Severin kept his boot where it was.
The yard had been scrubbed almost blank, but not quite.
A wheel groove survived near the center, clean enough to follow with his eyes. It cut across the swept dirt toward the southeast service exit. Boot scuffs ran beside it in short, readable patches. Around them, older loading marks had been softened, broken apart, or wiped away.
The broom had erased most of the yard and left that line alone.
Nyra remained behind his left shoulder and didn’t cross the boundary. Her gaze followed the groove to the southeast, then came back over the pale dirt in front of the loading shed. Alicia stood behind his right shoulder and watched the shed doors.
Severin lowered his raised hand. "What was left?"
Her smoke-black ears went still. "A road."
Alicia shifted her attention to the preserved track. "It’s easier to read than the ground around it, Master."
Severin nodded once.
Severin looked at Nyra. "Use your Skill. This yard and that trail. Nothing else."
She gave him a brief glance, then fixed her attention on the cleaned ground.
For a moment, nothing visible changed. Nyra’s breathing settled as her gaze moved from the erased wheel cuts beneath the loading doors to the groove leading southeast, then to the boot scuffs beside it.
Her jaw tightened.
"Deliberate," she said.
Severin waited.
Nyra exhaled through her nose. "The cleaning and the trail contradict each other on purpose. That’s what I can support."
"From the Skill?"
"That part, yes." She looked toward the southeast exit again. "It doesn’t tell me who did it. Doesn’t tell me where they actually went either."
Severin nodded toward the preserved groove. "Then what do you make of that?"
Nyra took longer this time.
"If somebody wanted cart traffic hidden, leaving the easiest cart line in the yard would be stupid." Her mouth pulled crooked. "Maybe they were stupid. I’ve met enough idiots to leave that open."
Alicia’s ears twitched.
Nyra continued, quieter. "But they scrubbed the rest carefully. That’s effort. Then they left a neat line running out where anyone looking for a quick answer can see it."
Severin said, "Bait."
"Looks like it." She didn’t soften the qualification. "For whoever comes here asking where the carts went. That’s my read, not the Skill’s."
Severin followed the groove with his eyes to the southeast exit, then looked away.
"We don’t follow it."
Alicia answered immediately. "Yes, Master."
Nyra glanced at him. "Wasn’t planning to argue."
"Then don’t."
A quiet huff escaped her, but she followed.
Severin stepped over the boundary first, angling north instead of southeast. Nyra came with him on the left. Alicia followed on the right, keeping the shed doors and open yard in view.
He left the preserved groove behind and worked toward the north side of the loading shed, where the broom had done less beneath the raised lip. Weathered boards held old scratches. A rusted nail head sat dark in the wood. Straw had collected in a shallow corner beside grit that could have been there for weeks.
Nothing about it demanded meaning.
Severin crouched beside the loading lip and looked underneath.
Nyra lowered herself near his left side, careful not to touch the ground with her hands. Alicia remained standing behind his right shoulder, watching the yard.
Alicia’s silver tail flicked sharply against her calf as Nyra leaned closer into Severin’s sightline, then went still. Her attention stayed on the shed.
Severin leaned far enough to see under the lip without touching it.
A splinter had already broken loose from the lower board. It lay wedged against a shallow ridge of packed dirt where the broom couldn’t reach. Something thin and brownish clung to it.
"There," he said.
Nyra bent lower.
The strip wasn’t cloth. It had dried hard along the edge, with pale hair still rooted through part of it. Coarse brown grit had lodged against the rough side of the wood.
Nyra’s mouth tightened.
"Hide."
Severin looked at her. "Certain?"
"Hair’s still rooted in the dried skin." She tipped her head, studying the grit without touching it. "That much, yes. The brown stuff could be bark dust. Could be road dirt. I’m not tasting it."
"Don’t," Severin said.
Nyra gave him a dry look. "Wasn’t volunteering." Alicia’s mouth twitched before she turned her attention back to the shed.
He looked back at the splinter. The dried hide still didn’t identify the cart, the people who had used it, or where they had gone afterward.
"What changes?" he asked.
Nyra rested her forearm on her thigh. "Forget southeast. Follow the cargo. Somebody carted this in."
"Tannery?"
"Maybe." Her eyes returned to the dried strip. "That’s a place to check, not an answer."
"Good. Keep it there."
Severin gave the splinter another look before anyone moved it. It was already loose beneath the north side of the loading lip, sheltered from the broom and well away from the preserved southeast trail.
"Alicia. Take the loose piece by the clean wood. Nothing else."
She stepped forward from his right, crouched beside the loading lip, and slid her fingers beneath the bare end of the splinter.
"Yes, Master."
Alicia lifted it without brushing the residue against the board or dirt. She rose with the wood balanced between her fingers and held it where Severin could see the dried strip remained attached.
Severin opened his hand toward it.
Dense black mist gathered around the splinter.
Light around Alicia’s hand dimmed beneath the black. The scrape of her sleeve softened as the mist thickened. For a heartbeat, the sample was only a dark shape inside black vapor.
Then the weight vanished from Alicia’s fingers. The mist folded inward with the splinter and disappeared.
Alicia opened her hand, checked her fingers, then returned to Severin’s right.
Nyra watched the empty space for a beat, then looked back beneath the loading lip.
"Anything else?" Severin asked.
"Maybe." Nyra stood. "If they missed that because it was sheltered, there could be more where the broom couldn’t reach."
"Then we look."
They worked the north side for close to 30 minutes. Severin checked the underside of the loading lip, the outer wall of the shed, and the dirt beneath warped boards where a broom could only skim the surface. Nyra stayed with the ignored corners and wheel-height marks. Alicia kept the open yard behind them covered, shifting only when Severin moved far enough to change her angle.
They found more old straw. A bent nail. Dry wood chips. A strip of faded cord partly buried near the wall.
Nothing else gave them a useful lead.
By the time Severin straightened from the last section of the north wall, the light sat lower across the yard.
Nyra rolled her shoulder and looked toward the southeast exit.
The preserved trail was still there.
"If whoever staged this place is watching for someone to bite," she said, "we’ve disappointed them."
"Let them wait."
Nyra gave a small nod. "Gladly."
Alicia’s ears tilted toward the transfer lane. "The lane’s still quiet, Master."
Severin looked once across the swept yard, then turned west.
"Start with the carts. Find who moves hides and where they unload. Don’t pick a tannery before the carts lead us there."
Nyra fell into step behind his left shoulder. "That’ll take longer."
"Then charge me for work instead of shortcuts."
She glanced sideways at him. "Careful. I might."
"Earn it first."
Her mouth shifted, but she let that stand.
Alicia came into place on Severin’s right as they reached the transfer lane.
They walked west toward the carriage, leaving the southeast track untouched.
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