Wren stops at the field-edge, one boot almost in the road-rut. The Ember sits warm in her fist. The moon hangs too-full above the treeline. She should go. She turns around instead. Old Maret has not moved. Of course she hasn't. "Thought you were running," the old woman says — no judgment in it. "What is the Watcher?" Wren asks. "Not what it did. What it is." Three slow stirs of the pot. Then: "Something that tends what the Hollow loses. The Ember's passed many hands over a long time — the Watcher's kept watch over every one of them. It wasn't hunting you, girl. It was waiting to see what you'd do with what you took." Her eyes drop to Wren's closed fist. "Still is." The moon doesn't slow for the telling. The Ember is still warm. The Watcher is still somewhere behind those trees, waiting to see which way she goes.