Chapter Text
Otherwise this stone would seem defaced
beneath the translucent cascade of the shoulders
and would not glisten like a wild beast’s fur:
would not, from all the borders of itself,
burst like a star: for here there is no place
that does not see you. You must change your life.
— Rainer Maria Rilke, Archaic Torso of Apollo
The day had started promisingly enough.
Luthen had been away for three days on a trip that started with acquiring a Naboo Gungan ceremonial lance but in actuality involved a favor for an anarchist named Saw Guerrera. There were weapons disguised in the hold and a half-sketched out plan involving an Imperial listening outpost. Luthen had been whistling an off-key drinking song Kleya when he left, a sure sign that whatever was planned was both dangerous and high-yield.
In the absence of scheduled clients, Kleya's job was mostly limited to operating the fractal radio. Normally there would be other contacts to meet and messages to convey, but there had been a surprising lull in activity. She could do whatever she pleased as long as she also handled the stray walk-in client.
She had inquired if she could simply close the store and instead had received a lecture from Luthen about how activity patterns, once established, should not be broken. A day off might attract attention. She had agreed with him simply to escape the rest of the talk. Luthen had been curiously on edge, and she hoped that some time in the field might settle him down.
Today, the first customer was an Imperial Army officer so resplendent in his crisp dress grays that even from behind the frosted glass, she imagined she could smell the starch that kept the high collar razor-sharp. His gaze was sharp and hungry as he looked around.
Imperial officers weren't an unusual sight, even if they raised her hackles, and sometimes they shared interesting tidbits of information to a young woman who showed an interest. So she laid on the charm and let him orbit the shop's perimeter until he focused on the Ahto City figurines. The figurines were not true pre-Republic, though one of her forger friends had almost gotten the glazing right. She had them on consignment, and had no plans to sell them as authentic unless the buyer was too stupid to notice.
She let him summon her with a lazy crook of two fingers, as if she were a serving droid. Most days she could dissociate the petty grievances from the larger meaning of her life, and she smiled at him as if she didn't also itch to put her fingers around his throat.
He wanted a story, and she gave him one of her better ones, the one about the figurines being smuggled out of Ahto City by a mad Count, how each piece was carved in honor of a fallen lover. The story came easily. They always did; sometimes she wondered if she remembered how to stop.
The Army officer nodded as she talked, watching her handle them with colorless eyes. She wasn't sure what about them had drawn his interest, and half suspected he was here to kill time rather than for a specific purpose.
By then, two more clients had wandered into the shop and she left him to his browsing to attend to a holostar's personal assistant and an Ithorian diplomat.
The Ithorian squeezed itself between two display pedestals, one long neck craning toward a genuine frieze from one of the moons of Dabrilo. The holostar's assistant, dressed improbably in tight strips of fabric that looked difficult to walk in, asked if all the statuary on the top shelf was authentic, clearly hoping for a better price.
"They're not for sale," Kleya replied, which was meant to be rude. She was tired of these interlopers in her space, longed to shed the polite concierge and get back to the listening post. The last report from one of Luthen's contacts was two days overdue. Not unusual, but enough to nag at the back of her mind.
She was in the middle of haggling with the Ithorian when she noted the army officer's posture go rigid, his gaze fixed on the window.
Curious.
He had been browsing a soapstone idol; now he nearly dropped it. He set it down too quickly and made for the door with a purposeful stride. The holostar's assistant noticed, looked up from her comms, and the Ithorian's necks rotated toward the door with interest.
The doorbell jingled again as the new customer entered.
Gleaming white uniform, distinctive cobalt skin. Kleya's pulse tripped a beat.
He waited just long enough for the departing officer to clear the block, then entered casually, a human male aide by his side.
Of course. Of kriffing course.
Kleya's fingers tightened around the edge of the display case until her knuckles ached. She had been looking forward to quiet surveillance and orderly ledgers. She should not be surprised Grand Admiral Thrawn chose today to materialize in her gallery like the blue-skinned specter of poor decisions.
The Ithorian diplomat was asking about export permits, but it was difficult to hear over the blood rushing in her ears.
He was here, in her space. When she had invited him to the shop, cornered by Moff Pandion and forced into politeness, she hadn't actually meant it.
He moved through the space with casual authority. Worse, she had the sense he was cataloging it. Her irritation grew.
Thrawn paused before the display case with the Ahto City figurines, lightly touched the glazing of the nearest, then moved on to a Mandalorian tapestry hanging nearby. She told herself it meant nothing. But she couldn't shake the sense that he'd seen exactly what she didn't want him to see.
Thrawn paused before the tapestry, head tilted in consideration. Then he leaned toward the aide and murmured something too low for her to catch. The aide's expression shifted. He nodded once, then his gaze swept the gallery with new purpose.
She watched, half-amused, as the man stepped toward the holostar's assistant first, all pleasant smiles and practiced charm. "Ma'am, I'm afraid we'll need the gallery cleared for a private consultation. Imperial Navy business, you understand." His tone was pleasant enough, but there was no mistaking the dismissal.
The assistant's mouth opened, closed, opened again. "I was told this establishment—"
"Imperial business," he repeated firmly, and something in his voice made the woman gather her bag without another word.
The Ithorian required more persuasion, including a gentle hand on one of its arms, a murmured assurance about rescheduling, but within two minutes, both clients were shuffling toward the exit.
Kleya watched as the man made one final visual sweep of the gallery before positioning himself at the entrance, letting the door shut behind him.
The gallery contracted. Where minutes before it had been crowded with bodies and noise, now there was sudden silence. It would have been a relief, if not for the last person in her space.
Through all of this, Thrawn had not moved from his contemplation of the Mandalorian weaving.
"You said you'd call," she said. She had believed him. She heard her own voice pitched too high and sharp, and regretted it instantly. She should, at the very least, pretend to be in control of herself.
He gave her a measured look. "I did. Check your queue."
She raised her comm, forced herself to check, found the timestamp from ten minutes before his entrance.
Kleya set her comm down next to the case of figurines a little harder than necessary. "You could have warned me."
"I’m warning you now." He turned from the tapestry, finally, and faced her. The light caught the sharp planes of his face. "I require a favor."
She couldn't help herself. She laughed. "I don't recall owing you one."
His eyes narrowed with displeasure. "That’s not how I view it.”
She had wondered before why Thrawn had given her the raid warning. Now she knew.
“You implied that was in return for me for helping you with Corla,” she said, crossing her arms.
He raised an eyebrow. “That was your interpretation. But certainly not how I intended it. After all, favors count for more than credits.”
She stiffened at having her own words thrown back at her. “What kind of favor?"
Something flickered across his face. There and gone, too quick to read. He took a half-step closer, not quite breaching the professional distance but making her aware of the space between them.
"This gallery," he said quietly. "It is not as private as you imagine."
She tensed. "What do you mean?"
"You are being watched."
She felt the familiar sting of compromised safehouses and burned contacts, the long walk to a rendezvous point that wouldn't come. She had been careful.
"By whom?" Her voice and hands were steady.
He shook his head.
"Show me something," he said. "Anything further inside." He didn't look at the windows, but his meaning was clear enough.
She should send him away. Whatever he was offering came with strings, and she already owed him more than she wanted to name. Every instinct built over years of this work told her to cut the tie between them, sweep the gallery herself and find what he was claiming was there, or prove the lie.
But if he was telling the truth, she was exposed, possibly for days. And Luthen was off-world, unreachable, running an operation too important to be interrupted by a compromised storefront. This was her problem to solve.
He was watching her, silent, as if he already knew what she would choose. No one else looked at her like that. No one else was left who could.
She should absolutely send him away.
Kleya turned toward the back of the gallery. "This way."
Intelligence, she told herself. She needed to know who was watching, and why. She could handle this. Handle him. Weeks now, and nothing had slipped.
The lies were getting easier.