Wren does the only sensible thing: she steps sideways, out of the guard's line of questions, and crosses the road to Old Maret's fire. "Oi—" the guard begins. Old Maret doesn't look up from her clay pot. She stirs once, taps the spoon on the rim, and says, perfectly casually, "My granddaughter. Late with the penny, as always." She pats a flat stone beside the fire without glancing at Wren. "Sit." The guard's skepticism could strip bark from a birch. But he's outmaneuvered in a very specific way: Old Maret is the sort of person who makes authority feel like it belongs somewhere else. He mutters something and returns to his pike. Wren drops onto the stone, heart hammering under stolen plate, and says nothing at all. Old Maret ladles something fragrant and amber into a clay cup, sets it between them, and finally looks at Wren — eyes like a November morning, clear and not entirely warm. "The knight's dead," she says. Not a question. "And they sent you."