They walked for five miles without speaking of what had happened.
The forest had grown thinner in places, older in others. The air felt heavier the farther they went, damp with something that hinted at water long before it could be seen. Sir. Wilkinson kept a steady pace at first, posture straight, steps measured as though the ground itself could be persuaded into obedience by discipline alone.
Roald tried to match him.
He did not complain.
That was what troubled Sir. Wilkinson most.
The boy's usual questions—curious, relentless—had dwindled to silence. His steps began to lag. Once or twice, Sir. Wilkinson slowed deliberately, pretending to examine a tree trunk or adjust the strap of his pack, allowing the boy to close the gap without drawing attention to it.
By the fourth mile, Roald's hand had begun drifting toward his midsection.
By the fifth, he was clutching it.
They had little left to eat. What provisions they once carried had been rationed with care, but care does not create food where none exists. Hunting would have required rest. Rest would have required safety. They had possessed neither.
"Nearly there," Sir. Wilkinson said at one point, though he had no proof of it.
Roald nodded, but the nod was small. His lips had gone pale.
The sound reached them before the sight.
A low, unending roar.
Not wind.
Not trees.
Something heavier.
When they broke through the last line of brush and stepped onto the rocky shore, the Rombichong River revealed itself in full.
It was not a river in the gentle sense of the word.
It was a moving horizon.
A mile-wide expanse of steel-gray water, churning and folding over itself in endless, muscular currents. The far bank was a faint smear in the distance. Near the center, what remained of a once-grand bridge stood in broken defiance—its middle span collapsed, its jagged ribs thrust upward like the bones of something long dead.
Mist hung over the surface. The water struck against boulders with a force that made the ground tremble beneath their boots.
Sir. Wilkinson stared.
He calculated distance. Speed of current. Temperature.
He calculated and recalculated.
He found no solution he trusted.
Behind him, there was a small sound.
Roald had dropped to his knees.
At first, Sir. Wilkinson thought the boy had stumbled. He turned with a quickness that cost him more energy than he admitted.
"Roald."
The boy's fingers were knotted in the fabric over his stomach. His face was scrunched tightly, eyes squeezed shut as though bracing against an unseen blow.
"I'm—" Roald began, and the word dissolved.
Sir. Wilkinson crossed the distance between them in two strides and crouched, ignoring the sharp protest of his own legs. He placed a hand on the boy's shoulder.
"We'll find something," he said. "This is temporary."
He did not know if that was true.
Roald tried to nod again. The effort seemed monumental. His body swayed.
And then, as simply as a candle snuffed between fingers, he tipped backward onto the stone.
The sound of his head striking rock was softer than Sir. Wilkinson feared, but it might as well have been thunder.
"Roald."
No response.
The boy lay on his back, arms slightly out to his sides, chest rising in shallow breaths. His face, stripped of tension, looked impossibly young.
Too young for rivers. Too young for broken bridges. Too young for promises of safety that could not be kept.
Sir. Wilkinson's throat tightened.
He had led him here.
He had insisted on pace. On progress. On reaching Dillaclor with haste.
He had calculated routes and risks and forgotten the simplest variable: hunger.
He shifted, meaning to lift the boy, to drag him to some semblance of shelter, but when he tried to stand, the world tilted.
The roar of the river grew louder, then distant, then loud again.
He had not eaten properly either.
He had not slept properly in days.
He had told himself discipline was enough.
It was not.
He made it halfway upright before his knees buckled.
He caught himself with one hand against the rock, breath coming sharp and shallow. His vision blurred at the edges. He forced himself to focus on the horizon, on the skeletal remains of the bridge, as though glaring at it might summon strength.
"This is unacceptable," he muttered, though whether to the river, to fate, or to himself was unclear.
He tried again.
The attempt lasted less than a second.
He fell beside Roald.
For a moment, he lay rigid, furious at his own body.
Then even that fury dimmed.
Above him, the sky stretched vast and indifferent. A pale sheet of gray-blue, untroubled by rivers or boys or failed calculations.
He turned his head slightly.
Roald was still breathing.
That was enough.
If this was the last sight he would have, he was glad the boy had not been alone.
The roar of the Rombichong River filled his ears.
Then the world receded.
Isobel had watched them for nearly an hour before they reached the shore.
She had kept to the treeline, silent as she always was, her steps placed with unconscious precision. She had expected tricks.
Feign weakness. Lure her closer. Reverse the balance again.
She had learned.
When the boy fell, she narrowed her eyes.
When the man followed, she did not move.
She waited.
Minutes passed.
The river thundered.
Neither of them rose.
Sir. Wilkinson made one final, pitiful attempt to stand.
Then nothing.
Stillness settled around them—unnatural against the violence of the water.
Isobel exhaled slowly.
This was no act.
She stepped from the forest.
The rocks were slick beneath her boots, but she moved across them with ease. Up close, the scene was smaller than it had appeared from the trees.
The strategist lay flat on his back, eyes closed, one hand still half-curled as though gripping an invisible plan.
The boy looked impossibly fragile.
She crouched beside Roald first.
His pulse was weak but steady.
Starvation. Exhaustion.
Foolish.
She shifted to the man. His breathing was deeper, uneven.
He would wake angry.
She studied his face for a moment.
There was no calculation in it now.
Only weariness.
Without ceremony, she slid her arms beneath the boy and lifted him. He was light. Lighter than he should have been.
She carried him toward the forest.
Then she returned for the other.
Sir. Wilkinson was heavier, but not beyond her strength. She hoisted him with a practiced motion, adjusting his weight across her shoulders.
The river roared behind her as she disappeared into the trees.
It did not care who crossed it.
Or who did not.
The hideout lay concealed beneath a rocky overhang half a mile upstream, shielded by dense brush and the natural curve of the terrain. Smoke from a small, controlled fire curled carefully upward through a narrow opening in the stone.
By the time night began to press against the forest, both of her unexpected guests lay on bedrolls near the fire.
She fed it sparingly.
She worked without sound.
And waited.
—------------------------------------------------------
Sir. Wilkinson returned to consciousness slowly, as though rising through layers of cold water.
Sound came first.
Not the roar of the river.
A softer crackle.
Fire.
His eyelids felt weighted, reluctant to part, but discipline forced them open.
The ceiling above him was not a ceiling at all.
Stone.
Rough-hewn, natural, curving overhead in an uneven arch. The interior walls were jagged and dark, textured with mineral veins that caught and fractured the light in faint glimmers. Not constructed. Not built.
Carved by time.
A cave, then.
Or something close to it.
He did not move yet. He allowed only his eyes to shift, cataloguing without turning his head.
The light source was wrong.
It did not flicker like a lantern, nor dance entirely like firelight. Along the left wall, mounted upon a flat slab of rock, was a small mechanical assembly—metal housing, thin coiled wiring, a glass chamber emitting a steady amber glow. It hummed faintly, almost politely, as though reluctant to intrude upon the room.
His eyes narrowed.
That was no forest-born invention.
He recognized the principle. A condensed ignition filament with regulated current control. Compact. Efficient.
And far too refined for a "wild girl" living among trees.
Interesting.
The entrance lay opposite him, partially concealed behind a curtain of moss and layered leaves woven into a thick hanging drape. It stirred slightly with the outside air, revealing brief slivers of twilight beyond. The construction was deliberate—camouflage first, shelter second.
She had not simply occupied this place.
She had adapted it.
He shifted his gaze further.
Shelving had been fastened into the stone walls using carefully drilled brackets. Wooden planks, sanded smooth. On them sat an array of objects—arranged, not scattered.
Small trinkets.
Metal scraps.
Polished gears.
Glass vials.
Fragments of brass housing.
Springs, carefully coiled and sorted by size.
Some pieces looked salvaged from broken instruments. Others appeared reassembled into entirely new configurations. A delicate pendulum device sat near the top shelf, ticking faintly, though he could not immediately discern its function.
His mind began assembling theories despite his body's protest.
She collects.
She studies.
She repurposes.
Not a scavenger.
A curator.
His gaze stopped.
Two shelves above eye level, partially obscured behind a stack of thin wooden boxes, lay something achingly familiar.
A circular brass plate etched with geometric calibration markings.
His breath steadied.
That was not merely familiar.
That was from a navigation stabilizer.
A Dillaclor design.
He squinted slightly, angling his head a fraction despite the dizziness it provoked. There were more.
A pressure regulator valve.
A trimmed copper conduit of the exact specification used in academy-issued ignition cores.
His academy.
Or one very much like it.
He exhaled slowly through his nose.
So.
She had not stolen randomly.
She had selected.
Intentionally.
The realization unsettled him more than the river had.
He had assumed instinct.
Improvisation.
Natural cunning.
But this—
This was study.
This was mechanical literacy.
His eyes lowered at last, and he became aware of the bedroll beneath him—woven tightly, insulated with layered fabric. His boots had been removed. Placed neatly beside him.
Not discarded.
Placed.
His coat had been folded and set within reach.
His hands were clean.
Someone had washed the stone dust from them.
The implications arranged themselves quietly in his mind, each one more destabilizing than the last.
She had carried him.
Undressed him of heavy gear.
Positioned him near the fire.
And not taken the ignition casing he had fought so hard to keep.
It rested on a low table across the room.
Untouched.
Sir. Wilkinson stared at the ceiling again.
The strategist in him searched for motive.
Leverage.
Future manipulation.
But the room did not feel like a trap.
It felt—
Lived in.
Carefully maintained.
Engineered.
His lips pressed into a thin line.
He had misjudged her.
Not in strength.
Not in cunning.
But in scope.
A faint movement drew his attention at last.
Across the room, near the fire, Isobel sat with her back partially turned, tending a small iron pot suspended over controlled flame. Her movements were precise, economical. She adjusted airflow with a carved wooden lever fitted into a narrow vent near the base of the stone.
Even her fire was engineered.
Sir. Wilkinson studied her in silence.
For the first time since meeting her, he was not measuring her as an opponent.
He was measuring her as an architect.
And that disturbed him far more than a blade at his throat ever had.
For several long moments, Sir. Wilkinson did not move.
He listened.
The controlled crackle of fire.
The low hum of the mechanical filament mounted along the wall.
The soft, steady breathing of Roald to his right.
Alive.
Good.
He cleared his throat, the sound sharp against the room's careful quiet.
"No restraints," he observed dryly. "I confess I'm almost disappointed."
The wooden spoon continued its measured circle inside the iron pot.
She did not turn.
He shifted slightly, testing his balance. His limbs protested, but held.
"I must assume," he continued, tone light, "that if this is captivity, it is an unusually civil version."
Still nothing.
He studied the shelves again, deliberately.
"I do hope you did not carry me here yourself," he added. "I would regret imposing."
The fire snapped softly.
Steam lifted from beneath the pot lid.
Silence.
He allowed the faintest smirk to form.
"You know," he went on, "for someone who favors ambush, you possess a surprisingly refined sense of interior engineering. The lighting, in particular, is—"
"You fainted."
The voice was calm.
Low.
Clear.
Sir. Wilkinson stopped speaking.
Not paused.
Stopped.
His eyes shifted to her back as though something impossible had just occurred.
She had spoken.
He stared.
The sound of her voice rearranged the room.
It was not rough, not hesitant, not unused.
It carried no strain.
She had simply chosen not to use it before.
His mind raced backward through every prior encounter.
The blade at his throat.
The trees.
The silent circling.
The narrowed eyes.
She could have spoken then.
She did not.
Why?
"You fell," she added, adjusting the pot slightly over the flame.
His mouth remained slightly open, but no words followed.
He had prepared responses for mockery.
For anger.
For accusation.
He had not prepared for… this.
For the fact that she possessed a voice and had withheld it.
The strategist in him flared awake.
Information deliberately concealed is never accidental.
He swallowed.
"You…" The word left him before he could prevent it.
She did not turn.
He closed his mouth.
Recalibrated.
"And the boy?" he managed after a moment, quieter now — not from weakness, but from calculation.
"He ate."
Again, simple. Unembellished.
Sir. Wilkinson stared at the back of her head as though it might yield further revelation.
So she speaks when necessary.
Only when necessary.
Not for provocation.
Not for display.
Control.
His gaze drifted to Roald. The empty bowl beside the boy confirmed her statement.
Fed.
Alive.
He became aware, suddenly, that his earlier sarcasm now felt… misplaced.
Not because she had rebuked him.
But because the rules of engagement had changed.
She rose, ladled a portion into a wooden bowl, and crossed the room toward him.
He watched her approach more intently than he had watched her blade days before.
She set the bowl beside him.
"You'll fall again," she said.
Her voice was neither warning nor insult.
Merely fact.
She returned to the fire.
Sir. Wilkinson continued staring at the space she had occupied, as though the air itself retained evidence.
She can speak.
She always could.
And she chose silence.
That realization unsettled him more deeply than the river had.
He lifted the bowl slowly.
"Your restraint," he said at last, tone softer, more measured, "is proving increasingly inconvenient to my assumptions."
This time, there was the faintest tilt of her head.
Not quite a reaction.
But not indifference.
And Sir. Wilkinson, who prided himself on understanding the people around him, found himself confronted with something far rarer than hostility.
Mystery chosen.
Not imposed.
—------------------------------------------------------
Roald woke the way boys do when they have slept through danger and survived it—without drama.
He stretched first.
A slow, satisfied stretch, arms over his head, toes flexing beneath the blanket of woven reeds. He made a small, contented noise that sounded profoundly unconcerned with mortality.
Sir. Wilkinson, seated nearby with what he insisted was stoic composure, did not move.
Roald blinked once.
Twice.
His eyes adjusted to the cavern ceiling, to the mottled stone, to the strange mechanical lantern humming faintly on the wall.
Then he turned his head.
"…Sir?"
Wilkinson lifted one brow. "Unfortunately."
Roald's eyes sharpened immediately. He pushed himself upright. "Ah. So you survived."
"I did," Wilkinson replied dryly. "Though not for lack of your assistance."
Roald squinted at him. "My assistance? I distinctly recall you being the one dramatically collapsing."
"I did not collapse dramatically."
"You did. There was a stagger. And a groan."
"It was a tactical descent."
"A groan, Sir."
Wilkinson folded his arms. "You were unconscious."
"Briefly."
"For hours."
Roald looked offended. "That is an exaggeration."
"It is not."
Roald glanced around, taking in the rocky interior, the moss-draped entrance, the shelves lined with odd little mechanisms and polished scraps of metal. His eyes lingered on the contraption humming softly on the wall.
"Are we dead?"
"Tragically, no."
Roald considered that. Then he nodded once. "Good. I would have expected the afterlife to be less damp."
Behind them, Isobel stood near her wooden shelves, quiet as ever. She handed Roald a small wooden bowl filled with something warm and steaming. He accepted it with a murmured thanks, already digging in.
Wilkinson watched him carefully.
Roald swallowed a mouthful and pointed his spoon lazily toward Wilkinson. "So. Who nearly died first?"
Wilkinson blinked once. "That is not how one quantifies such events."
Roald grinned. "I believe I lost consciousness first."
"You did."
"Then technically," Roald continued between bites, "you almost died second."
"I did not almost die."
"You looked pale."
"I am naturally pale."
"You looked worse."
Wilkinson inhaled slowly. "You stopped breathing."
"For a moment."
"Yes. A moment."
Roald waved the spoon dismissively. "Details."
Wilkinson leaned back slightly. "You are thirteen. Your lungs should not take sabbaticals."
"And yet here they are," Roald said, gesturing to himself proudly. "Returned from leave."
Isobel remained silent, listening. Her eyes moved between them, observant. There was the faintest twitch at the corner of her mouth—barely there, but present.
Roald finished the last of his meal and scraped the bowl with exaggerated thoroughness.
"Admit it," he said, lowering the bowl. "You were worried."
Wilkinson did not hesitate. "I was not."
Roald raised a brow.
There was a pause.
"…Excessively," Wilkinson amended.
Roald grinned triumphantly. "Ha!"
Silence settled, softer now.
Roald leaned back on his hands, still smirking, alive in the way only boys who have stared at death and misunderstood it can be. His hair was a mess. There was still dirt at his collar. He looked exhausted.
And entirely himself.
Wilkinson's gaze drifted over him—taking inventory the way a craftsman might inspect a vessel after a storm. No tremor in his hands. No glassiness in his eyes. Wit intact. Insolence undamaged.
Alive.
Roald caught him staring. "What?"
"Nothing."
"You're doing that face."
"I am not."
"The one where you look like you swallowed a nail and decided to be dignified about it."
Wilkinson turned away sharply. "Eat slower next time."
"I already finished."
Wilkinson glanced back—just briefly.
And in that unguarded second, something happened.
His mouth curved.
Not the thin, polite line he wore for society. Not the restrained twitch of amusement.
A full smile.
It arrived quietly, almost without permission. It softened the sharpness of his jaw, eased the permanent tension from his brow. It carried relief. Gratitude. Something dangerously close to joy.
He did not know he was doing it.
Roald did.
The boy froze for a fraction of a second.
Then he looked away deliberately, pretending not to notice. He stretched again, casual, giving the moment privacy.
Behind them, Isobel saw it too.
And she did not look away.
The mechanical lantern hummed softly against the stone.
For a brief, fragile stretch of time, death felt distant.
And Sir. Wilkinson—who had braced himself for loss—allowed himself the smallest, quiet luxury:
He let the boy live.
—------------------------------------------------------
By the fourth morning, their strength had returned in full.
Roald no longer swayed when he stood. His color had come back. His wit had sharpened to its usual, irreverent edge.
Sir. Wilkinson's movements regained their precision. His posture straightened. His voice lost its gravel.
Isobel observed all of it without comment.
She still spoke sparingly.
"Eat."
"Rest."
"Enough."
The rest was gesture — a tilt of her head, a lift of two fingers, a steady look that expected comprehension.
Roald adapted quickly.
"She gives orders like a naval captain," he muttered one afternoon.
"She gives instructions efficiently," Wilkinson corrected.
"She gives instructions like she expects obedience."
"She receives it," Wilkinson replied.
Isobel glanced at them.
They stopped.
On the fifth day, she did not bring food.
Instead, she stood near the far wall of the cavern, waiting.
When both men noticed her stillness, she raised her hand and curled her fingers once.
Follow.
Roald stood immediately.
Wilkinson rose a moment later.
She led them deeper into the cave — not toward the moss-draped entrance, but toward a section of stone that appeared entirely solid. The mechanical lantern's glow stretched thin across the rock face.
Isobel pressed her palm against a narrow seam.
There was a low, grinding shift.
Stone parted.
Cool air spilled from the dark beyond.
Roald leaned forward first.
Then he froze.
Wilkinson stepped beside him.
And the world tilted.
The hollow frame stood in the center of the hidden chamber, unmistakable even in shadow.
The curvature of the oak spine.
The reinforced axle brace.
The weight-balanced crossbeam design.
Sir. Wilkinson did not breathe.
His cart.
Not a replica.
Not salvage.
His.
The distinctive crescent groove along the left panel — the mistake he had carved deeper to disguise an early miscalculation — stared back at him like an old friend.
Roald whispered, "That's—"
"Yes," Wilkinson said faintly.
The wood had been cleaned. Repaired. The fractured support strut near the rear wheel had been reinforced with a joining bracket so seamless it took him a moment to identify it as new work.
Not river damage.
No water warping.
No silt staining.
Instead—
Char along one lower edge.
Blackened wood.
The lightning scar.
His mind snapped backward to the lightning-struck stump. The splintered trunk. The abandoned wreckage.
He turned slowly toward Isobel.
She did not look triumphant.
She did not look expectant.
She simply held his gaze.
Wilkinson's voice was careful.
"The stump."
She nodded once.
Then, with two fingers, she mimed the jagged fork of lightning.
Then a pulling motion.
Dragging.
Alone.
Roald stared at her. "You went back?"
She held his eyes.
A slight tilt of her head.
Yes.
The distance from the stump to the riverbank was not small.
The terrain between was uneven. Rooted. Dense.
She had returned.
Lifted what she could.
Dismantled what she couldn't.
Transported it piece by piece.
Reassembled it here.
Silently.
Without promise of gratitude.
Wilkinson stepped forward.
His hand hovered inches from the frame before finally settling against the wood.
Solid.
Real.
His throat tightened unexpectedly.
The cart was not merely transport.
It was years of labor. Reputation. Identity. Proof.
He had written it off as loss.
Another failure.
Another miscalculation.
But it stood before him, restored by someone he had labeled thief.
Roald circled it, awe plain on his face. "She rebuilt it."
Wilkinson noticed the reinforcement joint near the rear brace — precise. Clean. Intelligent.
She had not simply preserved it.
She had improved it.
He found himself blinking too quickly.
He straightened abruptly, as though caught in an indulgence.
"This," he said, voice steadier than he felt, "is structurally sound."
Roald snorted. "That's what you're going with?"
Wilkinson ignored him.
Isobel stepped forward and placed something in his palm.
A small brass fitting.
Polished.
He recognized it instantly.
The original axle cap he had thought lost at the stump.
Recovered.
Saved.
He closed his fingers around it.
For a long moment, he said nothing.
Not because he lacked words.
But because none of them felt adequate.
Finally, quietly:
"…You went back."
She held his gaze.
Then looked away first.
No flourish.
No explanation.
Just fact.
Wilkinson exhaled slowly, something heavy loosening in his chest.
"Thank you," he said.
No dryness.
No deflection.
Roald leaned against the frame, grinning. "Well. I suppose we're not dead, the cart's not dead, and Sir. Wilkinson's pride has been revived."
Wilkinson rested his hand on the oak spine.
He looked at the cart.
At the reinforcements.
At the evidence of her work.
Then at Isobel.
For the first time since the forest, there was no contest in his expression.
Only recognition.
The river still roared somewhere beyond the stone.
But now they had something sturdier than survival.
They had continuity.
And in the quiet of that hidden chamber, something unspoken settled between the three of them.
Not debt.
Not alliance.
Something stronger.
Choice.
—------------------------------------------------------
They did not linger long in the hidden chamber.
Restoration was not the same as resolution.
The river still roared.
And Dillaclor still waited beyond it.
It was Roald who said it first.
"We can't carry this around it."
Wilkinson stiffened. "Carry?"
Roald gestured broadly toward the concealed opening. "The river is a mile wide. The bridge is gone. We cannot walk around it without losing weeks."
Wilkinson folded his arms protectively over the cart's frame. "Then we shall devise a solution that does not involve dismantling my life's work."
Roald's eyes gleamed.
Isobel watched from the shadows, silent.
Roald stepped closer to the cart, running his hand along the brass framework, the reinforced axle supports, the compact engine housing Wilkinson had so painstakingly calibrated.
"Actually," the boy said slowly, "we already have a solution."
Wilkinson narrowed his eyes. "No."
"I haven't said anything yet."
"I know that look."
Roald crouched near the base. "The brass frame is buoyant enough if distributed properly. The engine housing is sealed. The hollow support beams can trap air."
Wilkinson inhaled sharply.
"No."
"And," Roald continued, warming to the thought, "we have additional metal components."
He glanced toward Isobel.
The spare fittings she had quietly returned to them along the journey. The parts she had dropped at their feet when they had been too exhausted to argue.
Wilkinson looked betrayed.
"You cannot be serious."
Roald stood. "It would hold two."
"It is not a raft."
"It could be."
"It is a cart."
"It was a cart."
Wilkinson placed a hand over the oak spine as though shielding it from surgery. "You propose we dismantle it. Again."
Roald winced slightly. "Temporarily."
Wilkinson stared at him.
There was no real fury there.
Only wounded pride.
"You have the mechanical sensitivity of a butcher."
"That's unfair. I am a very thoughtful butcher."
Isobel stepped forward.
She knelt beside the frame and tapped one of the reinforced crossbeams.
Then she looked at Wilkinson.
Raised one brow.
He stared at her.
"You cannot possibly be encouraging this."
She mimed the river's width with both arms extended wide.
Then two fingers.
Two people.
Then she tilted her head toward the far bank.
Dillaclor.
Wilkinson exhaled dramatically. "This is barbaric."
Roald clapped once. "Excellent. We agree."
Wilkinson rounded on him. "You are enjoying this."
"A little."
"This cart survived lightning, collapse, and abandonment."
"And now," Roald said gently, "it survives purpose."
That stilled him.
Wilkinson looked down at the frame.
At the reinforcements she had made.
At the engine he had designed.
He closed his eyes briefly.
"…You will reassemble it," he said tightly.
"Of course," Roald replied.
"Precisely."
"Precisely."
Wilkinson pointed a finger. "If you misalign the axle housing, I will never forgive you."
Roald grinned. "Noted."
They worked until dusk.
Isobel moved among them like quiet precision. She said little, but her hands were everywhere — securing lashings, reinforcing joints, adjusting balance. She caught structural weaknesses before Wilkinson could voice them.
He noticed.
He did not comment.
The cart became something else.
The brass frame inverted and sealed.
The hollow beams aligned to trap air.
The engine housing secured centrally to stabilize weight distribution.
It was narrow.
Fragile-looking.
Just large enough for two.
When they dragged it to the riverbank, the Rombichong roared as if amused.
Wilkinson studied the current.
"This is profoundly unwise."
"Yes," Roald agreed cheerfully.
They pushed.
The raft lurched, dipped, then caught.
For a moment it seemed to sink—
Then it lifted.
Barely.
They climbed on.
The first wave nearly threw them.
Roald laughed — a sharp, exhilarated sound — before grabbing the side beam.
Wilkinson gripped the central brace with white knuckles.
"This," he shouted over the water, "is your brilliant idea?"
"You're welcome!"
The current dragged them sideways. The raft spun once before Wilkinson adjusted the weight distribution, shouting corrections. Roald responded instantly, shifting as instructed.
They were nearly overturned twice.
Once, a submerged force struck the underside hard enough to rattle the engine casing.
Wilkinson's heart seized.
But it held.
Isobel stood on the rocky shore, watching.
Not waving.
Not calling out.
Just watching.
Halfway across, exhaustion returned like a threat.
Wilkinson's arms trembled from bracing.
Roald's knuckles bled where he gripped the brass frame.
But they did not turn back.
They adjusted.
Countered.
Fought.
And slowly—
The far bank drew nearer.
The final stretch was the worst. The current accelerated against a narrowing bend, slamming them toward jagged rocks.
"Left!" Wilkinson barked.
Roald shifted hard.
The raft scraped stone.
For one terrifying moment, Wilkinson thought it would splinter.
It did not.
They crashed onto the far shore, half-drenched, shaking, breathless.
Silence followed.
The river roared behind them.
Roald rolled onto his back, laughing in disbelief.
Wilkinson remained seated, staring at the battered but intact structure beneath them.
"…It will require adjustments," he muttered faintly.
Roald turned his head toward the opposite shore.
Isobel stood there still.
Small against the vastness of the river.
Watching.
Roald raised a hand.
Wilkinson did not.
He simply looked.
There were words he could have called across the water.
Gratitude.
Invitation.
A name.
But the river was too loud.
And perhaps some things were not meant to be shouted.
Roald sat up slowly. "She never told us her name."
Wilkinson's gaze did not waver.
"No."
They stood together.
Behind them, the road curved upward.
And beyond the rise—
Dillaclor.
Its distant towers pierced the horizon, pale and monumental against the evening sky.
Home.
Wilkinson inhaled deeply.
The air felt different on this side.
Not safer.
But inevitable.
He placed a hand briefly on the battered brass frame beneath them.
"Temporary," he said quietly.
Roald smiled.
"Temporary."
Across the river, their savior — and now something closer to friend — turned and disappeared into the trees.
And ahead of them, the great kingdom of Dillaclor waited.