The morning came grey and cold into the courtyard. The sky was the pale, ordinary color it always was above Ashmark's roofline. The Scar was faint in the early light, its jagged line barely visible against the washed-out east.
Beorn had come here from her room when the first sounds of the kitchen started below, carrying the ledger, the quill and the charcoal and nothing else.
There was a table the near corner, where the wall caught the morning light before the sun cleared the far roofline. He set the ledger open to the funds page and the working margin facing each other. He stood with the charcoal in his hand for a moment, looking at the four crossed-out attempts still sitting in the margin from the night before.
