We rode back to a lodge that had been gutted while we bled at the fords.
Not burned Damien was cleverer than fire. His wolves had slipped in during the empty hours, freed the two prisoners, taken the true line's proof, and vanished, leaving almost no trace. Almost. Because whoever had opened those cells had known exactly where the ledger was kept, exactly which guards to avoid, exactly how the lodge breathed at the dead hour.
An inside hand. The leak, still working, even now.
"He played the whole thing," Cain said, standing over the empty strongbox where the ledger had been. His voice was flat with a fury colder than any I'd heard. "The strike on the fords was never meant to win. It was meant to make us commit everything to it. He spent a hundred wolves to empty this lodge for one hour.
