Wren considers the box, the clasp, the brook woman's thumb resting patient and still. "Before I open anything," she says, "I want to know who he was." The brook woman does not look surprised. She looks, if anything, unsurprised in a way that costs her something. "A knight," she says. "A real one, which is more than most." The stream argues on beneath them. "Dael. That was his name. He came through here — several seasons back now — on a different errand, and we struck a bargain, him and I. Some bargains wait." Her thumb does not move from the clasp. "He was supposed to come himself." "He died three days ago," Wren says. "Fever." The brook woman is quiet for a moment. The mist shifts around her ankles. "I wondered," she says at last, very quietly, "when the moon started climbing." Then she straightens, and her voice comes back to its dry bark. "Will you open it?"