"The Ember," Wren says, before the more sensible part of her can stop the rest. "First. What do you know about the Ember of Aldermere?" A small silence. The brook_woman regards her the way a cat regards a closed door: with absolute knowledge of what is on the other side, and absolute willingness to wait. Then something at the corner of her mouth shifts — not quite a smile, but the structural precondition for one. "The knight is dead," the old woman says, quietly. Not a guess. "Or you'd have said so already." She lifts the clay jar and carries it to the flat rock, setting it beside the wooden box. Her hand comes to rest on the lid — not possessively, more the way you touch something familiar before you must hand it over. "Ask your question. I will answer it. And then you will answer mine."