---
The same day, a few hours earlier, Dawn House had worn its usual morning face.
It looked calm from the outside. Tall gates. Clean stone. A courtyard that smelled faintly of trimmed grass and expensive soap. Servants moved with practiced quiet, the kind of quiet that existed when a house had rules and the rules had teeth.
Inside, however, the calm was fake.
Because Bat Bat was learning.
And Bat Bat treated learning the way a cat treated a bath.
Elena had claimed a small side room near the inner corridor, one of the brighter ones with a wide window and a long table. She had arranged ink, paper, and a neat stack of beginner letter sheets as if she were preparing for war. A teapot sat nearby. Two cups. A third cup that was there purely out of optimism.
