Wren doesn't ask what he meant the first time. She tucks the box under one arm — both arms, actually, because it keeps trying to slip — and nods once at the Brook Woman, which is the most knightly thing she can manage. "Thank you," she says, and means it, and turns back up the slope before she can think of six more questions she shouldn't stop to ask. The Thornwood receives her without ceremony. The mist closes at her knees. The sun clasp is warm through the wood even in the cold morning air, and she holds the box tighter and keeps moving, watching the path. Once, something shifts between the trees to her left — too tall for a deer, too still for the wind — and she does not stop to look at it directly. The moon won't wait. Neither will she.