By dusk, Grimridge had already taken the last of the road lines worth taking.
The riders came back in ones and twos while the light still held enough grey over the yard to turn every returning horse into a darker shape before it became a man. One had the old scale-yard keys. One brought a ledger torn half through and burned at the corner too late to matter. One came with two road hands bound behind the saddle and a split lip that suggested the men had not enjoyed being persuaded to stay. Jace took each report at the hall doors and carried them straight to the second table where the continuation book, the pruning list, the quarry note, and the dispatch ledgers already lay spread beneath Elin's hands.
Nothing they brought changed the shape of the truth anymore. It only confirmed it.
