Wren closes the box and takes three steps toward the treeline before Elsin's hand catches her pauldron — surprising grip for someone so small. "Don't," Elsin says. Very quietly. Not panic. Worse than panic. Wren looks anyway. Between two enormous black-barked trunks, where the mist pools thickest, stands something almost a person: tall, too still, long charcoal coat, and where a face should be — a pale oval, featureless as the back of a coin. It does not move. It simply watches. The Ember pulses once against Wren's chest — a soft, involuntary warmth, like a sleeping creature startling in its sleep. "Has it been here the whole time?" Wren asks. "Since before you arrived," Elsin says, already moving along the bank, away from it. "Now walk. Don't run. And don't look back at it."