Wren takes a breath that ghosts in the cold air. "He died," she says. "The knight — three days ago, in my father's barn, of fever. He was carrying that parchment and I —" she spreads her hands, which is harder than it sounds in gauntlets a size too large — "there was no one else to go." The brook_woman is very still. Then she reaches out and touches the sun-clasp on the box, one knuckle resting against the brass the way you might touch something that still hurts. "Aldric," she says, quietly, to nobody in particular. "Foolish man." She looks back at Wren — creek-pale eyes steady, measuring something the girl cannot name. "He passed through here eight days past. I gave him what he needed to reach the Ember's chamber. Half of it." Her hand does not leave the clasp. "The other half is still in this box." A long pause, the brook filling the silence with its own urgent business. "The question I am turning over is whether to give the rest to you."