Wren pulls off her right gauntlet, tucks it under her arm, and reaches for the box with bare fingers. The sun clasp is warm under her thumb — warmer than it should be in the cold stream air. She eases it open. Inside, the hollow is no bigger than a clenched fist. Dark lining, empty, waiting — shaped like an absence that knows what it expects. The box does not slam shut. It does not burn her. It simply stays open in her hands, with the quiet quality of a dog deciding, at last, that a stranger is acceptable. The brook woman exhales — not surprise, but the sound of a long-held question finding its answer. "It knows you," she says. "Or knows what you're willing to carry." She nods northeast along the streambank. "The Ember is kept at the Greywood Shrine. Half a day's walk. Go before the light shifts."