Wren takes one careful step backward toward the fire without turning away from the treeline. The Watcher does not follow. It simply stands and is. "What does it recognize?" she says, keeping her voice even, aiming the question at Old Maret without taking her eyes off that smooth pale oval. "Old things know old marks," Maret says, and there is a quiet clink of spoon against clay. "That sigil on your chest is older than the knight who wore it. Older than Aldermere, maybe. The other two who came through this week—" a pause— "neither of them wore it." She says this the way one states something self-evident. "So it will leave me alone?" "I said it recognizes something. I did not say what it thinks of what it recognizes." The sound of something being poured — soup, or medicine. "Sit. Finish the cup. The Watcher has its own timetable, and it doesn't match the moon."