“Another young fool,” Bair muttered. “Girls today have no more brains or discipline than goats.” She stalked out ahead of Egwene and Amys and planted herself across Callandor’s glittering shape from Elayne, fists on hips. “You are not my pupil, Elayne of Andor—though you’ve wheedled enough out of us to keep you from killing yourself here, if you are careful—but if you were, I would welt you from your toes up and send you back to your mother until you were grown enough to be let out of her sight. Which I think might take as many more years as you have lived already. I know you have been coming into the World of Dreams alone, you and Nynaeve. You are both fools to do it.”

Elayne gave a start when they first appeared, but as Bair’s tirade washed over her, she drew herself up, that chilly tilt to her chin. Her gown became red and took on a finer sheen, and grew embroidery down the sleeves and across the high bodice, including rearing lions in white and golden lilies, her own sigil. A thin golden diadem rested in her red-gold curls, a single rearing lion set in moonstones above her brows. She did not yet have the best control over such things. Then again, maybe she wore exactly what she intended this time. “I do thank you for your concern,” she said regally. “Yet it is true that I am not your pupil, Bair of the Haido Shaarad. I am grateful for your instruction, but I must go my own way on the tasks given me by the Amyrlin Seat.”

“A dead woman,” Bair said coldly. “You claim obedience to a dead woman.” Egwene could all but feel Bair’s hackles standing erect in anger; if she did not do something, Bair might decide to teach Elayne a painful lesson. The last thing they needed was that sort of squabble.

“What . . . Why are you here instead of Nynaeve?” She had been going to ask what Elayne was doing there, but that would have given Bair an opening, and maybe sounded as if she were on the Wise One’s side. What she wanted to ask was what Elayne had been doing talking to Birgitte. I did not imagine it. Maybe it had been someone dreaming she was Birgitte. But only those who entered Tel’aran’rhiod knowingly remained for more than minutes, and Elayne surely would not have been speaking with one of them. Where did Birgitte and the others wait?

“Nynaeve is nursing a sore head.” The diadem vanished, and Elayne’s gown became simpler, with only a few golden scrolls around the bodice.

“Is she ill?” Egwene asked anxiously.