Chapter 303: Bat Bat Broke the House
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The whole den shifted from criminal sleep into traveling formation with the speed of long practice. More kept coming from the side halls too.
Not only the ones in the room.
By the time they were done gathering, the number was well over a hundred.
Raka noticed the lesser vampire registering that and said in a dry voice, "If Big Boss wants me in the morning, he gets me properly."
The lesser vampire did not comment.
Good.
Raka preferred that.
Then, with the black market still only half awake and the rest of Slik City just beginning to drag morning across its roofs, Raka and more than a hundred of his men left the underground ways to go meet Sekhmet.
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Morning came to Dawn House in layers. Just like it happened everyday.
First came the pale gray before sunrise, when the house still belonged more to habit than to waking thought. The lamps in the corridors burned low and warm, making the carved wood walls glow like something half remembered from a dream.
Somewhere in the back kitchens, someone had already begun boiling water. Somewhere else, one of the older servants had started the day’s first quiet sweep of the stone floors with the sort of patient rhythm that belonged only to people who had spent long years in service and no longer needed to think consciously about where their hands should move.
Then came the softer household sounds.
A door opening without slam.
Water being poured into a basin.
A tray set down more carefully than necessary because the one carrying it had decided the quiet of morning was worth respecting.
After that came the real beginning. Maids crossing hallways in practiced lines. Curtains being adjusted. Outer bolts being checked and reset for the day. The house’s breathing deepened from sleep into function.
Dawn House was never lazy in the morning.
Not under Elena.
Elena was already awake before most of the first light properly reached the eastern side of the estate. She stood in one of the side halls with a ledger in one hand and a maid stationed at each side of her like points of discipline given human form. The women around her were still adjusting to the morning. Elena was not. Elena always looked as if she had been awake long enough to judge anyone else for starting late.
Lady Seraphiel had not returned.
That fact sat in the house like a carefully covered bowl full of hot water. Not openly alarming, but impossible to forget once noticed. She had gone to deal with the city lord matter last night, and her absence now reached into every decision Elena made whether she acknowledged it aloud or not.
Still, the house could not pause for one absent god-level woman, no matter how troublesome, useful, or beautifully dressed she happened to be. The house functioned well before she arrived as a guest. The house will function the same way.
Inside Elena misses the old talks that she had with her.
Elena looked over the assembled maids with the calm severity of a woman who believed mornings existed so that weaker people could make mistakes before she corrected them.
"The front rooms are to be cleaned before the second meal," she said. "The east corridor training will still happen. No one uses Lady Seraphiel’s absence as an excuse to grow stupid. Kitchen rotation remains unchanged. Storage inventory is checked before noon. I want the lower guest wing reset and the linens in the side chambers aired properly. Yesterday’s quiet does not mean today is a holiday."
The maids bowed their heads almost in the same motion.
"Yes, Lady Elena."
Elena’s gaze shifted to a younger maid standing slightly behind the others, the one whose eyes always brightened a little too much whenever Sekhmet crossed a room. She was competent, quick, respectful, and unfortunately obvious in her quiet admiration. Elena had noticed that long ago and filed it under harmless if managed correctly.
"You," Elena said.
The maid straightened at once. "Yes, Lady Elena."
"Go and wake the young master."
A tiny current of something delighted and panicked flickered through the girl’s face before she mastered it. Good. Elena trusted only servants who were at least aware enough of themselves to try to hide their nonsense.
"Yes, Lady Elena."
"And before your imagination embarrasses you, remember that your duty is to wake him, not to stare at him."
The maid blushed so hard it nearly became visible all the way to her ears. "I would never..."
Elena did not move.
The maid lowered her eyes at once. "Yes, Lady Elena."
"Good. Go."
The girl hurried away with all the careful dignity of someone trying not to look like she had just been granted a holy mission by the cruelest and most observant woman in the house.
Elena returned immediately to the others.
"The rest of you will stop making romantic faces just because a single maid has been sent to do her job."
The maids froze.
That told Elena everything she needed to know.
She sighed once, very softly, as though fate had grown irritating before breakfast.
"Work," she said.
They scattered like properly trained birds fleeing a hawk.
The maid chosen to wake Sekhmet moved quickly through the house, trayless and empty-handed because she had judged correctly that barging into the young master’s morning with tea before instruction would be too bold. Her slippers made small sounds against the floor. Her thoughts, however, made a great deal more noise than her feet did.
She was trying not to think foolish things.
This failed immediately.
Not because she lacked discipline entirely. Because Sekhmet was Sekhmet, and Dawn House had grown full of quiet female suffering ever since he stopped being merely a troubled, strange young man and began slowly becoming something far more dangerous to female peace of mind.
She reached his corridor, smoothed her hair for no real reason, reminded herself that this was work, and approached his door.
Inside the room, Sekhmet had not moved once through the remainder of the night.