It was true; the skinny man had used her interference to vanish. She felt a flash of contempt. Running because he feared to face four. How could he bear the shame? Light, she was doing it again.

She opened her mouth to say that of course they could—and nothing came out. They took her silence for assent, or maybe excuse, and hurried away, but she barely noticed them go. She was too busy staring at the back of a mounted party making its way up the street.

She did not recognize the dozen or so green-cloaked soldiers forcing a path through the crowd, but who they escorted was a different matter. She could only see the backs of the women—five or six, she thought, between the soldiers—just parts of their backs, but that was more than enough. Much more. The women wore light dustcloaks, pale linen in shades of brown, and Egwene found herself staring right at what seemed to be a pure white disc embroidered on the back of one of those cloaks. Only the stitching picked out the white Flame of Tar Valon from the border signifying the White Ajah. She caught a glimpse of green, of red. Red! Five or six Aes Sedai, riding toward the Royal Palace, where a copy of the Dragon banner waved fitfully atop a stepped tower alongside one of Rand’s crimson flags bearing the ancient Aes Sedai symbol. Some called that the Dragon banner, and others al’Thor’s banner, or even the Aiel banner, and a dozen other names besides.

Wriggling through the crowd, she followed them maybe twenty paces, then stopped. A Red sister—at least one Red that she had seen—had to mean this was the long-expected embassy from the Tower, the one Elaida had written would escort Rand to Tar Valon. More than two months since that letter arrived by a hard-riding courier; this party must have left not long behind.

They would not find Rand—not unless he had slipped in unannounced; she had decided that he had somehow rediscovered the Talent called Traveling, but that put her no closer to knowing how it was done—yet whether they found Rand or not, they must not find Egwene. The best she could expect was to be hauled up short as an Accepted out of the Tower with no full sister to oversee her, and that could be expected only if Elaida really was not hunting for her. Even then they would haul her back to Tar Valon, and Elaida; she had no illusions that she could resist five or six Aes Sedai.