The brook_woman collects the box from the flat rock without breaking stride, and Wren does not see her do it — just follows, because the Thornwood swallows the stream path behind them as though it has better things to keep than a way back. They find a root-framed hollow, the kind a person only locates by having been there many times before, which is not comforting when you thought you were somewhere largely uncharted. The woman sits. The box opens. Inside, on folded grey wool: a key on a tarnished chain, and a small card covered in a hand Wren does not recognise. "The sigil is the Mark of the Ash Compact," the brook_woman says, without preamble. "Twelve guardians, four orders. Gareth held the Ember's location — the third and last of the Sunward Three." She holds the key toward Wren, though her fingers do not yet release it. Her river-weed eyes have moved past grief into the territory just beyond. "He was also my son." The Thornwood offers nothing. Not even wind.