The room Ma Tomlin had given me was surprisingly warm, a large cube cut from the granite, twice my height and the same length and width. The bathtub was shorter, and warmer, the water steaming in the air. It smelled of mineral salts and thyme.

  Everything was quiet. Even the sound of my breathing seemed to disappear, carried away by the steam as I soaked, letting the warm water and years of meditation training loosen my muscles.

  Why hadn’t I shot the Baylens when I had the chance? Likely, I would have survived. I’d been in similar situations before, and my wards had held out, leaving me with only a few scars and some bad memories. I’d even put friends in danger, and sometimes neutrals.

  Because something had felt wrong. I turned it over in my mind, all the pieces I could gather. They didn’t make any picture I could see. Warmth and water usually helped me think, but today it wasn’t helping.

  Baylen had charged in, full of rage. So full of rage he didn’t button his shirt, didn’t even think of pulling his ridiculously oversized gun.

  Maurice had been with him, also half-dressed, when whatever had triggered Baylen had happened. They'd both looked disheveled.

  Da Baylen hadn’t.

  Da Baylen had come in, dressed in his horrible blue-and-yellow shirt, his goons at the ready. They’d been geared up, doing something, when Baylen had gone voidmunching crackers.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Was Da Baylen the one who’d breached the Bucket and taken the hatchling? In an ugly shirt instead of an enviro-suit? That didn’t make sense.

  Neither did Baylen relaxing and unbuttoning his clothes so shortly after robbing me. He might not have known who or what I was, but the moment he saw the hatchling he would have known what league I played in, and that it was much more lethal than his own.

  I shifted, splashing water, watching soap bubbles soar over the edge, smelling of herbs when they burst. The grit released from my skin settled to the bottom of the tub.

  No, if Baylen knew, he’d have been up and ready, too. Da Baylen had been ready, but he’d shot the chair, not me. If Da Baylen knew, he’d have emptied his entire V-Light into me, and had his goons do the same. And they’d have used Maurice-the-dirt-mage to suppress me.

  The Baylens didn’t know about the hatchling. That was the only possibility. Meaning the Syndicate didn’t know.

  That was the good news.

  But something had triggered Baylen to come charging in, right at me. He'd thought I’d done something, and he wanted revenge. Physical revenge. He’d wanted to beat me to pulp, not kill me in cold blood.

  Emotions.

  What did Baylen value highly enough to make its loss personal? Money? Power? Status? I had no idea. Da Baylen didn’t care about it, whatever it was. He’d come to pick his son up, not gun me down.

  But that was a secondary thing. I could psychologize Baylen when and if I had the time and inclination. Right now, I had a bigger problem.

  Someone had breached the Bucket and taken the hatchling, and it wasn’t the Baylens.

  Suddenly, the persons and politics of Jackson Depot were mighty important. I needed to know more, to put faces to the long list of family names Tomlin had mentioned.

  All the ice had melted from my mind, and the rage had turned to concern. I had to find the hatchling before he woke up, or before the people who had him woke up to what they had. Time to get up and go poke about.

  Besides, the bathwater was getting cold.