“No, Nynaeve, I haven’t. I am so sorry; I wish I could tell you better. I know he’s still alive, Nynaeve. And I know he loves you as much as you love him.”

“Of course he is alive,” Nynaeve said firmly. “I won’t allow anything else. I mean to make him mine. He is mine, and I won’t let him be dead.”

When Egwene woke herself, Siuan was sitting beside her cot, dimly seen in the darkness. “Is it done?” Egwene asked.

The glow surrounded Siuan as she wove a small ward against eavesdropping around the pair of them. “Of the six sisters on duty beginning at midnight, only three have Warders, and those Gaidin will be on guard outside. They will have mint tea brought to them, with a small addition they shouldn’t taste.”

Egwene closed her eyes for a moment. “Am I doing the right thing?”

“You ask me?” Siuan choked out. “I did as I was commanded, Mother. I’d as soon jump into a school of feeding silverpike as help that man escape if it were up to me.”

“They will gentle him, Siuan.” Egwene had been over this with her, but she needed to go over it again for herself, to convince herself she was not making a mistake. “Even Sheriam doesn’t listen to Carlinya anymore, and Lelaine and Romanda are pressing for it. That or someone really will do what Delana has been hinting at. I won’t allow murder! If we cannot try a man and execute him, we have no right to arrange for him to die. I will not let him be murdered, and I cannot allow him to be gentled. If Merana really has put Rand’s back up somehow, that will be tossing fat-wood in the fire. I just wish I could be sure he will go to Rand and join him instead of running off the Light knows where, doing the Light knows what. At least that way there might be some way to control what he does.” She heard Siuan shift in the darkness.

“I always thought the stole weighed about as much as three good men,” Siuan said quietly. “The Amyrlin has few easy decisions to make, and fewer where she can be sure. Do what you must, and pay the price if you’re wrong. Sometimes if you are right, too.”

Egwene laughed softly. “It does seem to me I have heard that before.” After a while her mirth died. “Make sure he doesn’t hurt anyone leaving, Siuan.”

“As you command, Mother.”

“This is terrible,” Nisao muttered. “If it becomes known, the condemnation will be enough to drive you into exile, Myrelle. And me with you. Four hundred years ago, it might have been commonplace, but no one will think it so today. Some will call it crime.”