Nynaeve wondered what if anything he himself felt about Morgase’s death. Hard as it was to believe, he had been Morgase’s lover once, when she was young and Elayne little more than a babe. Back then he must not have looked as though he had been left to dry in the sun too long. Nynaeve knew little more of how or why it ended than that he had slipped out of Caemlyn with an arrest warrant at his heels. Not the mark of a love to be told in the stories. At the moment he certainly appeared concerned only with whether Elayne was telling the truth or hiding her hurt, with patting her shoulder and stroking her hair. If Nynaeve had not wished they would just once snap at one another like normal people, she would have thought it a pretty picture.

A throat clearing broke up the vignette. “Master Merrilin?” Tabitha said, spreading her white dress in a quick curtsy. “Master Sandar? Sheriam Sedai says the Sitters are ready to receive you. She says you were not supposed to leave the Little Tower.”

“The Little Tower, is it?” Thom said dryly, eyeing the former inn. “Elayne, they can’t keep us forever. When we’re done, you and I can discuss . . . whatever you wish.” Motioning Tabiya to lead, he marched inside, his limp obvious, the way it was when he was tired. Juilin squared his shoulders and followed as though walking to a gallows; he was Tairen, after all.

Nynaeve and Elayne stood there, neither quite looking at the other.

Finally, Nynaeve said, “I was not—” at the same time that Elayne said, “I should not—” They cut off together, and moments passed in fidgeting with skirts and blotting faces.

“It is too hot to just stand here,” Nynaeve said at last.

It was unlikely that the Sitters who were hearing Siuan and Leane’s reports would stop to hear Thom and Juilin’s. They split such things among them. That left Logain, much as she wished it did not. She would not learn anything. But it was better than twiddling her thumbs until a dozen Aes Sedai descended on her with an hourly schedule.

With a sigh she started down the street. Elayne came along as though she had been invited. That helped Nynaeve find the anger she was going to need. Abruptly she realized that Elayne’s wrists were bare.

“Where is the bracelet?” she asked softly. No one in the street would understand if they heard, but caution once forgotten could be forgotten once too often. “Where is Marigan?”