Wren takes two careful steps backward until her boot heel finds wet stone and the Brook Woman is close enough to whisper to. She does not take her eyes off the shape at the treeline's edge. "Name it," she says, quiet and level. "You know what that is — I can tell by the way you're not screaming." The old woman is silent for one measured breath. "The Watcher," she says, as if she'd hoped to go her whole life without saying it again. "It follows the sun-mark. Has been following it, I think, since long before you put on that armour." The shape has stopped at the treeline's very edge, as if the pale morning light is something to be carefully considered. Charcoal coat hanging utterly still. Featureless pale oval tilted a degree, patient in the way of things that do not need to hurry. "Following it toward what?" Wren asks. "The Ember," says the Brook Woman. "Or whoever carries the obligation to fetch it." The stream does not care. It keeps arguing with its stones.