Written for readers who have finished Book 1.
Brix is a young traveller who comes over the col burned out, his walking-party gone on ahead without him, and stays the summer at the col-house while the road grows back into his legs. He is Toll a few years earlier, near enough — which makes him the one the keeper watches most closely and helps least, because some things only mend when they are left to mend on their own terms.