---
Outside, the estate had already shifted more deeply into night.
Lamps burned brighter along the inner paths. The servants' pace changed. The house stopped pretending it was still day and admitted that whatever came next would belong to the darker hours.
Sekhmet crossed through those hours with the kind of stillness that only made him look more dangerous.
He did not return first to the main family sitting rooms. He went to his own chamber, not because he intended to hide, but because a meeting with Mihos Dawn was not the sort of thing one entered by accident. He changed into darker formal clothes. Not noble parade wear. Not house softness. Something lean, fitted, and controlled. Clothing meant for a man who expected conversation to remain conversation only as long as it deserved to.
When he came back down, Elena was already waiting in the inner hall.
She had changed as well.
