Despite the emotion she could feel in Birgitte, the other woman kept her face smooth and unconcerned. “The Forsaken,” she muttered dryly. And softly. That was not a name to bandy about. “Well, as long as it has nothing to do with us, we’re bloody all right.” A grunt that might have been a laugh gave her the lie. But then, although Birgitte said she had never been a soldier before, she had a soldier’s view. Long odds were usually the only odds you could find, but you still had to get the job done. “I won­der what they think of it?” she added, nodding toward the four Aes Sedai who had just stepped out of a crossing corridor down the hallway.

Vandene, Merilille, Sareitha and Careane had their heads together as they walked, or rather, the last three were clustered around Vandene, leaning toward her and talking with urgent ges­tures that made the fringes on their shawls sway. Vandene glided along slowly as if she were alone, paying no heed. She had always been slender, but her dark green dress, embroidered with flowers on the sleeves and shoulders, hung on her as though made for a stouter woman, and the white hair gathered at the nape of her neck seemed in need of a brush. Her expression was bleak, but that might have had nothing to do with whatever the other sisters were saying. She had been joyless ever since her sister’s murder. Elayne would have wagered that dress had belonged to Adeleas. Since the murder, Vandene wore her sister’s clothes more often than her own. Not that that accounted for the fit. The two women had been of a size, but Vandene’s appetite for food had died with her sister. Her taste for most things seemed to have died then.

Sareitha, a Brown whose dark square face was not yet touched with agelessness, saw Elayne just then, and put a hand on Vandene’s arm as if to draw her up the corridor. Vandene brushed the Tairen woman’s hand away and glided on with the merest glance at Elayne, disappearing on along the hallway they had come out of. Two women in novice white, who had been following the others at a respectful distance, offered quick curtsies to the remaining sisters and hastened after Vandene. Merilille, a tiny woman in dark gray that made her Cairhienin paleness seem like ivory, stared as if she might follow. Careane adjusted her green-fringed shawl on shoul­ders wider than those of many men and exchanged quiet words with Sareitha. The pair of them turned to meet Elayne as she approached, making her curtsies almost as deep as the novices had given them. Merilille noticed the Guardswomen and blinked, then noticed Elayne and gave a start. Her curtsy matched the novices’.

Merilille had worn the shawl for over a hundred years, Careane for more than fifty, and even Sareitha had worn it longer than Elayne Trakand, but standing among Aes Sedai went with strength in the Power, and none of these three was more than middling strong among sisters. In Aes Sedai eyes, increased strength gave, if not increased wisdom, at least increased weight to your opinions. With a sufficient gap, those opinions became commands. Some­times, Elayne thought the Kin’s way was better.

“I don’t know what it is,” she said before any of the other Aes Sedai could speak, “but there is nothing we can do about it, so we might as well quit worrying. We have enough right in front of us without fretting over things we can’t affect.”

Rasoria half-turned her head, frowning and plainly wondering what she had missed, but the words smoothed the anxiety from Sareitha’s dark eyes. Perhaps not from the rest of her, since her hands moved as if she wanted to smooth her brown skirts, yet she was willing to follow the lead of a sister who stood as high as Elayne. Sometimes, there were advantages to standing high enough that you could quell objections with a sentence. Careane had already regained serenity, if she had ever lost it. It sat easily on her, though she looked more like a wagon driver than an Aes Sedai despite her beryl-slashed silks and smooth, ageless coppery face. But then, Greens usually were made of tougher stuff than Browns. Merilille did not look at all serene. Wide eyes and half-parted lips gave her the appearance of startlement. That was usual for her, though.

Elayne continued along the hallway, hoping they would go about their business, but Merilille fell in beside Birgitte. The Gray should have taken primacy among the three, but she had developed a tendency to wait for someone to tell her what to do, and she shifted over without a word when Sareitha politely asked Birgitte to give her room. The sisters were unfailingly courteous to Elayne’s Warder when she was acting as Captain-General. It was Birgitte as Warder they tried to ignore. Aviendha received no such civility from Careane, who elbowed in between her and Elayne. Anyone not trained in the White Tower was a wilder by definition, and Careane despised wilders. Aviendha pursed her lips though she did not draw her belt knife or even suggest that she might, for which Elayne was grateful. Her first-sister could be… precipitate, at times. On second thought, she would have forgiven a little hasti­ness from Aviendha right then. Custom forbade rudeness toward another Aes Sedai under any circumstances, but Aviendha could have growled threats and waved her knife to her heart’s content. That might have been enough to make the threesome leave, even if in a tizzy. Careane did not seem to notice the cool green gaze mark­ing her.

“I told Merilille and Sareitha it was nothing we could do any­thing about,” she said calmly. “But shouldn’t we be ready to flee if it comes closer? There’s no shame flying from that. Even linked, we would be moths fighting a forest fire. Vandene wouldn’t bother to listen.”

“We really should make some sort of preparations, Elayne,” Sareitha murmured absently, as if making lists in her head. “It’s when you don’t make plans that you wish you had. There are a number of volumes in the library here that mustn’t be left behind. I believe several can’t be found in the Tower library.”

“Yes.” Merilille’s voice was breathless, and as anxious as her large dark eyes. “Yes, we really should be ready to go. Perhaps… Perhaps we should not wait. Surely going from necessity would not violate our agreement. I am sure it would not.” Only Birgitte as much as glanced at her, but she flinched.

“If we do go,” Careane said as if Merilille had not spoken, “we’ll have to take all of the Kin with us. Allow them to scatter, and the Light only knows what they’ll do or when we will ever catch them again, especially now that some have learned to Travel.” There was no bitterness in her voice, though only Elayne among the sisters in the palace could Travel. It seemed to make a difference to Careane that the Kinswomen had begun in the White Tower, even if most had been put out and a few had run away. She had identified no fewer than four of them herself, including one runaway. At least they were not wilders.

Sareitha’s mouth tightened, though. It weighed on her that several Kinswomen could weave gateways, and she had very differ­ent notions of the Kin. Normally, she limited her objections to the occasional frown or disparaging grimace, since Elayne had made her own views clear, but the stress of the morning seemed to have loosened her tongue. “We do indeed need to take them with us,” she said in a cutting tone, “else they’ll all be claiming to be Aes Sedai as soon as they’re out of our sight. Any woman who main­tains she was put out of the Tower over three hundred years ago will claim anything! They need to be kept under a close watch, if you ask me, instead of going about as they please, most especially those who can Travel. They may have gone where you told them and come back so far, Elayne, but how long before one of them doesn’t return? Mark my words, once one of them escapes, others will follow, and we will have a mess on our hands we’ll never clean up.”