---
"You are not only my woman now. You are potential bloodline queens in your own right."
The words rang in everyone's ears. Not because the four of them failed to understand them. Because they understood them too quickly.
For a breath, the warehouse around them seemed to pull back. The crashing sounds, the shouted orders from deeper inside, the smell of grain dust and blood and oil lamp smoke, all of it remained real, but it no longer sat at the center of the moment. The center had shifted.
Lily's crimson eyes stayed on Sekhmet.
Mira's snake-woven hair moved in a slow ripple of thought, not agitation.
Vera and Vela did not move at all, but with them, that stillness meant more than motion would have.
Bat Bat, hanging upside down from the beam in her bat form, stared at Sekhmet with the kind of stunned offense that meant her mind was racing to catch up and was extremely upset that someone else had said something dramatic before she had the chance.
Lily spoke first.
