Wren stops. The decision happens before she knows she's made it — boots skidding, armor still ringing from the sprint, and then she is turned, facing east, facing the dark between the white-barked trees. The corridor breathes. Mist drifts through it, slow and unhurried, the way mist moves when nothing is chasing it. And at the far end, just where the pale trees give back to black, something stands. Tall. Still. The charcoal coat drinks the dark around it; the featureless oval face catches what little light there is — a moon that doesn't move. It doesn't advance. Wren's heart is very loud. She makes herself breathe once, deliberately, and then does something that surprises her: she nods. One small nod. The way you'd acknowledge a gatekeeper who let you pass without checking your papers. The Watcher doesn't move. But the mist shifts around it — the way a room changes when someone in it exhales. She turns west. She walks. She doesn't run.