The funny thing was, Nynaeve realized what she was wearing only a heartbeat behind Elayne, and reacted exactly the same. Exactly. Except maybe that if Elayne blushed like a sunset, Nynaeve blushed for two. She was back into Two Rivers woolens even before Elayne changed.

Clearing her throat, Elayne said breathily, “Mat is quite useful, I’m sure, but we cannot allow him to get in our way, Egwene. You know how he is. You can be sure, though, if we do anything dangerous, we will have him and all his soldiers cheek to cheek around us.” Nynaeve was silent, and looking sour. Perhaps remembering Mat’s threat.

“Nynaeve, you won’t push at Mat too hard, will you?”

Elayne laughed. “Egwene, she is not pushing at him at all.”

“That’s the simple truth,” Nynaeve put in quickly. “I’ve not said a cross word to him since we arrived in Ebou Dar.”

Egwene nodded doubtfully. She could reach the bottom of this, but it would take. . . . She glanced down to make sure the stole had not reappeared, and saw only a flicker that even she could not recognize.

“Egwene,” Elayne said, “have you been able to speak with the dream-walkers yet?”

“Yes,” Nynaeve said. “Do they know what the problem is?”

“I have.” Egwene sighed. “They don’t, not really.”

It had been an odd meeting, only a few days ago, begun by finding Bair’s dreams. Bair and Melaine had met her in the Stone of Tear; Amys had said she would not teach Egwene more, and she did not come. At first, Egwene felt awkward. She could not bring herself to tell them she was Aes Sedai, much less Amyrlin, afraid they might believe it another lie. There had certainly been no difficulty with the stole appearing then. And then there was her toh to Melaine. She brought it up, thinking all the while about how many miles she had to spend in a saddle the next day, but Melaine was so full of pleasure that she was going to have daughters—she rhapsodized over Min’s viewing—that she not only announced straight away that Egwene had no toh toward her, but said she was going to name one of the girls Egwene. That had been a small pleasure in a night full of futility and irritation.

“What they said,” she went on, “was that they had never heard of anyone trying to find something with need again after they had already found it. Bair thought maybe it was like trying to eat the same . . . apple twice.” The same motai was what Bair had said; a motai was a kind of grub found in the Waste. Quite sweet and crunchy—until Egwene found out what she was eating.