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Bat Bat did not help. She tried to walk and drag the sheet with queenly dignity, failed because she was still adjusting to human-sized legs, and nearly tripped on the very cloth preserving her honor. Two maids caught her instantly.

"Do not pull," one hissed.

"I was not pulling. The floor moved." Bat Bat replied.

"The floor did not move." One maid said.

"That sounds like an assumption."

The maids exchanged looks of deep spiritual fatigue.

They guided her toward the door in a small cluster, not unlike a group transporting a delicate explosive wrapped in linen.

As they stepped into the corridor, the whispering began at once.

"That is really Bat Bat." one maid said.

"I know it is really Bat Bat. I heard her." another one added.

The third one said, "How can she be that big overnight."

The fourth added, "Do not ask me. Ask the heavens."

The one who opened the door said, "She tried to kiss the Young Master. I saw it."

"We all saw." another added, "When we enter the room."

"That was not a proper kiss." another one said.

"It was still too much." one maid replied.

Bat Bat, walking between them with her chin lifted under the sheet like a scandalized noblewoman, snapped, "It was my first attempt. Improvement requires practice."

Three maids made identical choking sounds.

One whispered furiously, "Do not let Lady Elena hear that."

Another muttered, "Lady Elena heard everything. The entire house heard everything."

The first maid, still recovering from opening the door into emotional disaster, clutched the edge of the sheet tighter and said, "I thought she was an intruder. I thought I saved him."

Bat Bat turned her head and looked at her with exaggerated patience. "You did not save him. You interrupted me."

The maid looked wounded in her soul.

An older maid immediately said, "Do not answer her. It encourages her."

A younger one, still blushing fiercely, whispered, "She really is pretty."

The others glared at her.

"What," the girl whispered back. "I only said what everyone thought."

Bat Bat looked delighted. "See. There is wisdom in this house."

"No," another maid said flatly. "There is only suffering."

They continued down the corridor in a strange procession of scandal, linen, and injured dignity.

Bat Bat kept trying to look around at everything with open fascination. "The air feels different at this height. Also I understand now why humans bump into furniture so often."

"Watch your step." the oldest maid said.

"I am watching many things." Bat Bat replied.

"You do not."

"I need clothes," Bat Bat announced.

"Yes," one maid said. "That is the entire house’s current mission."

"I want pretty ones."

"You are getting whatever fits first."

"That is oppression."

"That is emergency dressing."

Bat Bat made a face. "I liked being a bat for one reason. No one argued about clothing."

One maid muttered under her breath, "I liked you being a bat for several reasons."

That almost made another laugh, but the laugh died quickly because the image of Bat Bat on top of Sekhmet was still too fresh and too horrifying to survive humor cleanly.

As they disappeared toward the dressing rooms, the whispers only deepened.

"What do we even call this."

"A transformation."

"A disaster."

"A worse transformation."

Bat Bat lifted her chin higher. "Call it magnificent beauty."

The oldest maid sighed. "Yes. That is exactly what we were afraid you would say."

(Back to the Sekhmet room.)

The room became quiet again. When they were gone. Too quiet.

Only Elena remained. For one brief moment, Elena simply stood there.

Not moving. Not speaking. Not sighing.

Which, coming from her, was far more alarming than if she had immediately started asking questions.

Sekhmet sat on the bed in the center of the wreckage, one hand still half lifted as if his body had not fully decided whether it wanted to defend itself, explain itself, or simply leave the continent. The blankets were twisted. One pillow was on the floor. The room still carried the leftover shape of panic, naked scandal, and Bat Bat’s completely unacceptable confidence.

Elena’s gaze moved once over all of it.

The disordered bed. The open door. Sekhmet. Then back again.

When she finally spoke, her tone was perfectly even.

"So."

That one word made the entire situation somehow worse.

Sekhmet lowered his hand slowly. "Yes."

Elena folded her hands before her. "Would you like to explain how I sent a maid to wake you up and instead discovered that Bat Bat had become an adult woman and was apparently trying to kiss your face. Did you ask her to do it?"

He closed his eyes for one second.

"That is not what happened. How can you say that?"

Elena’s expression did not change. "Good. Because that would have been inconvenient."

Sekhmet opened his eyes again and looked at her. "I woke up and she was already like that."

Elena studied his face, measuring for lies, weakness, stupidity, and all the other things she had learned to detect over years of keeping difficult people alive.

She must have found none of the first three, because she gave the smallest nod.

"You were asleep."

"Yes."

"She transformed in the night."

"Might be. Can’t say for sure."

"And when you woke, she had already decided this new body gave her terrible ideas."

Sekhmet’s mouth moved faintly. "Immediately. She must have learnt bad stuff from the maid’s gossip."

That nearly changed Elena’s face.

Nearly.

She remained composed, but a tiny shift in her eyes suggested that on the inside, the situation had briefly become too absurd even for her standards.

"Of course," she said.

The quiet returned for another moment.

Then Elena glanced once toward the mirror Bat Bat had discovered herself in, then back to Sekhmet.

"She did not seem frightened for very long."

"No."

"That is also, unfortunately, in character."

Sekhmet exhaled softly through his nose.

Elena’s gaze sharpened again. "Did she tell you anything else?"

He paused.

Then answered carefully. "No... nothing."