Wren turns from the brook_woman and steps upstream, armor rattling in the quiet. The mist closes around her like a held thought. The watcher does not retreat — does not breathe, does not shift its weight — just stands in the grey, always at the same distance, until suddenly it doesn't. Up close: a long charcoal coat, a pale oval of nothing where a face should be, no breath-cloud rising in the cold air. Then it lifts one hand, slow and deliberate as a signpost, and points. Not at Wren. Past her, upstream, where the brook bends away into darker trees. Then it is simply gone — no movement, no sound, only mist closing over the space where something was. Behind her, the brook_woman says quietly, to no one: "The knight saw that too. And he turned back." She still does not look up.