Kevmo turned quietly, but then he heard a gasp and Rilly said, “Calm down, baby, we have all night.”

  “No, I have to get back,” Treze said. His voice was muffled, but Kevmo definitely understood the next sentence: “I have a job bright and early.”

  “But the port is a wreck, I heard,” said Rilly. “The ships can’t even start, and there’s no comms.”

  The port! Kevmo remembered Marda telling him about the Children leaving Dalna to preach, but no way was this Mikkian a loyal advocate of the Path.

  “The Mother has her ways,” Treze said. “Come on. Let’s go.” Kevmo heard footsteps moving away from the window. “If you stop hassling me about it, I’ll bring you something pretty.”

  “Oooo, what?”

  “Some bauble or other shiny. We’re going someplace sure to be filled with stuff like that this time, and…”

  The voices were too muffled for Kevmo to hear more.

  He stood there for a moment in the gloomy, stinky alley and thought. The Children and the Mother were the only ones who left Dalna, so this had to be about them, but they weren’t going to proselytize if Treze knew what he was talking about.

  There was no clear proof but a lot of circumstantial evidence that he and Master Zallah were right about the Path being behind the missing Rod of Seasons. If so, it had to be in those caverns somewhere, or up on that ship they were building, the Gaze Electric. Kevmo sighed. He hadn’t wanted to be right about this. Even if he trusted absolutely that Marda wasn’t involved, she’d be devastated when she found out. Both by the Mother’s betrayal and by Kevmo being the one to make her see it.

  Shoulders slumped, Kevmo picked his way back out of the alley and headed down the final stretch of muddy street to the port.

  The same three ships sat on the flattened field, but detritus was everywhere, and the shipping vessel’s runners were covered in what looked like old vines. Similar plants tangled near the Jedi’s skiff. One of the landing feet was bent, causing the entire skiff to lean precariously. It looked like a couple of the forward sensors had been stripped away, too. That was going to take time to fix. And maybe parts they didn’t have. They could get somewhere else without a few sensors but not with broken landing gear.

  Across the way, the relay and communications office was missing a good portion of its wall. Kevmo gaped for a moment. The inner guts of the building had half spilled out—chairs and datascreens and a surprising amount of bolts and rusty panels—but it looked like a lot of the tech was intact. He approached and found the blond human sheriff crunching across the floor in boots. She turned her head fast when she heard him, a scowl on her face. She wore an old headset and covered the speaker with her hand. “Your Zallah Macri is in the ship,” she called to him, waving with her other hand.

  Kevmo returned her salute and jogged for the skiff.

  The ramp was extended and the doors gaping, and Kevmo walked carefully up into the uneven cabin. He entered, brushing invisible humidity out of his face. It was steamy, and he wondered if something had caught fire.

  “Master Zallah?” he called.

  “Back here, Kev!” she yelled, sounding like something was in her mouth.

  He found her in the cockpit, on her back surrounded by wires as she stuck her arm up to her shoulder into the control panel directly under the yoke. Her eyes were cast up, but there was indeed a laser cutter clenched in her teeth.

  “Hey, do you need help?” Kevmo hunkered down. “Was there a fire?”

  Zallah grunted, then dragged herself out of the underbelly of the console. She spat the laser cutter into her hand. “Just a few sparks when I uncoupled the yoke. Water was up to my knees when I first managed to pry the doors open. It must’ve gotten in when the landing foot was broken, up at the bulkhead. When it dries, I expect a lot to go back to normal, but we need a new compressor under here, and they don’t have any on planet. I sent word to Port Haileap—and Batuu while I was at it, just in case—but I think we’re stuck here for at least a week.”

  Kevmo tried very, very hard to ignore the tiny explosion of joy at knowing he’d be able to see Marda again, after all. “Are you all right, otherwise?”

  Zallah wiped sweat from her silvery forehead and sat up. She eyed him coolly for a moment, taking in his bedraggled, muddy state. “Are you?”

  “Mmhmm,” he hummed through a reassuring smile. “We didn’t lose anybody out at the Path compound, though it was close.”

  “And?”

  “I used the Force in front of several of their members, to save someone, and…” He took a deep breath. “I think it went all right. Then we fortified their storage barn and hunkered down until yesterday, but there was so much to do, I thought I should stay and help. Did you get my message? I thought I heard you reply, but the comlink was fuzzy.”

  “The local beacons were down, so they were working on their own range, but yes. Jinx got it hooked back up with a relay up in orbit, so we at least have that.”

  Kevmo nodded. “That’s how you sent word to Port Haileap.”

  “Yes. What’s got you so worked up?”

  With a little grimace and hoping she could tell only because she knew him so well and could feel ripples in the Force around him, Kevmo said, “I think I know where the Path could be hiding the rod—those caverns. We thought they’d be a good place, but now I’ve seen them, and it’s extremely likely, if they’re behind the theft, it’s down there.”

  “And?”

  “Marda taught me how to navigate the tunnels.”

  “Good,” Zallah said without inflection. Then she waited.

  Under her cool lilac gaze Kevmo drew himself together even more. “I sensed something in the tunnels—I was using the Force, but it was an emergency, so I didn’t have time to investigate. But I felt something that I think might be a different Force-related artifact.”

  Zallah’s gaze sharpened. “You know it’s different because?”

  “It was the dark side.”

  His master’s jaw clenched like she was holding back a curse.

  “And…”

  “More?” she bit out.

  “I also overheard one of the Children discussing a new job, tomorrow, and it’s offworld. I don’t know how they can get offworld when everything is a disaster like this—”

  “Smugglers always have their ways.”

  Kevmo nodded.

  “Did you meet their Mother?”

  “No!” Kevmo shrugged in frustration. “It’s strange—she wasn’t around at all. Marda said she was likely holed up in her cottage, in harmony with the Force during the chaos of the storm. But…while all her people were in the barn, and afraid? The Herald and the rest of the Elders were present. I even met Marda’s cousin. I don’t think she likes me.”

  “Does she need to like you?” Zallah allowed a hint of humor to creep into her tone.

  Kevmo laughed sadly at himself. “Maybe the Mother was on the Gaze Electric. They could be hiding a lot on that ship, too.”

  Zallah’s face fell into a thoughtful frown. “I am going to try to discover the manifest for that ship, and where the money is coming from, while I help Jinx fix up the station office. And if the Children are leaving tomorrow, we should be able to see it, even if it’s not taking off from this port. Since we’re stuck here a few more days, we might as well be patient.”

  “Even if they take the rod off planet?”

  “They may have already, but if we lose sight of it, we’ll find it again.”

  Her confidence was easy to sink into. Kevmo felt his smile solidify.

  Then Master Zallah said, “Tell me more about Marda, Kev. I can tell you have more to say.”

  He winced, but nodded. “I told her about Jedha, and I think she’s intrigued. She thinks the Path should have representation in the Convocation.”

  “And you encouraged her.”

  “I did—should I not have?”

  Master Zallah shook her head slowly. “What matters is your motivation for doing so. Do you know?”

  “It’s complicated—but true. I’m not sure what to do about how I feel about her, Master Zallah.”

  The Soikan Jedi merely waited him out. Kevmo sank onto his haunches and let himself open his walls to the Force. The warmth seeped in, lighting him up as it always did. He breathed deeply. Poked at his feelings. “I think…I think I’m not in conflict,” he said. “I know what I’m supposed to be doing, and I want to listen to the Force and do my duty as a Jedi. I just also…like her a lot. Those things don’t have to be in conflict, do they?”

  “You’re allowed to like people and things, Apprentice.”

  Kevmo nodded eagerly. “I feel like knowing her matters. Maybe for this situation with the Rod of Seasons, or maybe something bigger with the Path we will be involved in. Or maybe it’s about Jedha—she lit up, really, when we were discussing it. I want…I want her to find her place in the Force.” Kevmo nodded again, mostly to himself, but caught his master’s eye.

  Zallah held his gaze, her look penetrating, so Kevmo kept talking: “A lot of what she says, what she believes, makes sense to me. The gifts freely given, the desire to live in harmony with the Force…Oh.”

  “Oh, indeed,” Zallah said.

  “I’m looking for my place in the Force. My place here on the frontier, with the Jedi.”

  Master Zallah’s lip curved at one end, her tiny smile of pride. Then she made her face expressionless and cool again. “It is good Marda Ro and this place are helping you understand yourself. Doing so is the only way to eventually learn to breathe with the Force, to live as one with it. But, Kevmo—remember that you do already know the Force. You know what it is and what it is to you.” She reached out and put her fist against his chest. “It’s that sun inside you, and it is the Force that lights you up. The Force that lights her up, too. If your association allows both of you to grow brighter, that is all to the good. But do not confuse your shared brightness in the Force for something more powerful than the Force.”

  “There’s nothing more powerful than the Force,” he said, feeling the truth of the statement as Master Zallah’s advice settled him.

  Zallah huffed, then said, “All right, help me with this mess so that once we manage to complete our mission, we have a way to get off this rock.”

  Night had fallen, and Marda drew a deep breath, letting it out slowly in relief. She was finally clean, slightly chilly from a quick riverside bath, but eager to return to her own cell for the first time in days. The Littles were tucked in and sleeping, all of them, even the most rowdy Jerid and fearful Utalir. They’d exhausted her in the past few days, especially before they were released from the barn.

  Kevmo had been such a blessing at her side. Cheerful, strong, good with the children, and so ready to help anyone in need. He’d saved the Kessarine baby’s life. And Er Dal’s, as well. With the Force. In that moment Marda had not cared at all. She had flung her beliefs away in the face of danger. But could the Force ever truly will for living beings to die in such a violent way, and so young?

  Of course she’d absolved Kevmo of the stirrings of guilt he’d expressed. The sin had been her own. And still she couldn’t regret it.

  Perhaps it was the selfish Evereni in her.

  She would have time to explore her doubts, through the hard work of putting the Path back in order. Without Kevmo, who had returned to his master, and—

  Marda thought she might not see him again. At least not on Dalna.

  Stars glittered overhead, and the smallest moon rose in its tentative pink glory. Marda walked slowly through the grasses back to the road, her thin boots sticking to the mud. When the suns finally dried out this plain, the grass crushed by the flood might end up as mud bricks. It was good the Path didn’t use this area for farming. Their fields had been destroyed, of course. Marda hadn’t seen it herself, but she’d listened to Efrik’s report that afternoon before the communal feast. They were going to be hungry—except, thanks to the Mother’s message, a generous donation had been made by one of their benefactors, and it would see the Path through the end of the summer and winter. That announcement had turned their impromptu meal to use up the perishable foods into a true thanking feast.

  Marda paused under the stars and closed her eyes, held her hands out, palms up, and murmured thanks to the Force for sending the Mother to them all those years before.

  “Marda Ro.”

  Gasping in surprise, Marda opened her eyes to see the Herald standing at the edge of the narrow road leading back to the cells. The moonlight cast pink highlights on the ruined greenish stubs of his tendrils, and his eyes were as wide and black as the sky.

  She bowed over her open hands. “Herald.”

  “Join me,” he said.

  Marda stomped as lightly as possible through the squashed wet grasses until she reached the road. “Is all well?”

  The Herald tilted his head toward her and frowned.

  Marda’s blood ran cold. “Herald,” she whispered. Was it his wife? She’d seemed so lively at the feast. Or the Mother—who hadn’t attended. Maybe she wasn’t meditating safely as promised, but injured or in the throes of a terrible Force vision.

  He settled one large hand on her shoulder. His warmth melted through her robes. “Nothing is immediately wrong. All of our people are safe. But I cannot truly say that all is well.”

  How did he know? Marda wondered. What had she done to reveal her doubts? Marda clicked her teeth nervously and fell in beside the Herald as he walked. His hand remained on her shoulder, so perhaps there was room for her absolution. “Herald,” she murmured.

  “Marda,” he replied with infinite gentleness.

  It gave her courage. “How do we hold on to the Path, even when it is hard? In the face of something like this flood that nearly destroyed us?”

  “The Force is not interested in easy ways or hard ways,” he said. “Its will arcs toward life, toward harmony, clarity, and freedom. But the galaxy does not. The Path of the Open Hand exists to create space for the Force to be free. Free of our desires, free of the desires and will of others. We live alongside the Force.”

  “In harmony,” she said. “Aris Ade said that we must give back to the Force. That true harmony is active. We must be participants, not merely passive recipients of its gifts, or any gifts.”

  “That is true. I give to you, you give to me. We do not take.”

  We liberate, Marda thought. Making space for the Force to be free, they called it, but others, including the Jedi, would consider it a crime.

  “The Jedi…” Marda began. She was unsure how to ask her question.

  “Take. I am aware of what that young man did for us, but it was not the Path. I am glad he is gone.”

  “But, Herald—it was a gift. For us. For me and the Kessarine. Kevmo took from the Force, I know, but it was to give to us. He saved their lives. How can I condemn that?” Tears thickened her voice.

  “Have you considered that his gift to you might have cost someone else dearly?” the Herald asked coldly. “That is the way of the Force. Take here and deprive the galaxy elsewhere. A false will imposed here, a vacuum there. We do not know what the ripples will do, but we do know that they exist.”

  Marda knew this. She did. It made her chest ache, and she clutched at her collar, let her nails snag her robe. “The Force allows the Jedi to use it. They are sensitive and can reach for it. Is that not something the Force must want?”

  “Marda,” the Herald chided. “It is a challenge to resist using the Force if one is able, but a worthy challenge. A necessary one. You could take food from those smaller than you, weaker than you, but you do not. You could pluck fruit from a tree. It is right there, waiting, easily taken. But you do not. Does the tree want to be stripped of its fruit?”

  Marda lowered her gaze.

  “The babies, Er Dal, they live, but who will die in their place? Someone we know, perhaps. Perhaps someone far in the Core Worlds and we will never know. That is the cost of abusing the Force, even if the gain is lives. They may have been saved another way. We all might be wiped out by a similar flood one day. The Force must be free.”

  “The Force will be free,” Marda murmured.

  For a while, they walked in silence, each contemplating and enjoying the beauty of the night. As they left the grassland along the floodplain of the river, they entered the sparse forest and flowery meadows nearer the compound. Marda stopped. Something glowed against the ground.

  The Herald paused with her. Through the low brush, the remains of lompop flowers, Marda spied little blobs of cool blue and violet. As they watched, the lights moved up the bent stems as if crawling. All around them, hundreds of the little lights crawled up from the mud and hung on the bobbing ends of ruined flowers.

  Suddenly, one leapt into the sky. Another followed and then a swirl of them. They floated around, drifting with the delicate breeze.

  They were like glow worms, but their light was constant. More like stars fallen to the planet, struggling to free themselves from gravity and return to the sky. Marda could hardly breathe from delight and awe.

  The Herald reached out and caught one in two cupped hands. Marda leaned nearer, and the Herald lowered his hands, opening them carefully so they could peer into the cave of his palms. A little bug bobbed between his fingers, its entire body glowing purple.

  “It looks like a flutterbug larva, but I’ve never seen one do this when it unfurled its wings.”

  “Do flutterbugs hatch in the mud?”

  The Herald gently tossed the glowing bug up, and it drifted away. “I suspect this is a variant that hibernates deep in the ground and only emerges when the ground is softened by a great flood.”

  “Oh,” Marda breathed. The flood that destroyed so much, killed people in town, nearly killed some of the Path, was the only reason these little star bugs woke up and flew.

  “Dalna may have preferred to sacrifice some of its people for the good of these creatures,” the Herald mused. “Who knows what greater role they play in the ecosystem, in the health of the entire world.”