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One of the maids holding the right arm nearly let go from shock. "That is Bat Bat?"

Another, the one covering Bat Bat’s chest with the sheet and a pillow in confused desperation, looked down at what she was covering and then immediately looked away again with a violent blush.

A third maid whispered, in horrified disbelief, "But Bat Bat is small."

Bat Bat, still half pinned and wrapped in bed linen like a captured scandal, snapped at once, "I poticed laces."

That voice did it. The room changed.

Because yes, the body was different. Shockingly different. Entirely, offensively different. But the voice, the tone, the impossible offended authority in mumbles, that was Bat Bat.

Unmistakably. Terribly. Perfectly Bat Bat.

One maid gasped and slapped both hands over her own mouth. Another made a tiny choking sound and turned her face toward the wall because she did not know where respectable eyes were supposed to go in this situation.

The maid holding Bat Bat’s mouth slowly loosened her grip in disbelief.

Bat Bat immediately bit her palm. The maid yelped and let go.

"Do not cover my mouth," Bat Bat shouted. "I was making excellent points before this injustice."

The first maid looked at Bat Bat again with dawning recognition and immediate emotional whiplash. "You bit me."

Bat Bat looked furious that this was apparently the part being discussed. "Because you covered my mouth."

One of the older maids, who had arrived second and had been holding Bat Bat’s left arm with the grim resolve of a woman prepared to defend her young master from all shameless women, slowly loosened her grip and said, "It really is her?"

"No," another maid muttered weakly, still half in denial. "It only sounds like her."

Bat Bat glared at her. "Who else in this house do you know with this much natural intelligence?"

That settled it further. Because yes. No one else would say that.

The maids’ expressions shifted all at once, but not into calm. Into a completely new kind of chaos.

Shock remained. Scandal remained.

But now confusion joined them, and embarrassment, and a kind of helpless, outraged wonder.

One maid looked as if she wanted to cry from sheer overload. "Why is she naked?"

Bat Bat drew herself up under the sheet with what dignity she could salvage. "I have also been asking that question."

Another maid, face blazing red, turned to Sekhmet and then immediately regretted it because that only made the whole scene worse somehow. "Young Master, she was on top of you."

Bat Bat answered before he could. "Yes. I was being affectionate."

Three maids gasped at once.

One of them actually stumbled backward and knocked into another.

Bat Bat continued, "I wanted to do what the master did with Lady Lily."

The maid with the pillow looked ready to throw it directly at Bat Bat’s face just on principle.

That nearly started a second wave of chaos all by itself.

The first maid made a wounded noise. "You cannot say things like that."

Bat Bat looked personally offended by the criticism. "Why not. It was a clear statement."

The oldest maid in the group shut her eyes for one second and murmured, "This morning is cursed."

Another maid, the one still clutching Bat Bat’s ankle, looked close to tears. "I thought a shameless woman had broken in."

Bat Bat’s head snapped toward her. "I am not shameless. I am newly large."

That was such a perfectly useless defense that even the maid looked stunned by it.

Then came the other shift.

Now that the maids truly believed it was Bat Bat, they could not maintain the exact same kind of outrage. They knew her. They had fed her. Scolded her. Heard her argue with grammar and fruit and shadows and hallway rules. Seeing her transformed into a grown woman did not remove the familiarity. It made it worse.

One maid finally whispered the thought all of them were trying not to think.

"She is... pretty."

The room froze again.

Bat Bat looked pleased for half a second.

Elena closed her eyes for one second.

Then opened them again and said, "Release her arms. Cover her properly. First dress her."

The maids hesitated only long enough to make sure they had heard correctly.

Then Elena looked at them, and everyone remembered discipline.

At once the maids straightened, adjusted the sheet more properly, stopped staring quite so openly, and tried to force their faces back into something useful.

It failed only partly.

Because now they were not just dealing with a pervert girl.

They were dealing with Bat Bat in a grown woman’s body.

Which was somehow much more dangerous

Then they obeyed.

Not gracefully. Not with complete trust. But obedience in Dawn House beat scandal every time once Elena’s tone turned to iron.

Sheets were gathered around Bat Bat like captured clouds. One maid wrapped them around her shoulders. Another tucked the edge over her chest in a way that was more defensive than respectful. Two released her legs. One still looked as if she had been personally betrayed by the existence of adult bat women.

Bat Bat, now able to speak properly, did so immediately and with all the fury of a creature denied what she considered rightful romantic advancement.

"You all interrupted me," she declared. "I was progressing with my master."

Three maids gasped at once.

One looked ready to faint.

Elena’s gaze fell on Bat Bat.

That was enough. 𝑓𝑟ℯ𝘦𝓌𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝑐ℴ𝓂

Bat Bat stopped mid-rant.

Not because she wanted to.

Because even in a new body, new voice, and new human scale, some instincts remained healthy.

Elena said, "You will go down stairs and dress now."

Bat Bat opened her mouth.

Elena’s expression did not change.

Bat Bat closed it.

Then, in a much smaller tone than before, she said, "Yes."

"Go."

The maids, now partly recovered and fully aflame with gossip-starved horror.

Now that Elena gave the order the second time, the maids moved quickly.

Not as aggressively as before, but not with trust either.