As the sun symbol steadies against her chest, a figure slips from the hollow's far edge — small, river-weed green, moving with the certainty of someone who knows every root in this ground. She carries a clay jar and does not look at Wren. She simply walks into the trees beyond the thorn-ring, like a door is open there that Wren cannot see. The lantern pulses. The decision makes itself. She follows. The woman moves through brambles that barely trouble her patched cloak; Wren comes through considerably louder, armor announcing itself to every branch in the Thornwood. When they break through onto a mossy shelf of rock above a narrow stream, the woman has already stopped. Under her arm, held like an egg: a wooden box, dark-grained and old, its sun-clasped latch absolutely not faded. It matches the breastplate exactly. The woman looks at Wren. "Took you long enough," she says, in the tone of someone who has been waiting since the last seeker didn't come back.