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A few hours later… Night came down over Slik City with the slow patience of a hunter lowering a hood over a cage.
By the time Sekhmet moved, the city had already changed shape. The day's noise had died. Merchant voices thinned. Wheel traffic slowed. Lamps replaced sunlight in windows and lanes. The western side where Iron House had gathered its goods no longer looked like a business district. It looked like a throat trying to pretend it was a wall.
That made cutting it easier.
Dawn House did not send a parade.
It sent a mouthful of knives.
They gathered in one of the darker inner courtyards first, beneath the shadow of the side roofline where moonlight only touched broken strips of stone and the leaves of the old wall vine. Elena remained with the house. Raka had already gone ahead with route men and watchers. Kess stayed inside the records wing with strict orders to touch nothing sharp and survive the night by continuing to be useful.
