Sir. Wilkinson kept his eyes on the road.
He did not look back.
But he counted.
Seven miles from the clearing to Dillaclor. Six and three-quarters now, perhaps. Less, if the road held straight. More, if it did not.
He adjusted his stride accordingly.
Roald walked beside him with considerably less calculation.
"It isn't so bad," the boy said after a while.
Sir. Wilkinson did not glance over. "Walking?"
"Yes."
"It is precisely as bad as it sounds."
Roald considered that.
"We could jog."
"We will not jog."
"We could take turns carrying each other."
Sir. Wilkinson finally looked at him. "You are thirteen."
"And you are not as heavy as the cart."
Sir. Wilkinson exhaled through his nose, but there was no edge to it.
They walked on.
The spruce thinned gradually behind them, though the forest still pressed close enough to cast long shadows across the road. The world had resumed its ordinary sounds — wind in branches, distant birds, the faint scrape of boots against packed earth.
It should have felt simple.
It did not.
Roald kicked a stone idly ahead of him.
"We could build something," he offered.
"Out of what?"
"Branches."
Sir. Wilkinson raised an eyebrow.
"A sled, perhaps."
"There is no snow."
"A wheeled sled."
"That would be a cart."
Roald brightened. "Exactly."
Sir. Wilkinson did not dignify that with an answer.
They rounded a shallow bend in the road.
Something caught the light.
Sir. Wilkinson stopped.
There, in the middle of the packed earth, lay a small iron bracket.
Bent slightly at one corner.
Recognizable.
He stepped forward slowly.
Roald leaned in. "Is that—?"
"Yes."
Sir. Wilkinson crouched and picked it up.
The metal was cool. Recently placed.
He turned it in his fingers.
One of the lower frame supports. Not essential on its own. But not decorative either.
He glanced toward the tree line.
Nothing moved.
Roald smiled faintly. "She has good aim."
"She has poor boundaries," Sir. Wilkinson replied, rising.
He slipped the bracket into his coat pocket.
They resumed walking.
Roald did not speak for nearly a minute.
Then—
"If she meant to keep it," he said thoughtfully, "she wouldn't have left it."
Sir. Wilkinson kept his gaze forward. "If she meant not to interfere, she would not have taken it."
"That's not the same thing."
"It is precisely the same thing."
Roald did not argue further.
They walked another hundred paces.
Something else lay ahead.
This time it was leather.
A narrow strap, one end still fitted with a brass buckle.
Sir. Wilkinson stopped again.
He did not sigh.
But he considered it.
The buckle had been polished. He had done that himself the night before they left home.
It was not bent.
Not torn.
The leather showed no sign of being chewed or dragged.
It had been removed.
Deliberately.
Roald crouched and picked it up before Sir. Wilkinson could.
"She keeps the interesting parts," the boy observed.
"She stole the entire apparatus."
"But she returned this."
Sir. Wilkinson extended his hand.
Roald hesitated.
Then passed it over.
Sir. Wilkinson examined the strap more closely.
There were faint marks near the punched holes.
Not teeth.
Not random abrasion.
Tools.
Small ones.
He said nothing.
They walked again.
The third piece lay half a mile later.
A brass fitting from the forward brace — one he had modified himself to distribute weight more evenly over uneven terrain.
He had not shown anyone that design.
Roald spotted it first.
"Another one."
Sir. Wilkinson approached more slowly this time.
He picked it up.
It had been cleaned.
Not polished to shine — but wiped free of dirt.
Handled carefully.
He turned it over in his palm.
It was intact.
Entirely intact.
A strange sensation threaded through his irritation.
Not relief.
Not quite.
Recognition.
"She is mocking you," he muttered.
Roald shook his head. "I don't think she knows how."
Sir. Wilkinson looked at him sharply.
"What?"
"If she wanted to make you angry, she would break them first."
Sir. Wilkinson opened his mouth.
Closed it.
Roald reached into his small pouch and began tucking the pieces inside.
"You cannot possibly intend to rebuild it," Sir. Wilkinson said.
"No."
"Then why collect them?"
Roald adjusted the pouch string. "If she keeps giving them back, it seems rude not to take them."
Sir. Wilkinson stared at him.
"That is not how theft works."
"Maybe it is here."
They walked on.
The road curved slightly, rising over a gentle incline.
Sir. Wilkinson found himself scanning ahead.
Not for danger.
For metal.
For glint.
For pattern.
He told himself it was annoyance that sharpened his vision.
Nothing more.
They crested the rise.
There, set carefully atop a flat stone beside the road, rested something smaller than the others.
Sir. Wilkinson stopped before Roald could reach it.
It was a narrow cylindrical casing of his own making.
Part of a compact ignition device.
Delicate.
Temperamental.
He had assumed it shattered when the cart overturned.
He bent and lifted it with more care than he intended to show.
The internal chamber was undamaged.
The firing pin remained aligned.
He tested it lightly with his thumb.
It responded.
Perfectly.
Roald watched his face.
"She didn't break that," the boy said quietly.
"No," Sir. Wilkinson replied.
He did not add that she had also not misaligned it.
Which required understanding.
He looked toward the forest again.
Still nothing.
Not even a branch stirred.
"She's giving them back in pieces," Roald said. "Maybe she thinks we only needed parts."
Sir. Wilkinson let out a short breath.
"If she intends to return the entire cart in installments, we shall be here until winter."
Roald grinned.
"Well," he said thoughtfully, adjusting the weight of the pouch at his side, "it was balanced to the ounce."
Sir. Wilkinson almost smiled.
Almost.
He slipped the ignition casing into his inner pocket.
They resumed walking.
Behind them, somewhere beyond the road's bend and beyond the reach of ordinary sight, a figure remained still among the trees.
She did not step forward.
She did not retreat.
She watched the taller one examine each piece.
Watched the boy gather them.
She tilted her head slightly.
Not mocking.
Not triumphant.
Curious.
Then, silent as breath against bark, she moved ahead of them once more.
—------------------------------------------------------
Sir. Wilkinson did not see her do it.
He knew.
There are certain absences a man learns to read — the way air shifts before weather turns, the way a beam hums before it splits.
The forest had changed again.
Not louder.
More attentive.
He did not alter his pace.
But he altered something else.
He stepped deliberately into the softer edge of the road where the earth held impressions more readily. Not enough to seem obvious. Enough to test.
Roald continued beside him, still adjusting the small pouch at his hip.
"If she keeps this up," the boy said cheerfully, "we might not need to buy iron in Dillaclor at all."
Sir. Wilkinson made no reply.
They walked another stretch.
Nothing glinted ahead.
No metal.
No leather.
Only road.
Roald squinted down the path. "Perhaps she has run out."
"Unlikely."
"Oh?"
"She is not careless."
Roald glanced up at him, surprised at the tone. Not irritated. Not dismissive.
Measured.
They walked on.
A hundred paces.
Two hundred.
Then Sir. Wilkinson slowed — just slightly — and shifted his stride back toward the firmer center of the road.
Another hundred paces.
There.
Not in the road.
Not beside it.
But precisely at the edge of where his altered steps would have fallen had he continued in the softer earth.
A small washer.
Round. Narrow. Insignificant to anyone else.
Integral to weight distribution.
Roald spotted it second.
"Did you drop that?"
Sir. Wilkinson did not answer immediately.
He walked to it.
Examined the ground.
It had not been thrown.
It had not rolled.
It had been placed.
Exactly where his experiment would have concluded.
Roald crouched, peering at it. "That's a strange place to leave it."
"Yes," Sir. Wilkinson said quietly.
He picked it up.
It was clean.
He straightened.
And for the first time since the clearing, irritation did not come first.
Understanding did.
He had shifted.
She had answered.
Not randomly.
Not coincidentally.
Answered.
Roald dusted his hands. "Maybe she's just guessing."
Sir. Wilkinson slipped the washer into his pocket.
"She is not guessing."
The boy blinked. "How do you know?"
Sir. Wilkinson looked ahead into the trees — not searching wildly, not craning — simply directing his gaze into the layered shadows.
"Because she corrected me."
Roald frowned. "Corrected you how?"
Sir. Wilkinson resumed walking.
"When I altered my path."
Roald processed this with thirteen-year-old logic, which is to say, enthusiasm before caution.
"So it's a game."
Sir. Wilkinson did not deny it.
Roald grinned. "Oh, I hope it is."
They continued.
The road narrowed slightly where brambles leaned inward. Sir. Wilkinson allowed his hand to brush the thorned branches as he passed.
A small risk.
Nothing more.
He walked ten paces.
Fifteen.
Then—
A faint metallic tick from the right.
Not loud.
Not accidental.
He stopped.
Roald stopped because he did.
From a low branch at shoulder height hung a thin strip of wire — one of his own fastening ties — looped loosely so that when disturbed by the slightest breeze, it struck the bark beside it.
Tick.
Tick.
Sir. Wilkinson studied it.
It had not been there moments before.
Roald looked between the wire and the forest. "She's closer."
"Yes."
"She wants you to notice."
Sir. Wilkinson reached up and stilled the wire with two fingers.
Silence returned immediately.
The forest held its breath.
"She is adjusting distance," he murmured.
Roald tilted his head. "Like measuring?"
"Yes."
"For what?"
Sir. Wilkinson did not answer that.
Because he did not yet know.
He stepped back from the branch.
And this time, he did not pretend.
He looked upward.
High.
Deliberate.
Into the woven canopy.
The leaves shifted faintly.
Not enough for form.
Enough for presence.
There.
He felt it as clearly as weight in the hand.
Not threat.
Not hostility.
Attention.
Steady.
Focused.
He held her unseen gaze.
And something in him — something that had bristled since the clearing — straightened instead.
He did not feel hunted.
He felt examined.
Roald followed his line of sight and squinted hopelessly. "I can't see her."
"I know."
"Is she smiling, do you think?"
Sir. Wilkinson considered that longer than necessary.
"Yes," he said at last.
Roald grinned broadly. "Good."
Sir. Wilkinson did not smile.
But the corner of his mouth shifted — not upward, not quite — but away from severity.
He turned back to the road.
"We continue."
Roald trotted to keep pace.
Behind them, the wire no longer ticked.
Ahead, the forest seemed almost… expectant.
Sir. Wilkinson's mind moved faster than his stride now.
She had dismantled his cart to understand it.
She returned fragments to study him.
She had observed his habits closely enough to anticipate adjustment.
Not random theft.
Not childish mischief.
A test.
And not of his temper.
Of his adaptability.
He felt it then — the faintest spark beneath irritation.
Not pride.
Not anger.
Engagement.
He altered his stride again.
Deliberately uneven this time.
He stepped wide left, then narrow right, disrupting rhythm.
Roald nearly stumbled trying to match him. "Are we walking strangely on purpose?"
"Yes."
"Oh. Should I be?"
"No."
They walked twenty paces in this disordered pattern.
Thirty.
Nothing appeared.
Sir. Wilkinson felt a flicker of something dangerously close to disappointment.
Then—
Ahead, pinned neatly into the bark of a fallen log at the exact height of his shoulder, was the final piece from the forward brace.
Centered.
Aligned.
As though mounted for inspection.
He stopped.
Roald whistled softly. "That was fast."
Sir. Wilkinson approached the log.
The piece had been secured with a slender wooden peg, driven cleanly through an existing hole in the metal.
No damage.
Efficient.
He touched the peg.
Firm.
Calculated.
He removed it carefully.
The metal came free without resistance.
She had accounted for angle.
For balance.
For ease of removal.
He held the brace in both hands for a moment longer than required.
Roald rocked on his heels. "So."
"So," Sir. Wilkinson echoed.
"It is a game."
Sir. Wilkinson slid the brace into Roald's pouch.
"No," he said quietly.
Roald blinked.
"It is a conversation."
The boy considered this, then nodded gravely — though he did not fully understand.
They resumed walking.
Behind them, high among the branches where the light fractured gold through the leaves, a young woman remained very still.
He had altered rhythm.
She had matched it.
He had tested irregularity.
She had responded with precision.
Her lips curved — not in triumph — but in recognition.
He was not angry.
He was answering.
And below, on the road to Dillaclor, Sir. Wilkinson did not look back again.
But for the first time since the clearing,
he walked as though he expected a reply.
—------------------------------------------------------
They walked another stretch in quiet.
Sir. Wilkinson's mind, however, was anything but quiet.
He had confirmed her presence. Confirmed her precision. Confirmed her responsiveness.
Now he needed to confirm something else.
He slowed.
Roald glanced up. "Are we resting?"
"No," Sir. Wilkinson replied quietly. "We are performing."
Roald blinked. "Performing what?"
"A hypothesis."
Roald's face lit immediately. "Oh."
Sir. Wilkinson stopped in the center of the road and turned slightly away from the trees, lowering his voice.
"You must trust me."
Roald straightened. "I do."
"I am going to appear furious."
Roald's eyebrows rose in admiration. "You don't have to pretend very hard."
Sir. Wilkinson ignored that.
"You will protest. Loudly. But not fearfully. Do you understand?"
Roald's smile faltered just a fraction. "She'll hear."
"That is the intention."
The boy's eyes widened slowly.
Realization dawned.
"You think she'd come down."
"I am certain of it."
"And if she doesn't?"
Sir. Wilkinson's expression remained level. "Then we continue walking."
Roald considered that only a second.
Then he nodded.
"All right."
Sir. Wilkinson stepped back, drawing in a slow breath.
When he exhaled, something in him shifted.
His shoulders hardened. His jaw tightened. The calm engineer disappeared.
"What possessed you?" he snapped suddenly.
Roald startled — convincingly.
"I—I don't know what you mean!"
"You have been interfering since morning."
Roald stepped back as instructed.
"I only picked up the pieces!"
"You presume too much."
Sir. Wilkinson seized the front of Roald's tunic.
Hard.
Roald gasped — not entirely acting.
From the trees, something moved.
Sir. Wilkinson saw it in his periphery.
Good.
"You think this is a game?" he barked.
The dagger flashed.
Steel caught light.
The forest inhaled.
Roald struggled convincingly. "I didn't mean—!"
Sir. Wilkinson tightened his grip and let his voice sharpen into something harsh and cutting.
"You will learn restraint."
The blade hovered beneath the boy's jaw.
The trees exploded.
She dropped from the canopy without sound.
Impact.
Sir. Wilkinson hit the ground hard enough to rattle breath from his lungs. His dagger spun away into the dirt.
A knee drove into his chest.
Cold steel pressed to his throat.
She was above him — eyes blazing, jaw tight, breath fierce and fast.
No words.
None needed.
The blade bit just enough to draw a thin red line.
Roald scrambled back — wide-eyed, startled now for real.
She leaned closer.
Her expression was not wild chaos.
It was focused violence.
Protective.
She would have done it.
Sir. Wilkinson lay still beneath her.
Completely still.
Not frozen in fear.
Not struggling.
Watching.
Studying her as she studied him.
That was the first crack.
Her eyes narrowed slightly.
His breathing was controlled.
Measured.
Infuriatingly steady.
No panic.
No fury in return.
Only—
Calculation.
Her gaze flicked to Roald.
The boy was no longer protesting.
He was not crying.
He was staring at her with open admiration.
And— impossibly—
A small, grateful smile.
She looked back at Sir. Wilkinson.
The corner of his mouth curved.
Barely.
But unmistakably.
Understanding dawned slowly across her features.
Not shock.
Not humiliation.
Recognition.
She had been drawn out.
On purpose.
Her jaw tightened.
The snarl faded.
The blade remained at his throat one heartbeat longer — as if considering whether pride alone justified finishing it.
Then she withdrew it sharply and stood.
Not retreating.
Standing.
Her annoyance was clear.
Palpable.
Sir. Wilkinson rose without haste, brushing dirt from his coat as though this had been a minor inconvenience.
He did not reach for his fallen dagger.
He did not step toward her.
He simply stood upright and met her gaze.
For the first time, they faced one another without trees between them.
No shadows.
No guessing.
Her eyes burned with accusation.
He inclined his head slightly.
A silent acknowledgment:
You came.
Roald stepped closer, bright as ever.
"Thank you," he said sincerely. "Again."
Her gaze shifted to him.
The boy's gratitude was real.
Uncomplicated.
She exhaled sharply through her nose.
When she looked back at Sir. Wilkinson, something new flickered beneath the irritation.
Not defeat.
Assessment.
He had risked himself.
He had predicted her.
He had trusted her to choose protection over concealment.
That was bold.
Perhaps foolish.
Perhaps brilliant.
She sheathed her blade in one fluid motion.
Then she stepped backward — once, twice — eyes never leaving his.
A warning lived there.
Not in words.
In promise.
Do not try that again.
Sir. Wilkinson's expression did not change.
But there was no smirk now.
Only quiet satisfaction.
She turned.
And in three silent strides, the forest swallowed her again.
Roald let out a breath he had clearly been holding.
"Well," he said brightly, "she moves faster than you."
Sir. Wilkinson touched the thin line at his throat where the blade had rested.
"Yes," he said calmly.
"She does."
And though she was hidden once more,
the balance between them had shifted.
Not because she spoke.
But because she chose not to kill him.
Sir. Wilkinson retrieved his fallen dagger and wiped the blade carefully against his sleeve before sheathing it.
Roald adjusted the pouch at his side, still glowing faintly with triumph.
They stood in the road a moment longer than necessary.
"She was angry," Roald said.
"Yes."
"But she didn't hurt you."
"No."
Roald smiled at that.
Sir. Wilkinson did not.
He glanced once toward the trees — not searching now, not provoking.
Simply aware.
"She will not forgive that easily," he said.
Roald tilted his head. "Do you want her to?"
Sir. Wilkinson considered the thin sting at his throat.
"No," he replied at last.
And they continued toward Dillaclor, the road stretching ahead as though nothing had changed at all.
But the forest behind them was no longer a mystery.
It was a challenge.
And somewhere above, unseen once more, Isobel watched them go —
not hidden now,
but waiting.