“Are you positive they’ve been bonded, Samitsu?” Cadsuane asked firmly. And loudly enough to be heard over the thunder booming on the manor house’s rooftop. Thunder and lightning fit her mood. She would have liked to snarl. It required a goodly measure of her training and experience to sit calmly and sip hot ginger tea. She had not let emotion get the upper hand in a very long time, but she wanted to bite something. Or someone.

Samitsu held a porcelain cup of tea, too, but she had yet to swallow a drop, and she had ignored Cadsuane’s offer of a chair. The slender sister turned from peering into the flames of the left-hand fireplace, the bells in her dark hair jingling as she shook her head. She had not bothered to dry her hair properly, and it hung damp and heavy down her back. Her hazel eyes were uneasy. “It’s hardly the sort of question I could ask a sister, now is it, Cadsuane, and they certainly didn’t tell me. As who would? At first, I thought maybe they had done like Merise and Corele. And poor Daigian.” A brief wince of sympathy crossed her face. She knew in full the pain that was gnawing at Daigian over her loss. Any sister beyond her first Warder knew that too well. “But it’s plain Toveine and Gabrelle are both with Logain. I think Gabrelle is bedding him. If there’s bonding been done, it was the men who did it.”

“Turnabout,” Cadsuane muttered into her tea. Some said that turnabout was fair play, but she had never believed in fighting fair. Either you fought, or you did not, and it was never a game. Fairness was for people standing safely to one side, talking while others bled. Unfortunately, there was little she could do beyond trying to find a way to balance events. Balance was not at all the same as fairness. What a dog’s dinner this was turning into. “I’m glad you gave me at least a little warning before I have to face Toveine and the others, but I want you to return to Cairhien the first thing tomorrow.”

“There was nothing I could do, Cadsuane,” Samitsu said bitterly. “Half the people I gave an order had begun checking with Sashalle to see if it was right, and the other half told me to my face she’d already said different. Lord Bashere talked her into turning the Warders loose—I have no idea how he found out about them in the first place—and she talked Sorilea into it, and there wasn’t the least thing I could do to stop it. Sorilea was behaving as if I had just abdicated! She doesn’t understand, and she made it plain she thinks I’m a fool. There’s no point at all in me going back, unless you expect me to carry Sashalle’s gloves for her.”