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Pol Haus stood waiting for them.

“I thought you were going to keep the sector police out of it,” Jax said as they headed for the lift.

The Zabrak prefect raised his eyebrows. “I did. But when I intercepted a call from one Probus Tesla, an Inquisitor by trade, calling for assistance, I had to take a chance it was over and call my forces in. It’d be pretty suspicious if I hadn’t, wouldn’t it?”

Jax had to admit that it would.

Safely in the studio, there was only one question on Jax’s mind—one he was sure everyone else shared. He turned to Kaj, who sat in the sanctuary, and asked, “What did you do to that Inquisitor—and how?”

The boy shrugged, smiling wanly. “I used to have to bag swamp rats at home. Keep them out of the granary. You pop the alpha female in a sack and take her out in the swamp somewhere and her whole warren will follow. So I popped him in a sack. A very tiny sack.”

Dejah stared at the boy. “But how?”

Kaj’s smile wavered. “I … I don’t know. I’ve never done that before. I just—” He swallowed convulsively. “I just imagined catching the swamp rat and … look, it was an Inquisitor. What does it matter what happened to it?”

Jax drew in a breath. “He, Kaj. Not it. Inquisitors are people, just like us.”

The boy reddened and shook his head. “No. Not just like us. They’re evil. He was evil.” He went to his couch then and lay down on it, turning his back on the others.

Jax gestured for the rest of them to take their discussion upstairs and out of Kaj’s sight and hearing.

“What now?” Laranth asked when they’d reached the living room above the studio.

“Yes,” Rhinann echoed, “what now? Despite your Jedi manipulation of that storekeeper, you may well have blown our cover with your pyrotechnics—”

Jax wheeled on him. “My pyrotechnics? I wasn’t the one who took Kaj out of the gallery for walkies. Couldn’t you have just hidden him in the studio or one of the bedrooms?”

The Elomin’s face went blank. “Hidden him? Why—?”

“That was my fault,” Dejah said quickly, her crimson gaze flickering to Pol Haus. “I was afraid maybe the prefect would come with force. Or that if you told him about Kaj, he’d want to take him in.” She looked up at Jax earnestly. “I didn’t want that to happen to him, Jax. I suppose it was silly of me …” She trailed off, lowering her eyes.

“It happened. We’ll deal with it,” Jax said. “But Rhinann is right about one thing. At the very least we will have called their attention to this area and invited closer inspection. We need to move Kaj again.”

“You could let me take him,” Pol Haus suggested.

Everyone turned to look at him.

He held up both hands as if to deflect their gazes. “I have no intention of turning him over to Vader. I realize,” he added, his eyes on Jax, “that I haven’t had sufficient time to prove my good intentions. Though I did help you today at some risk to myself.”

“Pardon me for saying this,” said I-Five, “but you might also have done that purely for the expedient of gaining our trust. When you called in the sector police to the scene of the ‘disturbance’ just now, you may also have given them this location.”

“I might have,” said Haus imperturbably, “but I didn’t. Forget I made the offer. But I’m here now. If I can help out with this …”

“Wherever we move Kaj,” said Laranth, “we’ll need to move at least some of those sculptures with him. Which could look suspicious if they went to the wrong place. As it happens, I know of an art gallery that would make a perfectly fitting home.”

She was perched on the ledge of a wall niche in which one of Ves Volette’s colleagues had painted a mural in morphing pigments that framed her in a kaleidoscopic display of dancing color. Something about her being there bothered Jax, but he couldn’t put his finger on what it was.

“You want to send him to Yimmon?” This from Pol Haus.

Jax glanced at him. “You … you know where—”

“Where the Whiplash is centered? Yes. And Thi Xon knows I do. Does that help set your mind at ease, young Jedi?”

Jax ignored the question, because he’d just realized what was wrong