as he shook his head at Jacen.

"Why couldn't you have left me alone for just a little longer?"

Jacen scratched his tousled hair, completely baffled. When he stepped forward in confusion, Zekk flinched. "Go away," he whispered, "You'll ruin everything!"

The other Lost Ones stood up from their places like a pack of nek battle dogs zeroing in on a target. Jacen swallowed. Beside him, Tenel Ka placed a protective hand on his shoulder, in case they would be required to fight.

"Zekk, it's us," Jacen pleaded. "We aren't going to ruin anything-we're your friends."

Just then, one of the corroded doors at the far side of the chamber scraped open. "They are not your friends, young Lord Zekk," said a woman's voice, rich and low. "You know better than that now. They may claim to be your friends, but you've seen evidence of just how much they truly value you."

Jacen and Tenel Ka both whirled to see the ominous form of the black-cloaked Nightsister, with her static-charged ebony hair and blazing violet eyes. The upthrust spines on the shoulders of her cloak looked like spears. Two others dressed in similar fashion stood on either side of her: a young dark-haired man and a petite powerhouse of a woman, both of whom looked as rigid as the towering Nightsister herself.

"Tamith Kai... " Jacen acknowledged. "Charming as usual, I see."

"And Garowyn. And Vilas," Tenel Ka said with an astonishing and unexpected expression-a feral smile-on her normally serious face. "So, how is your knee?" she asked Tamith Kai. Her grip on Jacen's shoulder felt tight enough to crack a bone.

The tall woman's face rolled with a thunderstorm of anger. Her wine-dark lips curled down, and she barely controlled her rage at being reminded of how Tenel Ka had humiliated her during the young Jedi Knights' escape from the Shadow Academy. "Jedi brats," she snarled, "You should learn when to leave well enough alone."

"And you should have figured out not to mess with us after the first time," Jacen responded in a challenging tone. "Zekk, what are you doing with these clowns? What sort of nonsense have they been telling you?"

Zekk seemed to waver for a moment, but his voice was strong. "They're offering us-all of us-an opportunity. A chance we never had before."

"Like what?" Jacen said, genuinely mystified. "What could these losers possibly offer you?"

"They're taking us back to the Shadow Academy to train us!" the burly gang leader, Norys, said. "Now we'll have our own shot at being powerful."

"But not everybody has Jedi potential," Jacen said reasonably, trying to keep Zekk talking until he or Tenel Ka could figure out what to do.

"I do. You would have known that