Wren asks before she can stop herself. The brook_woman pauses, half-turned toward the mist. "He came back," she says. "Once. Three years after Aldermere burned. He decided the village needed the Ember for a different reason — or convinced himself they did. He moved it. One night, a few miles." She is quiet a moment. "The oath doesn't care about intentions. Something in the Thornwood noticed." She doesn't say what. She doesn't need to. Wren thinks of the silence that fell the moment she spoke her own words — how the whole wood had held its breath and leaned in. "He swore again," the brook_woman says. "Louder. The clasp accepted it. But the second oath always costs more than the first." Her eyes find Wren's. "Don't move it for any reason except the one you named. Don't let anyone convince you otherwise." Then she walks into the mist, and the stream is loud again, and Wren is alone with the box.