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 thin 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 will alone might conjure the 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 look down — properly this time — 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."
Something flickered across Sir Wilkinson's face — disbelief, irritation, perhaps unease. He glanced at the towering spruce around them, their dark boughs knitting overhead and swallowing the morning light.
"What would you suggest?" he asked, sharper than intended.
Roald did not flinch.
"Follow the cart's tracks. The wheels will tell us where it went."
Sir Wilkinson studied him. The frustration had not vanished, but it had cooled — less wildfire now, more calculation.
"Very well."
They moved deeper between the spruce.
The trunks rose straight and narrow, so close in places the air felt trapped between them. Resin clung thick to the bark. Light filtered down in thin, colorless strands that failed to warm the ground.
Roald found the wheel impressions soon enough — faint but undeniable. Two parallel scars pressed into the earth, broken only where roots swelled beneath the soil.
He followed them carefully.
Sir Wilkinson walked behind him now, quieter.
The woods felt wrong.
Too still.
No birdsong. No wind through branches. Only the soft crush 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 caught his shoulder.
"Stop."
The word barely carried breath.
Roald froze.
Above them—
A faint disturbance in the canopy. A single branch bowed under weight, held for a breath, then eased back into place.
Not wind. Wind moved broadly. This was contained.
Sir Wilkinson's eyes narrowed.
Another branch shifted.
Not near the first.
His gaze snapped sideways. The distance between them was wrong — too far for one body moving tree to tree.
A soft compression of needles sounded behind them.
Ground level.
Sir Wilkinson turned sharply.
Nothing stood there. No broken twigs. No fleeing shape.
But something had occupied that space a heartbeat earlier.
Roald swallowed. "Is it wolves?"
Wolves did not move above the tree line.
A third disturbance rippled through the upper boughs — closer now. Measured. No scramble. No panic in it.
Sir Wilkinson stepped back without thinking, positioning himself between Roald and the trees. The dagger slid free, low and ready.
Another subtle shift answered from their left.
Then quiet.
Not emptiness.
Arrangement.
His pulse quickened as understanding settled cold in his chest.
They were not being watched from one direction.
They were being placed between.
The wheel tracks stretched ahead between the trunks — straight, deliberate.
Sir Wilkinson felt the shape of it then. The spacing. The restraint.
"Stay behind me," he murmured.
They began to move again.
One step.
No response.
Another.
The forest held.
Ahead, just beyond a narrowing of trunks, a shape passed through the canopy — not clearly seen, only the displacement of shadow against shadow.
Roald saw it this time. His fingers caught in the back of Sir Wilkinson's coat.
"Sir—"
"I know."
Something shifted behind them again.
Not echo.
Not accident.
Distance.
Sir Wilkinson forced himself to keep his gaze moving. Fix on one direction too long and the others would close.
The wheel tracks did not wander. They ran straight, threading between trunks as though chosen.
Another faint adjustment above.
Then stillness.
Not hunting.
Herding.
Sir Wilkinson felt it — not as proof, but as pressure.
The tracks led onward.
A break in the trees ahead caught his eye.
A narrow fracture in the dense spruce. 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 stunned exhale.
"My cart."
For a suspended moment, the forest ceased to matter. The watching presence, the measured sounds above — all of it dulled beneath the sharp flood of recognition.
It was there.
Not shattered.
Not burned.
Hidden.
A strained laugh 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.
Behind him, a branch shifted.
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—"
His hand pressed against the side panel.
The wood answered differently 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 off to the right.
Then another, farther back.
Measured.
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.