---

Raka’s good eye narrowed faintly. "They are disciplined."

"That was not the question."

He did not answer.

That, too, told her enough.

Something was happening.

Not immediate violence. If it were immediate violence, Raka would not be standing at her desk discussing his face like a man who had been punched by philosophy. No. This was preparation. Summoning. Positioning.

She asked the next useful thing.

"Do I need to move the staff?"

"No," Raka said at once. "No one touches the house."

That answer came too cleanly to be improvised. Good. So Sekhmet had either said something or Raka had already decided the house counted as protected territory under the same larger command.

Mira folded her hands lightly and gave the vice leader a long look. "You are becoming very domesticated."

Raka’s mouth moved faintly. "You speak too much for a woman with ledgers."

She almost smiled. "And you stand in my front room with half your face ruined and still think you are frightening."

That nearly got a real laugh out of two of the men behind him before they remembered who and where they were.

A few more moments passed in that strange, cautious calm.

Then the main doors opened again.

Sekhmet entered.

And beside him walked a woman Mira and Raka did not know.

At least, not at first.

Sekhmet looked as he usually did when he had already thought three steps ahead of everyone else in the room and decided not to explain those steps until it benefited him. He had dark clothing. It was clean. It looked controlled. Not dressed like a noble boy playing merchant. Dressed like a man who intended to move through several worlds before midday and expected all of them to adapt.

The woman beside him was where the problem began.

She was young.

Beautiful in a strange, sharp way.

Not soft, pretty. Not noble delicate. There was too much bright, impossible personality in her face even before she spoke. Her dark hair moved too wildly to belong to someone calm by nature. Her eyes were alive with curiosity and opinion in equal measure. She wore simple house clothes, but even those could not make her look ordinary.

Two Dawn maids followed a little behind, both wearing the expression of women who had been ordered to escort a disaster politely.

Raka looked at the unknown woman.

The unknown woman looked at Raka.

Then her eyes went straight to his face.

And because fate hated calm mornings, she brightened.

"Oh," she said. "It is a swollen-face man." 𝗳𝗿𝐞𝕖𝘄𝗲𝕓𝗻𝚘𝚟𝕖𝐥.𝚌𝕠𝕞

Silence...

Mira blinked once.

Raka stared at her.

Bat Bat put both hands on her hips with absolutely undeserved authority and continued, "You look worse with sunlight."

One of Raka’s men made a sound like a dying cough because he was trying not to laugh and failing in a morally interesting way.

Sekhmet kept walking as if none of this surprised him.

That was irritating.

Mira’s gaze moved from the strange woman to Sekhmet and back again. "Who is this?"

Raka asked at the same time.

Sekhmet stopped a few steps into the main floor and said, "Bat Bat."

That answer landed like a thrown chair.

Mira stared.

Raka stared harder.

Bat Bat looked deeply satisfied by the effect and gave them a tiny, smug little nod as if granting confirmation of a miracle she had personally arranged.

Raka spoke first.

"No."

Bat Bat’s eyes widened in offense. "Yes."

Mira slowly rose from the desk. "That is not Bat Bat."

Bat Bat gasped in disbelief. "You insult me before breakfast."

Raka pointed a finger at her, then at Sekhmet, then back again. "That thing was small."

Bat Bat drew herself up proudly. "I am still small in spirit. Merely larger in practical reach."

That voice did it.

Raka’s expression changed from refusal to horrified recognition over the course of two breaths.

Mira’s changed too, though hers passed through more stages along the way. It was a surprise. She was recalculating.

The memory of Bat Bat’s old speech patterns. The impossible fact of them now coming out of a grown woman’s mouth.

Then both of them realized at the same time.

It really was her.

Mira sat down again because standing through that discovery suddenly felt like too much work.

Raka, whose face was already in bad condition, looked as if life had just punched the good side too.

Bat Bat, seeing she had won, smiled with all the destructive joy of a creature who liked shocking people far too much. "See. Everyone keeps underestimating Bat Bat."

"You were a bat," Mira said weakly.

"I am still Bat Bat."

"That was not the confusing part."

Bat Bat waved that away and turned back toward Raka. "Also, yes. Your face is terrible. Did someone beat you with a stick?"

Raka did not answer because the person who had beaten him was already walking toward him.

The lesser vampire, who had been waiting near the side of the hall with the rigid discipline of a newly formed creature trying to become structured instead of hunger. He stepped forward at once and bowed his head.

"Master."

Sekhmet acknowledged him with one look. Then he turned to Raka.

"You met him. What happened to your face? Did you both fight?"

Raka did not look away. "We had a spar."

The hall went very still.

Mira’s eyes moved instantly from Raka’s face to the lesser vampire and then to Sekhmet.

A spar. Yes...

That explained the leader’s face the way a storm explained a missing roof.

Sekhmet studied Raka for one second, then the lesser vampire, then let the matter pass. Either he did not care enough to expose the lie properly or he understood that making Raka say ’my drunk men attacked him and then I misunderstood and got my face broken’ in front of everyone present was unnecessary cruelty.

He simply nodded once.

Then he said the next thing so calmly that it took half the room a heartbeat to understand what he meant.