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.