Before she had gone fifty paces, she felt Birgitte coming closer and turned to see her running down the street. Areina was with her, but she stopped a little way off and folded her arms with a scowl. The woman was an impossible little wretch, and she certainly had not changed her opinions because Elayne really was Aes Sedai now.

“I thought you should know,” Birgitte said quietly. “I just heard that when we leave for Ebou Dar, Vandene and Adeleas are going too.”

“I see,” Elayne murmured. It could be that the pair were going to join Merilille for some reason, though there were already three Aes Sedai at Tylin’s court, or maybe they had a mission of their own in Ebou Dar. She did not believe either. Areina had her mind set, and so did the Hall. Elayne and Nynaeve were to be accompanied by two real Aes Sedai as chaperones. “She does understand she isn’t going.”

Birgitte glanced the way Elayne was staring, at Areina, then shrugged. “She understands; she is not happy over it. Myself, I can hardly wait to be gone.”

Elayne hesitated only a moment. She had promised to keep secrets, which she did not like, but she had not promised to stop trying to convince the other woman there was no need, and no point. “Birgitte, Egwene—”

“No!”

“Why not?” Elayne had not had Birgitte for a Warder long before she decided that when she bonded Rand, she would somehow make him promise to do as he was told, at least when it was important. Lately she had decided on another provision. He was going to have to answer her questions. Birgitte answered when she chose, evaded when she chose and sometimes just put on a stubborn face, as she did now. “Tell me why not, and if it’s a good reason, I’ll never ask again.”

At first Birgitte just glowered, but then she took Elayne’s arm and very nearly hustled her to the mouth of an alley. No one passing by glanced at them twice, and Areina remained where she was, if darker of face than before, but Birgitte still looked around carefully and spoke in a whisper. “Always when the Wheel spun me out, I was born, lived and died without ever knowing I was bound to the Wheel. I only knew that in between, in Tel’aran’rhiod. Sometimes I became known, even famous, but I was like everyone else, not somebody out of a legend. This time I was ripped out, not spun out. For the first time wearing flesh, I know who I am. For the first time, other people can know too. Thom and Juilin do; they say nothing, but I am sure. They don’t look at me the way they do other people. If I said I was going to climb a glass mountain and kill a giant with my bare hands, they’d just ask if I needed any help on the way, and they would not expect me to.”