Chapter 180: Letter and Pressure III
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"It is accounting," Sekhmet replied.
That made her laugh again. Not as bright this time, but real enough.
He let the moment breathe.
Then he stood.
"Come with me," he said.
Lily blinked. "Where."
"Walk with me," he said. "You didn’t come only to watch me eat sugar."
She rose immediately.
"True," she said. "I came to make sure you still know how."
Bat Bat looked scandalized.
"Master leave pastry," Bat Bat whispered.
Elena immediately moved the box further from Bat Bat’s reach.
Bat Bat looked at Elena like betrayal had finally taken solid form. "Evil..."
Sekhmet led Lily out through the inner corridor toward the quieter side garden. It was not a grand garden, not like the City Lord’s decorative displays. Dawn House’s garden was practical. Stone paths. Trimmed shrubs. A few carefully tended flowering plants because even merchants liked proof that beauty could survive around numbers.
The morning air was cooler there. Less crowded. More honest.
Lily walked beside him in silence for several steps.
Sekhmet waited. He had learned in purgatory that silence was not empty. Silence was pressure. If you held it correctly, truth rose to fill it.
Lily folded her hands behind her back.
"I got a letter," she said finally.
There it was.
Sekhmet did not look at her immediately. He made a guess. "From your mother."
"Yes." She replied. Her voice was lighter than it should have been.
Sekhmet turned his head slightly.
Lily was looking ahead, not at him. Her face was composed, but the effort showed now that they were alone.
"She wants me to leave the city," Lily said. "She wants me back to study."
Not dramatic. Not cried out. Just spoken.
Sekhmet’s steps slowed slightly.
"For how long," he asked. "When do you leave?"
Lily laughed once, but there was no joy in it.
"You say that like there is a good answer."
Sekhmet stopped walking. Lily stopped too.
"She found a teacher," Lily continued. "A serious one. She wants me in the Tempest city. Soon."
Sekhmet looked at her properly then.
She was trying not to be angry. Trying not to be sad. Trying to stay Lily, bright and sharp and impossible, even while something tugged the ground out from under her.
"When," he asked.
"In a few days. Maybe less, if Father starts using that voice he uses when he already decided and just wants me to surrender politely."
Sekhmet’s jaw tightened almost invisibly. He did not like the feeling that rose in his chest.
Not because he had some childish fantasy about keeping Lily beside him forever.
Because everything was moving at once.
The auction. The enemies. The new foundation inside and outside Dawn House. And now Lily is leaving.
It felt like one more thing being taken before he even had time to decide whether it belonged to him.
Lily finally looked at him.
"You aren’t saying anything," she said.
Sekhmet answered honestly.
"I’m thinking."
"That is dangerous," Lily replied quietly.
He almost smiled.
Then Lily’s expression softened, and the sharpness in her eyes turned into something harder to defend against.
"I wanted to tell you myself," she said. "Before you heard it from someone else. Before I became another rumor moving through the people’s mouth in the city."
Sekhmet held her gaze.
"You are not a rumor," he said. "You are lily... my lily.
That made her blink. For a heartbeat, her eyes shone just a little too brightly.
She stepped closer.
"I’m still visiting tomorrow too," she said. "And the day after if they let me. And I haven’t left yet, so you’re not allowed to become unbearable and distant because you think that makes you noble."
Sekhmet raised one brow.
"That sounds like an accusation."
"It is," Lily said. "You do that face."
"What face?"
She pointed at him.
"The one where you decide to carry everything alone and pretend that counts as strength."
Sekhmet stared at her.
Lily crossed her arms, chin lifting.
"I know you," she said. "and I will leave after the auction. I won’t go until then. So, tell me what’s going on."
The wind moved lightly through the garden. Somewhere in the mansion, Bat Bat shouted something muffled, probably about pastry theft or the cruelty of education.
Sekhmet exhaled slowly. "You don’t have to worry, you should go," he said.
Lily’s face changed instantly. Not in anger but hurt.
And he hated that he saw it.
So he spoke again before the hurt could harden.
"You should go," he repeated, "because your mother is calling you. Because a real teacher matters. Because if you stay only because of me, you will resent it later."
Lily held his gaze for a long moment. Then she spoke softly.
"And if I go because of me," she said, "will you still be here when I return."
There it was. The question under the letter. The fear under the smile.
Sekhmet’s voice was calm. "Yes," he said. "It’s my home."
He did not say I’ll try. He did not say, probably.
He did not say if the city doesn’t burn, if the auction doesn’t become a battlefield, if gods and predators don’t decide I am worth hunting.
He said yes. Then he added, "if I miss you. I will come to meet you."
Lily searched his face, looking for weakness or lie. She found neither. Slowly, she nodded.
"Good," she said. "Then I can leave without wanting to stab half the world."
"That seems healthier," Sekhmet replied.
"It is," Lily said. "Marginally."
They began walking again, slower now.
Lily’s mood was not fixed, but the sharp edge had eased slightly. She stayed close enough that their sleeves brushed once when they turned a corner in the path.
Sekhmet did not move away.
When they returned toward the main hall, Mira was waiting in the corridor with the notebook still in hand and a more serious look than before.
Sekhmet saw it instantly.
"What is going on," he said. "Did something bad happen?"
Mira bowed slightly.
"A message came," she said. "Not from the shop. Private message."
Sekhmet’s eyes narrowed.
"Where."
"In your study," Mira replied. "The stone is active."
"The communicating stone. Raka."
Sekhmet’s mind tightened immediately. He looked at Lily.
She understood the change in him before he said a word.
"Go," she said quietly.
Sekhmet nodded once. He moved fast, not running, but fast enough that servants flattened themselves against walls to avoid getting in the way. He entered the study and shut the door behind him.
The communicating stone on the desk was vibrating in short urgent pulses.
Buzz... Buzz... Buzz...
Sekhmet picked it up. "Speak."
Raka’s voice came through low and rough.
"Master," he said. "I got the broker."
Sekhmet’s eyes hardened.
"Alive."
"For now," Raka replied.
"Report."
There was a brief sound on Raka’s side. A groan. A muffled hit. Then silence again.
Raka continued.
"Iron House is involved directly," he said. "Not just the young master’s temper. This goes higher. Money is moving through old shell routes. They are preparing disruption for the auction. The master mind might be the leader of the iron house."
Sekhmet’s grip tightened on the stone.
"I guessed that. So... What kind of disruption?"
Raka’s voice lowered further.
"Not a simple attack," he said. "A staged scandal. They want a failure of the dawn house in public. Panic. Blood. Something that makes Dawn House look cursed, weak, or unsafe."
Sekhmet’s expression turned cold.
"Can you prove it?"
"Yes," Raka said. "The broker had coded notes. I have them. And one more thing..."
He paused.
Sekhmet did not interrupt.
"The broker mentioned an outside buyer," Raka said. "Not local. Powerful enough that Iron House is desperate to impress them."
Sekhmet’s eyes narrowed further.
"Name."
"I don’t have it," Raka replied. "Only a description. Hidden representative. Very high rank. Not normal merchant business. Even iron house leader ’Dickoff’ acts like a servant in front of them."
Sekhmet’s mind moved fast. A rival house courting outside power. Auction sabotage. Public disgrace. Possible violence.
The board was getting crowded.
Raka’s voice came again.
"Master," he said, "what do you want me to do with the broker?"
Sekhmet looked at the closed study door, at the morning light pressing under it, at the ledgers on his desk, at the quiet room that suddenly felt too small for everything gathering around him.
"Keep the broker breathing," he said. "Move him to a different place. Better be careful now than feeling sorry later. Remember no public mess. I want every paper, every route, every name."
Raka’s answer came immediately.
"Yes, master."
The stone went silent.
Sekhmet remained still for a moment. Then he placed it down slowly.
Outside the study, Dawn House continued to breathe. Lily was still here. Mira was waiting with a notebook.
Bat Bat was probably trying to steal pastry from a woman more dangerous than most assassins or monsters.
And somewhere in the city, Iron House was preparing to turn the auction into a weapon.
Sekhmet looked at the ledger again. Then at the communicating stone. Then at the door.
The day had only just begun.
And it was already asking him what kind of man he intended to be when everything arrived at once.