Verin watched her for a few moments before speaking. It had taken her ten years to get over Balinor’s death and bond Tomas. Alanna’s emotions had been raw since Owein’s death, and she had held them in far too long. The occasional bouts of weeping she had allowed herself since departing the Two Rivers were not enough of a release. “I suppose he can keep us out of the Inner City with guards at the gate, but he cannot really hold us in Caemlyn.”

That got the withering glance it deserved. They could leave with little difficulty—however much Rand had taught himself, there was little chance he had managed to discover wards—but it would mean relinquishing the Two Rivers girls. No Aes Sedai had found a trove like the Two Rivers in . . . Verin could not imagine how long. Perhaps not since the Trolloc Wars. Even young women of eighteen—the limit they had set for themselves—often found it hard to accept the strictures of the novitiate, yet had they extended the limit only five years, she and Alanna could have brought out twice as many, if not more. Five of these girls—five!—had the spark inborn, including Mat’s sister and Wile and young Jancy; they would channel eventually whether anyone taught them or not and be very strong. She and Alanna had left two more behind to be gathered up in a year or so, when they were old enough to leave home. That was safe enough; a girl with the ability born in her very rarely manifested it before fifteen without training. The rest showed exceptional promise; all of them. The Two Rivers was a lode of pure gold.

Now that she had the other woman’s attention, Verin changed the subject. She certainly had no intention of abandoning those young women. Or of moving any further from Rand than she had to. “Do you think he is right about rebels?”

Alanna’s fists tightened for a moment on her skirts. “The possibility repels me! Could we really have come to . . . ?” She trailed off, sounding lost. Her shoulders slumped. Tears bubbled just beneath the surface, barely held in check.

Now that the other woman’s anger was dulled, Verin had questions to ask before sharpening it again. “Is there any prospect your butcher can tell you more of what has happened in Tar Valon, if you dig?” The woman was not really Alanna’s; she was a Green Ajah agent, discovered because Alanna had noticed an emergency signal of some sort outside her shop. Not that Alanna had told Verin what it was, of course. Verin certainly would not have revealed any Brown signal.