---
A few moments later…
Lily did not walk. She advanced through the market streets like a general inspecting a conquered city, except her battlefield was shops, her soldiers were merchants, and her weapon was a smile that made grown men forget their own prices.
Sekhmet followed two steps behind her with the quiet, resigned dignity of a man who had survived monsters, contracts, torture racks, and cabbage war… only to be defeated by shopping.
Auri was not with them.
This was Lily's demand.
It was also Lily's victory.
Bat Bat was not with them either, because Elena had declared "study day," and Elena's study days were written in the same invisible law that governed storms and death.
So it was just the two of them.
Lily's mood had stabilized into something sharp and possessive. She was still wounded, but she had chosen a method of healing that involved forcing Sekhmet to suffer publicly by carrying bags.
