My hands shake as Hanné helps me zip up the suitcase. It is time to return to Naboo. To report to the queen about a near-irrelevant Senate, about years of hard work undone. Time to plant seeds.
Irdé catches my hand and presses a datapad into it. From the screen springs a hologram of architectural schematics. "You said it couldn't be the lake country," she says, "but this place still has a creek nearby."
Tucked into the curve of a hill, the house is a smaller version of the place I once imagined Anakin and I could settle down in together, in those forbidden dreams.
"Thank you, Irdé. It is suitably secluded?"
She nods. "There's a small village a little way away, but it's a satellite dwelling alright. No one should bother you."
"Excellent. Please see that the sale is done – without using my name – and then delete any trace of the place from my devices."
"Of course, Milady."
"Anything else to pack, Milady?" Hanné asks.
I glance about me, not quite seeing my surroundings. "That's probably everything Hanné. Thank you."
"Perhaps a rest, Milady."
I let her guide me to a couch, where I prop up my feet and breathe deep. With this trip, passively avoiding Anakin has become actively planning to leave him. To leave this job that I love. To raise our children alone. The weight of it is almost crushing, but I am used to working under pressure.
Hologram faded, the datapad flashes with colour in Irdé's hand. She fails to suppress a small gasp.
"What is it?"
She meets my gaze. "A message from Dormé. Anakin and Obi-Wan are Coruscant-bound with the rescued Chancellor."
My heart begins to race. Part of me longs for him: to hold him, to see him in the flesh and tell him the miraculous news. But that tender version of him died with the Sand People he slaughtered. My plan has become tenuous.
"What would you like to do, Milady?" Hanné asks gently.
"Contact the shuttle and tell them we will depart as soon as they can possibly be ready. Irdé, you will remain behind with Esmé, and maintain the narrative that this trip was already planned. As far as Anakin need know, I had no clue he was on his way here when I left for a routine visit to the queen."
Irdé, ever reliable, does as I ask, and the shuttle awaits me on the landing strip in the space of half an hour. Hanné and Esmé load my luggage onboard as Dormé rushes to greet me. My longest-serving handmaiden and dear friend slips a discreet hand in mine and squeezes it before we approach the ramp. At its top stands Captain Typho, stern-faced and focused.
"Welcome, Milady," he greets me. "We are all set for departure. And we have an escort."
A starfighter piloted by a clone trooper zooms into view alongside the shuttle. "I'm just here to see you out of orbit, Milady," he rasps through the comm.
"Very well," I nod, and enter the shuttle as its ramp retracts behind us.