The comparison became harder to dismiss when the easy explanations stopped accounting for all of it.
Sera pinned no map to a public wall. She spread the shelter summaries on the table with their identifying covers turned inward and asked Eli to sort them by travel distance. Then she sorted them again by request time, by reported road damage, and by the number of residents. A pattern that vanished under an ordinary difference would not be a pattern they could responsibly take to a distribution office.
One delay vanished.
The shelter had requested supplies later than its organizer first remembered. Its received date looked poor beside a neighboring site until the actual acknowledgment was added. Sera moved that case aside and wrote the reason in the comparison. Eli watched the most dramatic disparity leave the main table.
The remaining ones were smaller and more stubborn.
Two shelters with comparable recorded need had sent requests within the same interval. The nearer one waited longer. Road reports did not show damage severe enough to explain the whole difference. One had a local government newly signed to Rook’s long-term agreement. The other did not.
“That still doesn’t tell us who assigned the cart,” Sera said.
