"Wren," she says — just that, the way you hand someone something fragile. "My name is Wren." The brook woman nods once, as if filing it somewhere useful. Then Wren asks the question she has been carrying since she first looked up at the swelling moon the night before her departure: how many nights does she have? The old woman is quiet long enough to make that silence feel like a bad number. "Three nights," she says at last. "Four if the clouds are generous and the moon a liar, which moons occasionally are. I would not count on generosity." She glances at the wooden box, then back to Wren, as if measuring something she cannot quite see. "The Ember sits in Aldermere Hollow — half a day's walk due east once you clear the Thornwood's edge. But walking to it isn't the trouble." Her hand settles on the sun clasp. "The trouble is what waits there." She lifts the lid.