SALET opened with a single yellow — the letter E sitting somewhere in the word, just not at position four. Sparse feedback, but enough to narrow the field considerably.

REINE came back with a striking pattern: yellow R, green E in position two, yellow I, gray N, green E at the end. Two confirmed greens flanking a yellow I meant the answer was built around a double-E frame — and that yellow R had to land somewhere in the middle.

The only word fitting all those constraints was EERIE itself. Three rounds, clean solve.