Chapter 270: The Quiet Vow VI
The word struck oddly after everything else that was already attached to it in Sekhmet’s mind. The wedding was done. Honeymoon remaining. Turning plans postponed but still near. The hidden life under his roof. The blood sovereign threat. And now Mihos.
Interesting timing, though. Too interesting.
Had Mihos come by chance in the same narrow space of days as the hidden wedding? No. The wedding, of course, he did not know. But the heir’s movement into the city right after Iron House pressure failed was no coincidence.
Assessment.
Lily saw the line of his jaw harden and knew what it meant even if she did not yet know every name in the game.
Kess bowed. "As Lady Elena sees fit."
Kess hesitated. Only slightly.
Seraphiel caught it too and smiled inwardly at the envoy’s mistake.
So. Still hidden enough to avoid broad rumor, but close enough to move quickly. Sensible. Annoying.
Then he asked, " Did he have any connection to Iron House?"
There. He lied about it.
He got scared and replied, "He visited them."
Sekhmet’s eyes went colder and he felt something was wrong. He knew Mihos might be connected to the iron house, and his vampire instinct guessed it. "Tonight."
Not a question. An answer.
But To Iron House. That said plenty.
Seraphiel’s voice turned drier. "Well. There is the warmth."
Sekhmet’s mind moved through the implications with calm speed.
Mihos using Stephen’s formal hand to touch his family only after speaking to the very merchant house that had been trying to destroy them.
First, Mihos did not trust Iron House enough to act through them blindly. That matched the kind of heir described by old silence and newer resentment.
Sekhmet did not take offense from that.
Elena unfolded the letter one last time, then refolded it with finality. "We will send a response before the night is over."
"You will eat first," Elena said.
He hid it well.
She did not look at him. "A hungry envoy becomes a gossiping envoy. A fed envoy becomes a patient one."
Kess bowed again. "Your hospitality is appreciated."
He almost smiled at that. Almost...
Only after the envoy left the room did the pressure shift.
"He recognized Lady Seraphiel."
"That is not reassuring."
Elena’s eyes remained on the door through which Kess had gone. "He will report it."
Lily looked at him. "Does that make things worse?"
"Yes," he said honestly. "But not in a way we can change now."
Elena added, "Either is useful."
Sekhmet almost smiled.
"That was my second worst decision this week."
Lily pointed at him. "Do not fish for first place."
Elena, however, had already shifted into practical thought. "He will want the meeting tomorrow. Which means tomorrow cannot go the way I planned."
Lily’s face changed first. Not dramatically. Just enough.
All of it would now have to bend around Mihos’s arrival.
Lily’s expression tightened, but she held it well. "Then we adjust."
Seraphiel’s eyes moved between them. "That sounded disturbingly married."
That almost got a real smile out of Sekhmet.
Lily straightened. "Understood."
Elena continued, "Tomorrow, Mihos’s hand will test the house. We answer carefully. The private life of this house remains private."
Sekhmet answered that.
The line sat in the room with quiet force.
"Yes," she said softly. "There he is. The young version of Eyra."
Lily looked at Sekhmet in that moment with something warm and sharp in her face all at once. Not because he sounded dramatic. Because he sounded like himself.