Wren stops three steps up the path. The Brook Woman said go. The parchment says go. The moon does not care about dark gaps in thornwood trees. She turns around anyway. The gap is six paces off the path, between two trunks as broad as barn doors, bark black and wet in the mist. She crosses to it — as quietly as plate armour allows, which is not quiet at all — and peers through. The Watcher is standing in a small clearing just beyond. Still as a carved post. Tall enough that the lowest branch barely clears the top of its head. Long charcoal coat, hanging straight. Where a face should be: a pale oval, featureless, tilted just slightly in her direction. It has been here the whole time. The box is warm against her ribs. Or perhaps it was always warm, and she only notices now, when everything else in her has gone cold. The Watcher does not move. Neither does Wren.