Wren's hand drops to the sword hilt — an instinct borrowed from armor that remembers more than she does. "There's something in the trees," she says, low. "Behind you. I heard it shift. Now it's very still." The Brook Woman does not spin around. She tilts her head the way you tilt toward a sound you half-expected. "Yes," she says. "It's been there since you came down the path." The mist between the black-barked trunks thickens, or seems to, and at the edge of visibility stands something tall and still: a long charcoal coat, a pale oval where a face ought to be. The Watcher does not speak. It simply occupies the space between breaths, patient in the way of things that own more time than they need. The Brook Woman sets the box on the flat rock between them and keeps her hand on the clasp. "We may need to be quick," she says.