It was the man she'd seen so many times back on Coruscant.
She stopped short, her whole body going taut. Brooks didn't notice, but continued the rest of the way to the table. "Hey, Jinzler," he said, gesturing toward her. "Want to introduce you to someone."
The young man turned the rest of the way around in his chair. "No need," he said, his voice steady but edged with an unpleasant mixture of tension and bitterness. "Jedi Lorana Jinzler, I presume."
With an effort, Lorana found her voice. "Yes," she said. The word came out calmer than she had expected it to. "Dean Jinzler, I presume."
"You two know each other?" Brooks asked, frowning back and forth between them.
"Hardly," Jinzler said. "She's only my sister."
"Your-?" Brooks stared at him, then at Lorana. "But I thought-"
"Thank you," Lorana said, catching his eye and nodding microscopically toward the door.
"Uh.. yeah." Still staring at them in confusion, Brooks backed away between the tables, his hands groping behind him for obstacles. He reached the door and escaped from the room.
"I suppose you're going to want to sit down," Jinzler said, an edge of challenge in his voice.
Lorana turned her attention back to him. He was gazing up at her with the same bitterness she'd noted at their other near encounters. His eyes, contrary to her expectations, weren't dark but were instead the same odd shade of gray as hers. "Yes," she said, circling to a chair at the far side of the table. Gathering her robes around her, she eased down into it.
"I suppose I should congratulate you on passing the trials," Jinzler said. "You're a real Jedi now."
"Thank you," Lorana said, searching his face. Therewas a family resemblance there, she could see. Strange that she'd never noticed it before. "You keep up on such things?"
"My parents do." His mouth tightened. "Ourparents do," he corrected himself.
"Yes," she murmured. "I'm afraid I don't know anything about them. Or about you."
"No, of course not," he said. "ButI know everything aboutyou. Everything, from your youngling training, to your apprenticeship to Jorus C'baoth, to your first lightsaber, to your elevation to Jedi Knighthood."
"I'm impressed," Lorana said, trying a hesitant smile.
"Don't be," he said, not returning the smile. "I only know because my parents had a friend who still worked inside the Temple. They rammed your every accomplishment down my throat. They loved you, you know." He snorted gently. "No. Of course you don't. You never bothered to find out."
He dropped his eyes from her face and took a sip from his mug. Lorana gazed at him, wincing at the anger and bitterness flowing toward her like the steam from his drink. What had she done to make him so angry? "We weren't allowed as Padawans to know anything about our families," she said into the silence. "Even now that I'm a Jedi, it's still frowned on."
"Yeah," he said. "Sure."
"And there are good reasons for it," she continued doggedly. "There are many worlds in the Republic where family connections and position are the most important parts of their culture. A Jedi who knew which family she'd come from might find it impossible to deal impartially in any of her people's disputes."
"Doesn't stop the family from findingyou, though, does it?" he shot back. "Because mine sure did. Even after your precious Jedi got them fired, they still managed to keep tabs on you-"
"Wait a minute," Lorana interrupted him. "What do you mean, they got them fired? Who got them fired?"
"You Jedi have hearing problems?" he demanded. "I already told you: one of your high and mighty Jedi. Mom and Dad were civilian workers at the Temple, handling electronics maintenance and repair in the public areas. They were good at it, too. Only after you were taken, they got fired. Your Jedi didn't want them even in the same building with you, I guess."
Lorana felt her stomach tighten. She wasn't familiar with this particular incident, though there had been others she'd heard of. But it was clear that it would do no good to give her brother the rationale behind the Temple's strict isolation policy. "Were they able to find other jobs?"
"No, we all starved to death," he retorted. "Of course they found other jobs. Lower-paying jobs, of course, jobs where they had to scramble to get us packed and moved because no one had even bothered to tell them they couldn't stay on at the Temple once you were there. But that's not the point."
"Then whatis the point?"
For a long minute he just stared at her, his turmoil surging like the ocean's edge in a winter storm. "You Jedi think you're perfect," he said at last. "You think you know what's right for everyone and everything. Well, you're not, and you don't."
Lorana felt her throat tighten. "What happened to you, Dean?" she asked gently.
"Oh, so now it'sDean, is it?" he said scornfully. "Nowyou want to pretend you're my loving big sister? You think you can wave your hand or your precious lightsaber and make it all up to me?"
"Makewhat up to you?" Lorana persisted. "Please. I want to know."
"I thought you Jedi knew everything."
Lorana sighed. "No, of course not."
"Well, you'd never know that by listening to our parents," he bit out. "You were the perfect one, the one all the rest of us were measured against. Lorana would have done this, Lorana would have done that; Lorana would have said this, Lorana wouldnever had said that. It was like living with a minor deity. And so completely absurd-they couldn't possibly have the slightest idea what you might actually do or say in some situation. You could barely evenwalk when they sent you away."
His eyes hardened even further. "But of course, youwere away, weren't you? That's what made the whole thing work. You were never around to make mistakes or lose your temper or drop dinner all over the floor. They could set up their little shrine to you without ever having to see anything that might burst the bubble of perfection they'd built around you."
He scooped up his mug, but set it down again without drinking. "ButI know," he growled, staring into it. "I've been watching you. You're not perfect. You're not even close to perfect."
Lorana thought back across the wearying years of her training, and C'baoth's constant criticism. "No," she murmured. "I'm not."
"You're not very observant, either." He gestured at her. "Let me see that fancy weapon of yours."