Roald was the first to notice it.
He slowed without meaning to, his eyes drifting from the dark line of spruce trunks to the forest floor. The earth was soft from the night's damp, pine needles pressed flat in places where weight had settled.
But there were no tracks.
No scattered boot marks.
No drag lines from a heavy wheel.
No crushed undergrowth where men had passed.
Only the faint grooves of their own steps from the evening before.
Roald crouched, brushing aside a layer of needles with careful fingers. His brow furrowed.
"That's wrong," he murmured.
Sir. Wilkinson, several paces ahead, did not answer at once. He stood rigid, gaze fixed forward as though sheer will might conjure his cart back into existence.
Roald rose and approached him.
"There should be prints," he said more clearly. "If woodland thieves took it, they'd have left sign."
Sir. Wilkinson turned slowly. The lines along his jaw were tight, a muscle feathering near his temple. He had not slept well.
"Men make mistakes," he replied, though his tone lacked conviction.
Roald shook his head. "Not with wheels that size. The ground would remember."
That made Sir. Wilkinson frown. He looked down then, really looked, as though seeing the forest floor for the first time.
Silence stretched.
"You are certain?" he asked.
Roald nodded. "A cart that heavy can't vanish."
For a moment, something flickered across Sir. Wilkinson's face — disbelief, irritation, perhaps even a hint of unease. He glanced at the towering spruce around them, their dark boughs knitting together overhead and swallowing the morning light.
"What would you suggest, then?" he asked, the question sharper than intended.
Roald did not flinch.
"Follow the cart's tracks. Not theirs. The wheels will tell us where it went."
Sir. Wilkinson studied the boy. The frustration had not left him, but it had shifted. Less wildfire. More calculation.
"Very well," he said at last.
They moved deeper between the spruce.
The trees rose straight and narrow, their trunks so close in places that the air felt trapped between them. Resin clung thick to the bark. The forest floor darkened the further they walked, light filtering down in thin, colorless strands.
Roald found the wheel impressions soon enough — faint but undeniable. Two parallel scars pressed into the earth, sometimes broken where roots crossed beneath.
He followed them carefully.
Sir. Wilkinson walked behind him now, quieter than before.
The woods seemed wrong.
Too still.
No birdsong.
No wind through branches.
Only the soft crunch of boots over needles.
Roald slowed again.
He had learned long ago that silence was not peace. Silence meant listening.
He opened his mouth to speak—
Sir. Wilkinson's hand shot out and caught his shoulder.
"Stop."
The word was barely breath.
Roald froze.
Sir. Wilkinson's head tilted slightly, eyes narrowing.
Above them.
A faint rustle.
Not wind.
Not the scrape of bark against bark.
Movement.
Roald followed his gaze upward into the dense canopy, where shadow swallowed detail. The spruce branches overlapped thickly, forming a woven ceiling of dark green and black.
Another sound.
Soft.
Measured.
Not animal.
Sir. Wilkinson's hand slowly slipped inside his coat.
"Do not move," he whispered.
Roald's pulse quickened. He strained to see, but the branches gave nothing away.
Then—
A shift of shadow.
A flicker of something darker than the dark.
Watching.
Sir. Wilkinson's jaw tightened. The dagger slid free, catching what little light filtered down.
The forest held its breath.
And something above them shifted again.
Not a scramble.
Not a fall.
A deliberate redistribution of weight.
A branch bent slightly under pressure — then eased back as though whatever rested upon it had moved on.
Roald's eyes strained into the canopy. Every overlapping needle cast a deeper shadow. Every shadow seemed capable of concealment.
"Do you see—" he began.
"Hush."
Sir. Wilkinson's grip tightened on his shoulder.
There.
To the right — a faint tremor along a separate branch, too distant to be caused by the first.
Sir. Wilkinson's gaze snapped between the two points.
Too far apart.
His pulse ticked faster.
The forest was no longer still.
It was occupied.
Another subtle disturbance came from behind them this time — not above. A quiet compression of needles under careful weight. When Sir. Wilkinson turned, nothing stood there.
But the impression of presence lingered.
Roald swallowed. "Is it wolves?"
Sir. Wilkinson did not answer immediately.
Wolves moved low. Wolves broke twigs. Wolves breathed heavily when close.
This felt higher.
Measured.
And wrong.
A third shift overhead — closer now. Not rushed. Not careless.
As though whoever watched had no fear of being heard.
Sir. Wilkinson stepped back slowly, positioning himself half before the boy without consciously meaning to. The dagger lowered slightly — not in surrender, but in calculation.
"Stay behind me," he murmured.
The wheel tracks continued ahead, threading between the trunks. For a strange moment, Sir. Wilkinson had the unsettling impression that they were being guided along them.
Another branch stirred.
Then, almost at the same instant, something brushed bark several paces to the left — a different tree entirely.
Roald's breath hitched.
"They're moving fast," he whispered.
Sir. Wilkinson did not correct him.
Because he was no longer certain it was a single movement.
The canopy quieted.
Silence returned — but it had changed shape. It no longer felt empty. It felt attentive.
Waiting.
Sir. Wilkinson forced himself to speak, keeping his voice steady.
"We proceed," he said quietly. "Slowly."
They took a step.
No immediate response.
Another step.
Still nothing.
Then, ahead of them — just beyond the next narrowing of trunks — a shape passed between branches overhead. Not clearly enough to define. Only a displacement of shadow against shadow.
Roald saw it this time.
His fingers caught briefly in the back of Sir. Wilkinson's coat.
"Sir…"
"I know."
But even as he spoke, something else shifted behind them again.
Not echo.
Not wind.
Spacing.
As though whatever occupied the trees understood distance.
Sir. Wilkinson felt it then — the subtle fracture in perception. The sense that the forest held more than one watcher. That if he fixed his gaze in one direction, he surrendered another.
His jaw tightened.
"Keep your eyes moving," he whispered.
Above them, unseen, something adjusted its position once more.
Not hunting.
Herding.
—------------------------------------------------------
Sir. Wilkinson felt it — not as proof, but as pressure. The wheel tracks did not wander. They ran straight, too straight, threading between trunks as though chosen.
Another faint shift overhead.
Then stillness again.
"Sir…" Roald whispered. "Should we—"
A break in the trees ahead caught Sir. Wilkinson's eye.
A narrow fracture in the dense spruce. A shaft of pale light cut through the gloom.
And within it—
A curve of polished oak.
A rim of brass.
Half-concealed behind the splintered remains of a lightning-struck stump.
Sir. Wilkinson's breath left him in a single stunned exhale.
"My cart."
The words were reverent.
For a suspended moment, the forest ceased to matter. The watching presence, the measured sounds above — all of it faded behind the overwhelming relief of recognition.
It was there.
Not dragged into ruin. Not shattered.
Hidden.
A laugh — strained and disbelieving — escaped him.
"I told you," he said, though he had told no one anything with certainty.
"Sir, wait," Roald urged softly.
But Sir. Wilkinson was already moving.
One step.
Then another, faster.
He pushed through the narrowing trunks toward the clearing.
Behind him, something shifted overhead again — a separate branch this time, not the one that had moved before.
He did not look up.
The cart stood angled behind the great broken stump as if deliberately placed. Light struck its varnished side, warm and familiar. From a distance, it appeared whole.
Untouched.
Sir. Wilkinson dropped to one knee beside it, breath shallow with relief.
"You see?" he called back, almost laughing. "Hardly damaged at all—"
His hand pressed against the side panel.
The wood gave a different answer than his eyes had.
Too light.
He stilled.
Slowly, he pulled the panel open.
The hollow interior stared back at him.
Empty.
Where the engine housing should have rested — nothing. The copper lines were gone. The piston assembly removed cleanly. The governor plate he had engraved by hand — unscrewed with precision. Even the smaller calibrations he had added in private — taken without splinter or tear.
The frame remained.
The heart did not.
It had been opened and relieved of its vital organs with care.
Sir. Wilkinson did not move.
Behind him, Roald stepped closer, hesitant.
"Sir?"
A faint compression of needles sounded somewhere off to the right.
Then another, farther back.
Not wind.
Not random.
Spaced.
Sir. Wilkinson's fingers tightened against the edge of the hollow compartment. The relief that had buoyed him seconds earlier curdled into something sharp and humiliating.
He had run.
He had abandoned caution.
And whatever moved among the trees had let him.
Above, unseen, a branch settled softly back into place.
The forest did not feel empty.
It felt satisfied.
—------------------------------------------------------
Sir. Wilkinson remained kneeling, staring into the hollow cavity of his life's work.
For several long seconds he did not speak.
Roald edged closer, peering over his shoulder. When he saw the interior, he froze.
"Oh," he said softly.
That single word broke something.
Sir. Wilkinson surged to his feet so abruptly Roald stepped back.
"They've gutted it," he said, his voice thin and tight. "Every coil. Every piston. Do you understand what that means?"
Roald swallowed. "We can— we can try to track them. If they carried the parts, there will be sign—"
"Sign?" Sir. Wilkinson rounded on him. "You assured me there would be sign before."
The words came faster now, sharpened by humiliation.
"You said thieves would leave prints. You said the ground remembers."
Roald flinched. "I meant—"
"You meant." Sir. Wilkinson laughed once, bitterly. "You meant."
A faint disturbance brushed through the trees behind them — a measured shifting of weight — but neither of them looked.
"I trusted your judgment," Sir. Wilkinson continued, pacing once before the broken stump. "I allowed you to guide us back. And what do we find? An empty shell."
"I didn't know—" Roald's voice trembled, though he tried to steady it. "I thought if we followed the tracks—"
"You thought!" The words cracked like a snapped branch. "You are thirteen, Roald. Thirteen. These roads are not apprentices' games. Every delay, every miscalculation—"
He gestured violently toward the hollow cart.
"—has consequence."
Roald's eyes shone, but he held his ground. "I was trying to help."
"Help?" Sir. Wilkinson stepped closer, frustration spilling over into cruelty he did not intend. "You slow us. You question every decision. You drag your boots and call it caution. Out here, that is not help. That is burden."
The word hung between them.
Even the forest seemed to pause around it.
Roald's face went very still.
The tears came quietly, without theatrics. He blinked once, hard, but they slipped free anyway.
"I'm sorry," he whispered.
The sight of it should have stopped Sir. Wilkinson.
Instead, pride held him silent.
Somewhere off to the left, needles compressed under careful weight.
Another subtle shift answered from the right.
Roald took a step back.
Sir. Wilkinson opened his mouth — perhaps to soften the blow, perhaps to reclaim it — but no words came in time.
Roald turned and ran.
"Roald—"
The boy did not look back.
He slipped between the narrow spruce trunks, boots skidding on needles, breath hitching. Within seconds the trees swallowed him into the darker weave of the forest.
Sir. Wilkinson took one step after him.
Stopped.
Another faint movement overhead.
A reminder.
The forest was still occupied.
"Roald!" he called, louder now.
No answer.
Only the echo of his own voice, thinned by the trees.
He swore under his breath and pushed forward, following the path where the boy had fled — but the spruce grew tighter, their trunks crowding together in confusing repetition.
Roald ran blindly, tears blurring his vision. Every direction looked the same — dark bark, low branches, patches of shadow that shifted when he wasn't looking directly at them.
A branch snagged his sleeve.
He tore free and kept running.
Behind him — or was it to the side? — a faint rustle kept pace.
Then another, slightly ahead.
Not close enough to see.
Not far enough to ignore.
Roald slowed at last, breath ragged.
The forest no longer felt like a place he knew how to read.
It felt rearranged.
He turned in a small circle.
Nothing.
Only trees.
And yet—
A subtle shift above.
Then stillness.
Roald realized, with a tightening in his chest, that he could no longer hear Sir. Wilkinson calling.
He had run farther than he meant to.
He was alone.
And somewhere in the woven dark above him, something adjusted its position once more.
—------------------------------------------------------
Roald did not look up this time.
He was listening.
At first he heard only his own breathing — too loud, too fast. He pressed a hand over his mouth to quiet it.
That was when he caught it.
Not the rustle above.
Something lower.
A slow exhale.
Close.
Roald turned carefully.
Between the trunks — far enough to be uncertain, near enough to be real — stood a shape darker than the bark behind it.
Then another, several paces off to the left.
Still.
Watching.
The wolves did not rush him as before.
They did not circle openly.
They stood in fragments between the spruce, their grey coats absorbing the thin light. Ears forward. Bodies lowered but not yet committed.
Patient.
One stepped forward.
Its paw made almost no sound against the needles.
Roald's pulse thundered in his ears.
He took a step back.
A mistake.
Behind him, another wolf emerged from shadow — not blocking him entirely, but narrowing the space.
They were not driving him into panic this time.
They were measuring him.
Testing distance.
The wolf ahead tilted its head slightly, studying him with unsettling calm.
Roald's breath trembled. "Go," he whispered, though the word had no force.
A branch shifted overhead.
Every wolf's head snapped upward at once.
Not toward Roald.
Up.
Their ears flattened briefly. One gave a low, uncertain rumble — not of aggression, but of warning.
The sound was answered from somewhere off to the right — another wolf, unseen until now, stepping into partial view.
They were more numerous than before.
And more restrained.
The lead wolf returned its gaze to Roald, but something in its posture had changed. Its attention was divided.
Another subtle movement in the canopy.
Measured.
Intentional.
The wolves fanned slightly wider, but not confidently. Their formation wavered, as though unsure which threat required more caution.
Roald stood frozen in the narrow space left to him.
One wolf took another careful step.
Another shifted behind him.
No snarling.
No sudden lunges.
Just the steady closing of distance.
The forest held the moment in taut silence.
Above them, unseen, weight transferred from one branch to another.
The wolves felt it.
Roald did not.
And between predator and something else entirely, the boy stood trembling — balanced on the thin edge between being claimed… and being protected.
—------------------------------------------------------
The wolves' patience thinned.
Roald saw it first in their shoulders.
The careful stillness began to tremble with restrained force. Muscles tightened beneath grey fur. One wolf shifted its weight forward, claws pressing into the pine needles.
Another lowered its head.
The circle drew smaller.
Roald backed away until bark pressed against his spine.
There was nowhere else to go.
The lead wolf inhaled slowly, tasting his fear.
Above them—
A branch creaked.
This time it was not subtle.
Every wolf's head snapped upward.
Too late.
A dark shape descended from the canopy — not falling, but controlled. Boots struck a lower branch first, bending it, redirecting momentum. Then the forest floor.
Soft.
Balanced.
Between Roald and the advancing wolf.
She straightened.
For a suspended heartbeat, nothing moved.
She did not look at Roald.
Her attention belonged wholly to the wolves.
Still.
Measured.
The pack hesitated.
They had expected prey.
This was not prey.
One wolf tested forward anyway, lips peeling back to show its teeth.
Her hand slipped briefly to her belt.
A small object — no larger than a walnut — dropped soundlessly into the needles between her and the wolves.
It burst with a muted pop.
Not fire.
Smoke.
A sharp plume of pale grey curled upward, thick and sudden, carrying with it the bitter tang of resin and crushed herbs. The scent was wrong for prey. Wrong for forest.
The wolves recoiled a fraction, startled.
Before they could recover—
From somewhere behind them came the abrupt, guttural snarl of a much larger predator.
Not wolf.
Not dog.
Deeper.
Closer than it should have been.
Several wolves wheeled around instantly, hackles rising.
The sound came again — from the opposite direction this time.
Spacing.
Not echo.
The forest felt populated.
She had not moved far, yet something small in her other hand clicked and whirred softly — a compact device of wood and brass, no larger than her palm. A thin membrane within it vibrated when she pressed it just so, reshaping her breath into something feral and foreign.
The lead wolf faltered, uncertain which threat to read.
She shifted her stance — only slightly.
Yet the adjustment changed the space between them.
Behind the wolves, a separate branch trembled — not from wind.
Their eyes flicked sideways.
Another low, manufactured growl rolled from deeper within the trees.
Doubt spread through the pack.
A younger wolf lunged abruptly, impatience overriding caution.
She moved before Roald fully saw her begin.
A fallen branch lifted from the ground in the same motion as her turn. The strike was sharp and exact — not savage, but decisive. Wood cracked against fur. The wolf yelped and stumbled sideways into another of the pack.
Disruption rippled through the circle.
The small device in her hand gave one final rasping cry — then went still.
She did not chase.
She advanced a single step instead — claiming ground.
The smoke thinned but lingered just enough to blur her outline.
Above them, another branch shifted.
The wolves felt it.
Their ears flattened.
This was no longer a simple hunt.
There was scent where there should not be scent.
Sound where there should not be sound.
Movement that did not align.
The lead wolf backed away slowly.
One by one, the others yielded, retreating between the spruce — not in panic, but in wary concession.
They did not run.
They withdrew.
Grey shapes dissolved into shadow until only stillness remained.
Silence reclaimed the clearing.
The faint scent of smoke faded.
She remained where she stood, branch loose in her hand, the small device now tucked back into her belt, breathing steady.
Only then did she turn.
Up close, she did not look like a specter.
She looked young.
Composed.
And utterly unafraid.
Roald stared at her, tears still wet on his cheeks, chest heaving.
For a moment he seemed unsure whether she was real.
She regarded him briefly — assessing, not unkind — then lifted her gaze toward the canopy once more, as if confirming something unseen had settled.
The forest answered with quiet.
And for the first time since he had run, Roald did not feel alone.
—------------------------------------------------------
Roald wiped at his face with the back of his sleeve, embarrassed by the tears he had not meant to shed.
She had already shifted her attention away from him.
The branch dropped from her hand without ceremony.
For a moment, she stood listening — not to the boy, but to the forest beyond him. Her head tilted slightly, as though measuring distance through sound alone.
Somewhere far off, a voice carried faintly between the trunks.
"Roald!"
Sir. Wilkinson.
Roald's head jerked toward the sound.
"I have to—" he began, then stopped. He wasn't sure what he meant to say.
She was already moving.
Not toward the voice.
Not away from it.
Up.
Her hands found the bark of a nearby spruce with familiarity born of repetition. She climbed without haste, without wasted effort. Boots found knots and shallow ridges invisible to Roald's eye.
Within seconds she had ascended beyond his reach.
He craned his neck.
A shift of branches.
A darker shape folding into darker shadow.
Then nothing distinct at all.
Only the woven ceiling of spruce.
"Roald!"
Closer now.
Roald turned toward the sound, hesitating only once to glance upward again.
If she remained there, she gave no sign.
The forest no longer felt predatory.
But it did not feel empty either.
It felt watched — differently.
"Roald!"
"I'm here!" he shouted back, voice cracking.
He pushed between the trunks toward the sound of Sir. Wilkinson's approach. The path he had taken in panic seemed less clear now, but the call guided him.
Behind him, high above and unseen, weight shifted once along a branch.
Measured.
Then stilled.
By the time Sir. Wilkinson burst through the trees, breathless and pale with fear, the clearing where the wolves had stood showed only disturbed needles and the faint scuff of paws already fading.
Roald turned to face his mentor.
Above them, the canopy held its secrets.
And somewhere within it, she watched — but did not descend.
—------------------------------------------------------
Sir. Wilkinson broke through the spruce with far less grace than anything else that had moved through them that day.
"Roald!"
He stopped the moment he saw the boy standing upright.
Whole.
Alive.
Relief struck him visibly. His shoulders dropped. The dagger in his hand lowered at once.
He crossed the remaining distance in three quick strides and seized Roald by both shoulders — not roughly, but firmly, as if confirming substance.
"Are you hurt?"
Roald shook his head.
Sir. Wilkinson exhaled, long and unsteady. For a moment, words failed him.
Then they came all at once.
"I am sorry."
No pride. No qualification.
The words were low and earnest.
"I should never have spoken to you that way. Not in anger. Not ever. The fault was mine." His grip softened. "I allowed frustration to master me. You were trying to help. You have done nothing but try to help."
Roald blinked, startled by the immediacy of it.
"Sir—"
"I was wrong," Sir. Wilkinson continued, voice tightening slightly. "You are not a burden. If anyone has been blind in this forest, it is me."
Roald glanced past him, suddenly alert.
"Shh."
Sir. Wilkinson froze.
Roald stepped closer, lowering his voice instinctively.
"I met someone."
The words were not dramatic.
They were certain.
Sir. Wilkinson frowned. "Met—?"
"Someone," Roald repeated, eyes flicking briefly upward toward the canopy before returning to Sir. Wilkinson's face.
The older man's expression shifted from remorse to confusion.
"There is no one else out here," he said carefully. "Only us."
Roald shook his head. "No. Not us."
Sir. Wilkinson studied him, searching for signs of panic or imagination.
"Roald… you were frightened."
"I know what frightened feels like," the boy said quietly.
There was no defiance in it. Only steadiness.
Sir. Wilkinson's jaw tightened. "What did you see?"
Roald hesitated — not because he doubted himself, but because he did not quite have the words.
"She came down from the trees."
Sir. Wilkinson's eyes sharpened.
"Came down."
Roald nodded.
"She stood between me and the wolves."
The word landed heavily between them.
Sir. Wilkinson went still. "Wolves?"
Roald swallowed. "They were waiting. Not like before. Different."
Sir. Wilkinson's gaze swept the clearing now, noticing for the first time the disturbed needles, the faint impressions in the soil.
He had been too focused on the boy to read the ground.
"You are certain?" he asked quietly.
"Yes."
A pause.
"And this… someone?"
Roald's voice softened. "She didn't speak."
"She?"
Roald nodded again.
Sir. Wilkinson looked upward into the dense lattice of branches.
Nothing moved.
Only shadow.
"She scared them," Roald added. "Not by shouting. They just… didn't know where to look."
Sir. Wilkinson felt a subtle chill travel the length of his spine.
He had felt something earlier.
In the clearing.
Around the cart.
He had dismissed it as anger clouding his senses.
Now—
He looked back at Roald.
"You believe she saved you."
Roald did not hesitate.
"Yes."
Silence settled between them.
Sir. Wilkinson's expression softened again — but this time with something deeper than apology.
"I should not have let you run," he said quietly.
Roald gave a small, almost knowing shake of his head.
"You didn't mean it," he said. "My father says things like that too when he's angry. Then he apologizes before supper."
The comparison struck Sir. Wilkinson unexpectedly.
He almost smiled.
"I see," he murmured.
Roald's voice grew gentler. "You didn't mean it either."
Sir. Wilkinson held the boy's gaze.
"No," he said. "I did not."
For a moment, the forest felt less hostile.
But not empty.
Sir. Wilkinson glanced once more toward the canopy.
If someone had indeed descended from it, they had left no obvious trace.
Which troubled him more than if they had.
He straightened slowly.
"Then," he said, voice measured once more, "we appear to have a guardian we have not yet met."
High above them, unseen, a branch settled almost imperceptibly into stillness.
Sir. Wilkinson did not look up this time.
But he felt it.
—------------------------------------------------------
Sir. Wilkinson did not speak again immediately.
He retrieved the dropped dagger, slid it back into place, and after one last sweep of the clearing, gestured gently.
"We should move."
Roald nodded.
They walked without urgency, but not slowly either. The forest seemed less oppressive now, though no less watchful. Light filtered down in fractured shafts. The air carried the scent of sap and damp bark.
After several minutes, Sir. Wilkinson said, without looking at the boy:
"Tell me what they were doing. The wolves."
Roald kept his eyes forward.
"They weren't hungry."
A small crease formed between Sir. Wilkinson's brows.
"No?"
"They weren't thin. And they didn't rush." Roald hesitated. "They were waiting."
"For what?"
"I don't know."
Sir. Wilkinson absorbed this.
Wolves that waited.
He had seen wolves before. He respected them. But patience without hunger was a different thing.
"Did she frighten them," he asked carefully, "or command them?"
Roald considered this seriously.
"They didn't look at her," he said. "That was the strange part. They looked everywhere else."
Sir. Wilkinson felt that same chill again — but it was threaded now with something else.
Recognition.
They walked on.
The trees gradually thinned, though only slightly. The ground began to slope in a way that felt familiar. Sir. Wilkinson adjusted his direction almost imperceptibly.
"You are certain she did not speak?" he asked.
"Yes."
"No sound at all?"
Roald shook his head. "She just stood there. Like she'd always been there."
Sir. Wilkinson was quiet for a long stretch after that.
Eventually, Roald glanced up at him.
"Are you angry?"
"At her?" Sir. Wilkinson asked.
"At… losing the cart."
The words were blunt, but not unkind.
Sir. Wilkinson's jaw flexed.
The cart.
His cart.
The carefully seasoned oak frame. The iron-bound wheels. The reinforced axle he had modified himself. Weeks of travel balanced perfectly. Instruments. Supplies. Notes.
Splintered now.
He could see it in his mind's eye: overturned, cracked, wheel half-torn free.
"No," he said at first.
Then he sighed.
"Yes."
They stepped over a fallen branch together.
"I spent three years perfecting it," he continued. His voice had shifted — less pride now, more confession. "Balanced to the ounce. She rode like a ship on still water."
Roald's expression brightened slightly. "You always called it 'she.'"
"I did," Sir. Wilkinson said quietly.
A pause.
"It will not be easily repaired," he admitted. "If at all."
The words tasted bitter.
They walked several more paces before Roald said:
"You're still here."
Sir. Wilkinson looked down.
"What?"
"The cart isn't," Roald clarified. "But you are."
The simplicity of it struck harder than any philosophical comfort could have.
Sir. Wilkinson gave a soft exhale — not quite a laugh.
"I suppose that is an advantage."
Roald nodded solemnly.
"And I'm here."
"Yes," Sir. Wilkinson said, and this time there was no hesitation. "You are."
The slope steepened — and then leveled.
Sir. Wilkinson stopped abruptly.
The trees ahead opened just enough to reveal something blessedly ordinary.
Their path.
Narrow. Rutted. Unmistakable.
The world beyond the trees seemed almost mundane in comparison.
Roald broke into a relieved grin.
"We found it."
"No," Sir. Wilkinson corrected gently. "We returned to it."
He stepped onto the path first, testing the ground as though it might vanish.
It did not.
The forest behind them seemed to exhale.
And then—
A shift.
Subtle.
Intentional.
Sir. Wilkinson did not turn at once.
He felt it first — the way one feels being regarded.
Not threatened.
Measured.
He let Roald walk two steps ahead before allowing himself to glance back.
There.
Partially obscured behind the thick trunk of a spruce.
A shape where there should have been only bark.
Pale against shadow.
Still.
Not hiding in panic.
Not retreating.
Watching.
He saw no clear face. Only the suggestion of one. A fall of dark hair. The faint curve of a shoulder where the tree's edge failed to conceal her entirely.
She did not move.
For a heartbeat, neither did he.
He could pursue.
He could demand answers.
He could thank her.
Instead—
He inclined his head.
Barely.
A gesture so small it might have been mistaken for nothing at all.
Then he turned back to the path.
"Sir?" Roald asked.
"Walk," he said calmly.
They did.
The forest did not follow.
Behind them, the spruce held its shadow.
And within it, something ancient and patient watched them go — not with possession, nor with hunger.
But with consideration.
Sir. Wilkinson did not look back again.
But he no longer doubted she was there.