He couldn't argue. He couldn't even make himself disbelieve.

He had only one thought.

Padme . . . ?

How much trouble was she in?

"Didn't I warn you, Anakin? Didn't I tell you what Obi-Wan was up to? Why do you think he was meeting with the leaders of this . . . delegation .

. . behind your back?"

"But-but, sir, please, surely, all they asked for is an end to the war. It's what the Jedi want, too. I mean, it's what we all want, isn't it? Isn't it?"

"Perhaps. Though how that end comes about may be the single most important thing about the war. More important, even, than who wins."

Oh, Padme, Anakin moaned inside his head. Padme, what have you gotten yourself into?

"Their . . . sincerity . . . may be much to be admired," Palpatine said. "Or it would be, were it not that there was much more to that meeting than met the eye."

Anakin frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Their . . . pet.i.tion . . . was nothing of the sort. It was, in fact a not-so-veiled threat." Palpatine sighed regretfully. "It was a show of force, Anakin. A demonstration of the political power the Jedi will be able to muster in support of their rebellion."

Anakin blinked. "But-but surely-" he stammered, rounding Palpatine's desk, "surely Senator Amidala, at least, can be trusted ..."

"I understand how badly you need to believe that," the Chancellor said. "But Senator Amidala is hiding something. Surely you sensed it."

"If she is-" Anakin swayed; the floor seemed to be tilting under his feet like the deck of Invisible Hand. "Even if she is," he said, his voice flat, overcontrolled, "it doesn't mean that what she is hiding is treason."

Palpatine's brows drew together. "I'm surprised your Jedi insights are not more sensitive to such things."

"I simply don't sense betrayal in Senator Amidala," Anakin insisted.

Palpatine leaned back in his chair, steepling his fingers, studying Anakin skeptically. "Yes, you do," he said after a moment. "Though you don't want to admit it. Perhaps it is because neither you nor she yet understands that by betraying me, she is also betraying you.''

"She couldn't-" Anakin pressed a hand to his forehead; his dizziness was getting worse. When had he last eaten? He couldn't remember. It might have been before the last time he'd slept. "She could never . . ."

"Of course she could," Palpatine said. "That is the nature of politics, my boy. Don't take it too personally. It doesn't mean the two of you can't be happy together."

"What-?" The room seemed to darken around him. "What do you mean?"

"Please, Anakin. Are we not past the point of playing childish games with one another? I know, do you understand? I have always known. I have pretended ignorance only to spare you discomfort."

Anakin had to lean on the desk. "What-what do you know?"

"Anakin, Padme was my Queen; I was her amba.s.sador to the Senate. Naboo is my home. You of all people know how I value loyalty and friendship; do you think I have no friends among the civil clergy in Theed? Your secret ceremony has never been secret. Not from me, at any rate. I have always been very happy for you both."

"You-" Words whirled through Anakin's mind, and none of them made sense. "But if she's going to betray us-"

"That, my boy," Palpatine said, "is entirely up to you." The fog inside Anakin's head seemed to solidify into a long, dark tunnel. The point of light at the end was Palpatine's face. "I don't-I don't understand ..."

"Oh yes, that's very clear." The Chancellor's voice seemed to be coming from very far away. "Please sit, my boy. You're looking rather unwell. May I offer you something to drink?"

"I-no. No, I'm all right." Anakin sank gratefully into a dangerously comfortable chair. "I'm just-a little tired, that's all."

"Not sleeping well?"

"No." Anakin offered an exhausted chuckle. "I haven't been sleeping well for a few years, now."

"I quite understand, my boy. Quite." Palpatine rose and rounded his desk, sitting casually on its front edge. "Anakin, we must stop pretending. The final crisis is approaching, and our only hope to survive it is to be completely, absolutely, ruthlessly honest with each other. And with ourselves. You must understand that what is at stake here is nothing less than the fate of the galaxy."

"I don't know-"

"Don't be afraid, Anakin. What is said between us here need never pa.s.s beyond these walls. Anakin, think: think how hard it has been to hold all your secrets inside. Have you ever needed to keep a secret from me?"

He ticked his fingers one by one. "I have kept the secret of your marriage all these years. The slaughter at the Tusken camp, you shared with me. I was there when you executed Count Dooku. And I know where you got the power to defeat him. You see? You have never needed to pretend with me, the way you must with your Jedi comrades. Do you understand that you need never hide anything from me? That I accept you exactly as you are?"

He spread his hands as though offering a hug. "Share with me the truth. Your absolute truth. Let yourself out, Anakin."

"I-" Anakin shook his head. How many times had he dreamed of not having to pretend to be the perfect Jedi? But what else could he be? "I wouldn't even know how to begin."

"It's quite simple, in the end: tell me what you want."

Anakin squinted up at him. "I don't understand."

"Of course you don't." The last of the sunset haloed his ice-white hair and threw his face into shadow. "You've been trained to never think about that. The Jedi never ask what you want. They simply tell you what you're supposed to want. They never give you a choice at all. That's why they take their students-their victims-at an age so young that choice is meaningless. By the time a Padawan is old enough to choose, he has been so indoctrinated-so brainwashed-that he is incapable of even considering the question. But you're different, Anakin. You had a real life, outside the Jedi Temple. You can break through the fog of lies the Jedi have pumped into your brain. I ask you again: what do you want?"

"I still don't understand."

"I am offering you . . . anything," Palpatine said. "Ask, and it is yours. A gla.s.s of water? It's yours. A bag full of Corusca gems? Yours. Look out the window behind me, Anakin. Pick something, and it's yours."

"Is this some kind of joke?"

"The time for jokes is past, Anakin. I have never been more serious." Within the shadow that cloaked Palpatine's face, Anakin could only just see the twin gleams of the Chancellor's eves. "Pick something. Anything."

"All right . . ." Shrugging, frowning, still not understanding, Anakin looked out the window, looking for the most ridiculously expensive thing he could spot. "How about one of those new SoroSuub custom speeders-"

"Done."

"Are you serious? You know how much one of those costs?

You could practically outfit a battle cruiser-"

"Would you prefer a battle cruiser?"

Anakin went still. A cold void opened in his chest. In a small, cautious voice, he said, "How about the Senatorial Apartments?"

"A private apartment?"

Anakin shook his head, staring up at the twin gleams in the darkness on Palpatine's face. "The whole building." Palpatine did not so much as blink. "Done."

"It's privately owned-"

"Not anymore."

"You can't just-"

"Yes, I can. It's yours. Is there anything else? Name it." Anakin gazed blankly out into the gathering darkness. Stars began to shimmer through the haze of twilight. A constellation he recognized hung above the spires of the Jedi Temple.

"All right," Anakin said softly. "Corellia. I'll take Corellia."

"The planet, or the whole system?"

Anakin stared.

"Anakin?"

"I just-" He shook his head blankly. "I can't figure out if you're kidding, or completely insane."

"I am neither, Anakin. I am trying to impress upon you a fundamental truth of our relationship. A fundamental truth of yourself'."

"What if I really wanted the Corellian system? The whole Five Brothers-all of it?"

"Then it would be yours. You can have the whole sector, if you like." The twin gleams within the shadow sharpened. "Do you understand, now? I will give you anything you want.''''

The concept left him dizzy. "What if I wanted-what if I went along with Padme and her friends? What if I want the war to end?"

"Would tomorrow be too soon?"

"How-" Anakin couldn't seem to get his breath. "How can you do that?"

"Right now, we are only discussing what. How is a different issue; we'll come to that presently."

Anakin sank deeper into the chair while he let everything sink deeper into his brain. If only his head would stop spinning-why did Palpatine have to start all this now!

This would all be easier to comprehend if the nightmares of Padme didn't keep screaming inside his head.

"And in exchange?" he asked, finally. "What do I have to do?"

"You have to do what you want."

"What I want?"

"Yes, Anakin. Yes. Exactly that. Only that. Do the one thing that the Jedi fear most: make up your own mind. Follow your own conscience. Do what you think is right. I know that you have been longing for a life greater than that of an ordinary Jedi. Commit to that life. I know you burn for greater power than any Jedi can wield; give yourself permission to gain that power, and allow yourself license to use it. You have dreamed of leaving the Jedi Order, having a family of your own-one that is based on love, not on enforced rules of self-denial."

"I-can't... I can't just . . . leave ..."

"But you can."

Anakin couldn't breathe. He couldn't blink.

He sat frozen. Even thought was impossible. "You can have every one of your dreams. Turn aside from the lies of the Jedi, and follow the truth of yourself. Leave them. Join me on the path of true power. Be my friend, Anakin. Be my student. My apprentice."

Anakin's vision tunneled again, but this time there was no light at the far end. He pulled back his hand, and it was shaking as he brought it up to support his face.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I'm sorry, but-but as much as I want those things-as much as I care for you, sir-I can't. I just can't. Not yet. Because there's only one thing I really want, right now. Everything else will just have to wait."

"I know what you truly want," the shadow said. "I have only been waiting for you to admit it to yourself." A hand-a human hand, warm with compa.s.sion-settled onto his shoulder. "Listen to me: I can help you save her?'' "You-"

Anakin blinked blindly. "How can you help?"

"Do you remember that myth I told you of, The Tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise?" the shadow whispered. The myth-... directly influence the midi-chlorians to create life; with such knowledge, to maintain life in someone already living would seem a small matter . . .

"Yes," Anakin said. "Yes, I remember."

The shadow leaned so close that it seemed to fill the world.

"Anakin, it's no mere myth."

Anakin swallowed.

"Darth Plagueis was real."

Anakin could force out only a strangled whisper. "Real . . . ?"

"Darth Plagueis was my Master. He taught me the key to his power," the shadow said, dryly matter-of-fact, "before I killed him."

Without understanding how he had moved, without even intending to move, without any transition of realization or dawning understanding, Anakin found himself on his feet. A blue bar of sizzling energy terminated a centimeter from Palpatine's chin its glow casting red-edged shadows up his face and across the ceiling.

Only gradually did Anakin come to understand that this was his lightsaber, and that it was in his hand.

"You," he said. Suddenly he was neither dizzy nor tired.

Suddenly everything made sense.

"It's you. It's been you all along!"

In the clean blue light of his blade he stared into the face of a man whose features were as familiar to him as his own, but now seemed as alien as an extragalactic comet-because now he finally understood that those familiar features were only a mask.

He had never seen this man's real face.

"I should kill you," he said. "I will kill you!"

Palpatine gave him that wise, kindly-uncle smile Anakin had been seeing since the age of nine. "For what?"

"You're a Sith Lord!"

"I am," he said simply. "I am also your friend."