Wren straightens. Her gauntlet is still extended — she can feel the Ember's warmth through the grey panes — but she turns. The Watcher stands at the tree line like a splinter of wrong dark. Tall. Coat the colour of deep ash. A face that is not quite a face: smooth and pale and attentive the way blank paper is attentive. It is not moving toward her. It is not moving at all. She notices this. The tree line, and the Hollow, and the nothing in between — some boundary the Hollow keeps, and The Watcher respects, or cannot cross. The previous seekers had made it this far. They hadn't come back the way they came. But The Watcher is still here, and she cannot tell whether it is standing guard or standing watch for something she hasn't seen yet. "You followed the others here," she says. Her voice holds. "What happened to them?" The not-face turns toward her fully. The Ember at her back holds its breath.