Wren breathes out — the loud kind she has been embarrassed by since entering the Thornwood. "He died three days ago," she says. "Fever. There was no one else willing, and the moon won't wait, so." She pulls the parchment from inside the breastplate — damp at the edges, ink bled into fog — and holds it out: the Ember of Aldermere, bring it back, before the harvest moon turns full. "I don't know what the sigil means. I only know the quest isn't finished." The brook_woman is still for a moment that the stream fills entirely. Then she takes the parchment with both hands, careful as though it might be the last of something. Something moves behind her river-weed eyes — grief, Wren thinks, or its composed older sister. "Gareth," she says quietly, and it is not a question. She looks up. "Then I'm afraid you've found exactly the right person, child. Come away from the water."