Wren climbs, armor ticking against bark each time she misjudges her new width in the dark. The firelight grows steadier as she crests the rise — a proper fire in a stone ring, tended by a small figure on an upturned log. Old. Wrapped in a coat the color of dead leaves, with a clay pot over the flames that smells somewhere between soup and medicine. A mule nearby, loaded with bundles, is entirely unbothered by the rattling approach. The old woman does not look up. She stirs her pot and says, in the tone of someone who has seen weirder, "Sit before you fall, child. That armor is wearing you more than you're wearing it." Wren sits. The woman sets a clay cup on the nearest stone without meeting her eyes. "Aldermere," Wren tries, and the stirring slows just slightly. "Third soul to say that name in this wood this week," the old woman says. "The other two didn't come back the way they went." She looks up at last, her eyes the color of river stones in low light.