The path drops steeply, roots serving as rough stairs, and Wren descends into cold she can taste. Mist thickens until it swallows her boots entirely, and the sound of water grows from a whisper to a confident chatter — a brook, narrow enough to step across but quick and dark and purposeful, as if it knows exactly where it is going, which puts it one step ahead of Wren. She nearly walks into the figure before she sees her: a small woman, elder and wiry, crouching at the bank and filling a clay jar from the current with the unhurried patience of someone doing this in this exact spot since before the Thornwood was old. A sun-clasped wooden box rests dry on the stone beside her despite the surrounding damp. The woman does not look up. "Second rattling suit of armor this week," she says, to the water. "They never take the river path."