Pulling a leather scrip from the bottom of the cupboard, Nynaeve began making up small bundles from some of the containers. “And who do they go to when they’re ill? A hedge-doctor?”

“Yes,” Elayne said. It always pleased her to show Thom that she knew things about the world, too. “In Amadicia, it is men who study herbs.”

Nynaeve frowned scornfully. “What could a man ever know about curing anything? I’d as soon ask a farrier to make a dress.”

Abruptly Elayne realized that she had been thinking of anything and everything except what Mistress Macura had said. Not thinking about a thorn doesn’t make it hurt your foot less. One of Lini’s favorites. “Nynaeve, what do you think that message means? All sisters are welcome to return to the Tower? It makes no sense.” That was not what she wanted to say, but at least she was closing in on it.

“The Tower has its own rules,” Thom said. “What Aes Sedai do, they do for reasons of their own, and often not for those they give. If they give reasons at all.” He and Juilin knew they were only Accepted, of course; that was at least part of why neither man did as he was told nearly as well as he might.

The struggle was plain on Nynaeve’s face. She did not like being interrupted, or people answering for her. There was quite a list of things Nynaeve did not like. But it was only a moment since she had thanked Thom; it could not be easy to call down a man who had just saved you from being hauled off like a cabbage. “Very little in the Tower makes sense most of the time,” she said sourly. Elayne suspected that the tartness was as much for Thom as the Tower.

“Do you believe what she said?” Elayne took a deep breath. “About the Amyrlin saying I was to be brought back by any means.”

The brief look Nynaeve gave her was touched with sympathy. “I don’t know, Elayne.”

“She was telling the truth.” Juilin turned one of the chairs around and straddled it, leaning his staff against the back. “I’ve questioned enough thieves and murderers to know truth when I hear it. Part of the time she was too frightened to lie, and the rest too angry.”

“The pair of you—” Taking a deep breath, Nynaeve tossed the scrip onto the table and folded her arms as if to trap her hands away from her braid. “I am afraid Juilin is probably right, Elayne.”

“But the Amyrlin knows what we are doing. She sent us out of the Tower in the first place.”

Nynaeve sniffed loudly. “I can believe anything of Siuan Sanche. I would like to have her for one hour where she could not channel. We would see how tough she is then.”