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