Recursive search for array with matching value

I am trying to use jq to find the layout of the currently active container in i3. i3-msg -t get_tree returns a recursive structure of containers with .layout and .focused properties. The trick is that I don't want the .layout of the container with .focused == true, but the one of its parent node:

// partial output, this might be several `.nodes[]` down{"focused": false,"layout": "splitv",  // Return this"nodes": [    {"focused": true,  // Find by this"layout": "splith"  // Don't return this"nodes": []    }  ]}

I started off by recursive search from Recursive search values by key:

$ i3-msg -t get_tree | jq -r '.. | select(.focused?) | .layout'splith

but that returns the wrong value as shown in example before. If jq had a hypothetical parent() function, I would do something like .. | select(.focused?) | parent().parent().layout to get from the current level to .nodes[] and then once more to the parent container.

I then tried to follow How do I print a parent value of an object when I am already deep into the object's children?, but I am running into some errors that I believe are caused by .. operator iterating over non-dict objects:

$ i3-msg -t get_tree | jq -r '.. | select(.nodes[] | select(.focused?)) | .layout'jq: error (at <stdin>:1): Cannot index number with string "nodes"$ i3-msg -t get_tree | jq -r '.. | select(.nodes[]? | select(.focused?)) | .layout'jq: error (at <stdin>:1): Cannot index number with string "nodes"$ i3-msg -t get_tree | jq -r '.. | select(.nodes?[] | select(.focused?)) | .layout'jq: error (at <stdin>:1): Cannot iterate over null (null)$ i3-msg -t get_tree | jq -r '.. | select(.nodes? | select(.focused?)) | .layout'# no output

Here is a gist with my dump of i3-msg -t get_tree for anyone who would like to have a go without installing i3.