Chapter 190: 190: Six Days of Pressure II
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Not the sa events.
The sa pressure.
Morning brought reports. Midday brought movent. Evening brought planning. Night brought thoughts he could not fully shut off.
On the second day, he spent hours in the auction house itself.
The building stood attached to the shop but carried a different atmosphere now that it was being prepared properly. Dust had been cleared. Chairs aligned. Curtains brushed and rehung. Display platforms were polished until lantern light reflected softly off the wood.
Mira stood in the center aisle, posture straight, voice clear but not loud, practicing the opening line for the auction while two junior staff mbers sat in the front pretending to be important buyers.
"Welco," she said, calm and elegant, "to the Dawn House Auction. Today, your patience will be rewarded, your wealth will be tested, and your taste will decide whether you leave richer or rely regretful."
She stopped, frowned slightly, and looked at Sekht.
"Too much?" she asked.
"Regretfulness is good," Sekht said. "Buyers hate the idea of missing sothing."
Mira nodded and adjusted the wording slightly.
Auri moved through the room as they spoke, checking sight lines, corners, side doors, and the subtle blind spaces where soone could hide intent too easily. At one point she stopped beside a rear column and simply stared at it.
Sekht noticed and walked over.
"What."
Auri touched the wood lightly.
"This is a good place to hide a blade," she said.
Sekht looked at the column, then at the angle toward the stage.
She was right.
Too right.
He marked it ntally and gave orders for the drape there to be removed entirely on auction day. No deep folds. No blind shadows. No decorative nonsense that made the room prettier but deadlier.
By afternoon, they tested staff movent.
Who carried items.
Who announced them?
Who opened the side doors.
Who closed them?
Who refilled wine.
Who watched the upper balcony.
Who remained at the public entrance and who remained at the private stair.
Sekht had no intention of giving Iron House an easy stage to poison. The work was exhausting in the dullest possible way.
Not heroic.
Not dramatic.
But this kind of work won more wars than swords did.
On the third day, Lily ca again.
She arrived later than before, carrying no pastries this ti, which ant she had co for him rather than to bribe her way into his schedule. That should have felt simpler. It did not.
She found him in the auction hall overseeing the display lighting.
Mira was on the stage. Auri stood in the rear shadows. Three servants were carrying covered item stands into place. A fourth was polishing brass with the misery of a man who had offended Elena and been assigned to suffer.
Lily entered, took in the whole room, and sighed dramatically.
"You really ant it."
Sekht turned.
"Yes."
Lily walked down the aisle slowly, her gaze moving over everything.
The hall looked different now. Richer. Sharper. More intentional. Even without the actual auction pieces on display, the room carried that pre-storm energy of a place being prepared for greed.
Lily stopped near the front and turned in a slow circle.
"It feels expensive," she admitted.
"Mira’s work," Sekht said.
Lily’s eyes moved to the stage where Mira was correcting a servant’s pace by half a step.
"She is good," Lily said.
Sekht nodded.
Lily’s gaze then drifted farther back, to the shadows, to Auri standing nearly invisible beside the wall.
"And she is terrifying."
"Also useful."
Lily looked at him for a long mont.
"You surround yourself with useful won."
The sentence should have sounded teasing.
It did.
But there was an edge under it.
Sekht heard the edge.
He answered the only way that worked with Lily — without flinching and without pretending he had not heard it.
"Useless people die first."
Lily’s expression softened at once.
Because that, more than flattery or denial, was the truth she understood.
She stepped closer.
"My father still wants
to leave soon," she said quietly. "I told him no again."
Sekht’s eyes narrowed slightly. "And."
"And he gave
the face."
"What face?"
"The city lord’s face," Lily said. "The one that says he loves
but would still throw
into a mountain if he thought it would teach discipline."
That drew a faint smile from him.
Lily saw it and seed inappropriately proud of herself. Then her voice dropped.
"I think he’s worried."
Sekht’s expression tightened slightly.
"About you leaving."
Lily shook her head.
"No. About sothing else."
She glanced at the room, the workers, the stage, the preparations.
"About the city. About this week. About... sothing."
Sekht said nothing for a mont.
Then, carefully, "Did he say anything?"
"No. That’s the problem."
Lily’s tone was light, but her eyes were not.
"My father hides things the way noble people always do. Calm face. Fewer words. More rules. He gets quieter when sothing is wrong."
Sekht filed that away. The City Lord being uneasy was not sothing to ignore. Not with Iron House moving. Not with his own problems growing under the skin.
Lily’s eyes returned to him.
"Just be careful," she said.
"I am." He replied.
"That is not comforting," she replied.
"It is if you know ."
Lily stared at him. Then she laughed once, helplessly. "That is the most arrogant thing you’ve said this week."
He almost answered. Instead he simply looked at her until she looked away first.
That was one of the few victories he ever got with Lily.
She stayed another hour, watching preparations, talking too much to Bat Bat when Bat Bat was brought down by Elena for "social exposure with strict supervision," and once nearly laughing herself breathless when Bat Bat announced to the entire hall that the forest spirit now "liked her but still feared the bats."
Then she left again. Each ti she did, the room felt slightly colder.
On the fourth day, the house gained a new rhythm. The twins began training seriously.
Vera and Vela had been strong before. Chaos Rank One, good natural talent, bodies that rembered discipline even before Sekht changed them.
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