Chapter 234: Name Above the Door II
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He did not react to Mihos’s anger with surprise. Anger from young nobles was the weather. One learned to estimate intensity rather than question existence.
"Shall I have another message prepared for Iron House, Young Master?" he asked.
Mihos gave a short, contemptuous laugh.
"For what purpose? So Dickoff can write another page explaining how brave he was while running away?"
He walked to the table, poured himself wine, and did not drink it.
His fingers tightened around the stem.
"He says Sekhmet is dangerous," Mihos said. "He says he has people around him. He says he cannot be dealt with simply."
The butler inclined his head. "That is what the letter suggests."
Mihos turned sharply. "No. The letter suggests Dickoff is soft."
He set the glass down untouched and tapped one finger against the table.
"If the man had backbone, he would have tested again. Properly. He would have found the cracks. He would have forced the little business downward until it begged for air." Mihos’s lips curled. "Instead, he sends this."
The butler remained calm.
"Then what would you like to do, Young Master?"
Mihos looked toward the far wall of the camp, though he was clearly seeing the city beyond it.
"I will go into the city personally."
That was enough to make the butler pause.
It was not a dramatic pause. He was too disciplined for that. But it was real.
"Young Master Dawn," he said carefully, "are you sure?"
Mihos’s eyes shifted toward him.
The butler chose his next words with the caution of a man crossing a bridge he suspected was supported entirely by pride.
"That boy, Sekhmet, is your relative after all. There is no need to punish him so severely over trade. Not yet."
Mihos stared at him for a second, then gave a quiet, incredulous sound.
"Relative."
He rolled the word in his mouth like something bitter.
"I am Mihos Dawn," he said. "The heir of Dawn."
He spoke the title without inflation because he did not need to inflate what he genuinely believed the world should already respect.
"I cannot allow some lower city boy to use the Dawn name and run a business as if blood alone grants permission." His tone hardened further. "I do not care whether we are related by blood or not. Half of his blood is unknown. He never learned the family rules. He grew up in the lower domain."
The butler lowered his gaze by the precise amount that acknowledged the danger of this part of the conversation.
Mihos continued, his expression sharpening.
"His father was captured by the family for using the name. That should have been the end of it."
He paced once, robes whispering over the carpet.
"I received a direct task. Destroy Eyra’s business without revealing it is us. That was the command. Quiet pressure. Economic suffocation. Break the house’s local influence. Make the name there shrink until it folds."
He stopped and looked down at the shredded letter pieces near his boots.
"And now Dickoff writes to tell me a boy has claws and servants and guards and danger around him. As if that changes anything."
The butler took a breath.
"Young Master," he said, "that is still your uncle. You should speak of him with a little more—"
Mihos clicked his tongue.
"Tsk."
He turned fully this time, looking at the older man not with rage but with a colder, simpler thing.
"I do not care," he said.
There was no grand passion in the sentence. That made it worse.
"All people are below me until they prove otherwise. Most never do." He lifted a hand dismissively. "Family. Branch. Uncle. Cousin. Merchant. Guard. Beast. It is all arranged for me. That is how large houses survive."
The butler bowed his head slightly. "As you say."
Mihos took up the glass again, finally drank, and stared into the wine as if imagining a throat inside it.
"If Sekhmet had any sense, he would have stayed small. Sold his little things. Bowed to the right pressures. Let the family ignore him." He smiled without warmth. "Instead he has become noticeable."
He set the glass down once more.
"That is his mistake."
The butler waited.
Mihos’s eyes moved toward the dressing screen where several outer robes hung prepared for travel. "Prepare to leave."
"At once, Young Master."
"And choose the carriage with the black lining. Not the silver one. I do not want attention from the wrong sort."
"Understood."
Mihos glanced toward the scattered letter remains on the floor.
"Burn that."
The butler bowed deeper this time. "Yes, Young Master."
Mihos moved toward the inner chamber, then stopped halfway and said over his shoulder, "Bring Kess and Rul. Not the decorative mindless puppets guards. I need the ones who can think."
The butler allowed himself the smallest inward sigh. That at least was sensible.
"I will see to it, young master."
Mihos walked away.
Behind him, the torn pieces of Dickoff Iron’s warning waited on the carpet for fire.
(The location changed....)
Back inside the city, Dawn House, the mood was so different it would have felt absurd if the people involved had compared notes.
Morning light filtered through a side room near the inner garden corridor, soft and pale across polished wood and embroidered cushions. The air held the gentle smell of tea, fresh cloth, and the faint medicinal traces left behind by people who had recently survived too much stress and were now trying to turn that into routine.
Bat Bat sat on the table like a tiny tyrant being corrected by language itself.
Elena sat across from her with the patience of a woman who had fought half-gods and somehow found this more exhausting.
A maid stood nearby holding a tray and pretending not to listen, which meant she was listening with the full intensity of a court spy.
"This is not difficult," Elena said.
Bat Bat crossed her little wings. "That sounds like something people say, right before making things annoying."
Elena ignored that.
"When you talk, you always make mistakes."
Bat Bat stared at her. Then stared harder.
"I don’t understand," Bat Bat said. "I talk fine."
"That is the point. You talk in broken sentences."
"What? Language exists for understood. I spoke. Master understood. Victory."
Elena kept her tone even. "You told Auri he, inside the void land."
Bat Bat nodded. "Yes."
"You are not he." Elena said.
"I am Bat Bat."
"Yes." Elena said.
"So Bat Bat is correct."
The maid almost choked and disguised it as a cough.
Elena folded her hands. "Let us try this another way. If someone asks, ’Is Bat Bat a girl?’ the correct answer is ’Yes, she is.’"
Bat Bat made a face.
"I do not want to learn this."
"You need to."
"It is one alphabet different. It does not matter."
"It matters."
"To who?"
"To people."
Bat Bat waved both tiny wings in outrage. "People care for strangest nonsense. There are assassins, vampires, secret void lands, hmm... hidden young aunts, and somehow your emergency is one alphabet."
Elena, to her credit, did not lose control.
"This is part of speaking properly," she said. "Words matter the most."