“Nonsense, nonsense,” Janya exclaimed, waving a slender hand as if to brush away the very idea. “Every girl who’s been chosen can already make three balls of fire at once, and this requires very little more of the Power. There’s no danger at all, so long as they’re under a sister’s supervision, and they always are. I’ve seen the roster. Besides, what we make in a day will bring enough to pay the army for a week or more, but the sisters alone can’t produce near that much.” Squinting slightly, she suddenly appeared to be looking through Tiana. The cascade from her tongue never slowed, yet she seemed to be talking at least half to herself. “We will have to take great care in the selling. The Sea Folk have a voracious appetite for cuendillar, and there are plenty of their ships still at Illian and Tear by all accounts—the nobles there are greedy for it, too—but even ravenous appetites have limits. I still cannot decide whether it will be best to appear with everything at once, or let it trickle out. Sooner or later, even the price of cuendillar will begin to drop.” Abruptly she blinked and peered first at Tiana then at Salita, tilting her head to one side. “You do see my point, don’t you?”

Salita glowered and hitched her shawl up on her shoulders. Tiana threw up her hands in exasperation. Egwene held her peace. For once, she felt no shame at being praised for one of her supposed discoveries. Unlike nearly everything else except Traveling, this one actually was hers, though Moghedien had pointed the way before she escaped. The woman did not know how to actually make anything—at least, she had not revealed any such knowledge however hard Egwene had pressed her, and she had pressed very hard—but Moghedien had a wide streak of greed, and even in the Age of Legends, cuendillar had been a prized luxury. She had known enough of how it was made for Egwene to puzzle out the rest. In any case, no matter who objected or how strenuously, the need for money meant the production of cuendillar would continue. Though as far as she was concerned, the longer before any of it was sold, the better.