Wren wraps both hands around the clay cup and tells her. All of it: the fever, the elders' long silence, the borrowed armor that clanks like a falling cookpot, the parchment with its nervous ink. She doesn't embellish — she's too tired to be anything but honest. The amber drink tastes of honey and smoke, and she holds it between sentences like something warm to hold on to. Old Maret listens without interrupting. That alone is more than Wren hoped for. When the telling is done, the old woman watches the fire settle for a moment. Then: "The Ember's kept at the old wayshrine past Harrow Fen mill. Blue flame in a stone bowl — doesn't go out, smells of deep winter." She taps the spoon on the pot rim. "Half a day's walk. Road goes through the Thornwood." A quiet beat, a look that carries some weight in it. "Something's been walking in the Thornwood lately that wasn't there before."