Wood does not forgive hesitation.
Mallious taught me that before he taught me anything else.
I was fourteen and certain I understood pressure. Certain I understood control.
I held the chisel too long.
Pressed too slowly.
The blade caught.
The timber split along the grain with a crack louder than it should have been.
Mallious did not shout.
He never shouted.
He took the tool from my hand and examined the fracture as though it were a diagram.
"Material remembers weakness."
His voice was even. Measured.
"If you do not cut with certainty, it will choose its own direction."
Weakness is not the split. It is the hesitation before it.
He did not repair the beam.
He reshaped it.
Adjusted the structure around the flaw as if it had been intended from the start.
A mistake does not end a structure.
It alters its purpose.
Years later, when the forge roared and heat swallowed air from my lungs, he stood over me again.
I did not scream.
I would not give him that.
He examined the ruin where my arm had been with the same detached focus he once gave fractured timber.
"This will not end you."
Not comfort.
Assessment.
"The body fails. The will does not."
The prosthetic was not mercy.
It was reinforcement.
Balanced. Measured. Necessary.
Mallious believed in removal.
Of weakness.
Of instability.
Of whatever threatened structure.
If something must be cut away for the whole to stand, you cut it.
Loss is merely design imposed upon us.
I believed him.
The cave smelled of oil and damp stone.
Roald was pacing.
"You're not even listening."
Sir Wilkinson adjusted the map beneath his mechanical hand. The metal fingers clicked softly against the wood as he shifted a carved marker further east.
He did not look up.
Liora folded her arms. "He is listening. He's deciding which part of what you're saying matters."
Roald exhaled sharply. "You already outmaneuvered him once."
No reaction.
Roald gestured toward the marked districts. "The ration riots. The delayed shipments at the southern gates. The guard rotation collapse in the eastern quarter."
He stepped closer to the table.
"That was you."
Charcoal lines and carved tokens mapped the unrest plainly.
"You forced Nux to move his own men," Roald continued. "You made him respond instead of command."
Wilkinson slid another marker north.
Unbothered.
"Which means he's aware now," Liora said quietly. "He won't underestimate you again."
Wilkinson redrew a boundary line.
Slowly.
Deliberately.
Roald leaned over the table. "You've already shaken the city. You don't need to escalate."
The mechanical fingers stilled for half a breath.
Then continued.
"You're not just disrupting supply," Liora realized. "You're studying how he stabilizes."
Silence.
"You're provoking him into patterns," Roald said.
Wilkinson removed one of the carved markers entirely and set it aside.
The absence shifted the balance of the board more than any addition could have.
Roald stepped back slightly.
"You're mapping him."
Wilkinson gathered the charcoal stick.
Dusted the black residue from his metal fingers.
Rolled the edge of the map inward just enough to indicate the discussion was over.
Roald's voice lowered. "If you push further—"
Wilkinson turned away.
Not abrupt.
Not angry.
Finished.
He walked toward the mouth of the cave without a word.
Roald stared after him. "He's going to do something reckless."
Liora did not look up from the fractured pattern left on the table.
"No."
Her voice was quiet.
"He's going to remove something."
The night air outside was colder than the cave.
Wilkinson moved through it without hesitation, boots steady over gravel and root. The wind shifted through the trees in low murmurs, carrying the faint scent of distant smoke from the city below.
He did not look back.
"You've been difficult to find."
The voice came from the dark to his right.
Wilkinson did not reach for a weapon.
"If you intended not to be found," the debt collector continued, stepping into a wash of moonlight, "you would have done better."
He stood composed as ever, coat uncreased, gaze steady and assessing.
Wilkinson resumed walking.
The collector matched his pace.
"You caused quite a stir in Dillaclor."
No response.
"The ration shortages. The gate delays. The guard collapse in the eastern quarter." A faint incline of the head. "Efficient."
Wilkinson continued forward.
"I didn't come to discuss your work."
That made him slow.
Slightly.
"Nux is holding the girl in the castle."
The wind moved between them.
"She isn't harmed. Not yet." A pause. "But she isn't free."
Wilkinson's expression did not change.
"Do whatever you want with that information," the collector said evenly.
He stepped aside, prepared to leave.
Wilkinson walked past him.
Two steps.
Then stopped.
"Wait."
The word was quiet, but it carried.
The collector paused without fully turning.
Wilkinson faced him.
"I need your help."