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.