There are ways to get around any system."
"It seems pretty tight to me," Anakin remarked casually.
Several students glanced at Anakin curiously as they passed by. Reymet shoved his datapad into his pocket with a rough gesture. "You'd better not be seen talking to me. Nobody talks to me."
"What about your friends?" Anakin asked.
Reymet scowled. "I don't have friends." He quickened his pace and disappeared into the crowd. Ferus appeared next to Anakin. "Interesting."
"You heard?"
"Every word. I pick up something from him…" "Me too. Not a darkness.
Maybe just… confusion."
"He has something to hide," Ferus declared. "It could be anything, though. It isn't much of a clue." "It's a place to start," Anakin said.
Chapter Four
The dining hall was a paneled room with soft, recessed lighting and thick red veda cloth hangings at the windows that muffled sound and cast a rosy glow on the diners. It was just like the exclusive restaurants Anakin had glimpsed on Coruscant — just like the spots the students were used to eating in, he was sure. And, like an exclusive restaurant, seating in the dining hall was subject to an unspoken code.
It hadn't taken Anakin long to realize that the best tables were by the windows and he was not welcome there. He didn't know why he felt a coolness from most of the students, but he definitely felt it. When he was looking for a seat at a table, an empty chair would be pushed aside to another table, or a datapad or a pile of durasheet notes would be quickly placed on the seat. It was clear that no one wanted to sit with him. There was a power elite in the school, and everyone else fell in around it.
Yet Ferus had been accepted almost immediately, and had his pick of places to sit. Was it because word had gotten out that he belonged to a powerful family on his homeworld?