The camp was quiet, with evening meals cooking over small fires beside the wagons. Petra was feeding the black-maned lion, thrusting huge pieces of meat through the bars on a stick. The female lions were already hunkered down over theirs companionably, letting out an occasional growl if someone came too close to their cage. Nynaeve stopped near Aludra’s wagon; the Illuminator was working with wooden mortar and pestle on a table let down from the side of her wagon, muttering to herself over whatever she was compounding. Three of the Chavanas smiled at Nynaeve enticingly, motioning her to join them. Not Brugh, who still glowered over his lip, though she had given him a salve to make the swelling go down. Maybe if she hit the rest of them as hard, they would listen to Luca—and more importantly, to her!—and realize that she did not want their smiles. Too bad Master Valan Luca could not follow his own instructions. Latelle turned from the bear cage and gave her a tight smile; more of a smirk, really. Mainly, though, Nynaeve stared at Cerandin, who was filing the blunt toenails of one of the huge gray s’redit with what looked like a tool suitable for metal.

“That one,” Aludra said, “she uses the hands and the feet with remarkable ability, no? Do not glare at me so, Nana,” she added, dusting her hands. “I am not your enemy. Here. You must try these new firesticks.”

Nynaeve took the wooden box from the dark-haired woman gingerly. It was a cube she could have held easily with one hand, but she used both. “I thought you called them strikers.”

“Maybe yes, maybe no. Firesticks, it says what they are much better than strikers, yes? I have smoothed the little holes that hold the sticks so they can no longer ignite on the wood. A good idea, no? And the heads, they are a new formulation. You will try them and tell me what you think?”

“Yes, of course. Thank you.”

Nynaeve hurried on before the woman could press another box on her. She held the thing as if it might explode, which she was not certain it would not. Aludra had everyone trying out her strikers, or firesticks, or whatever she would decide to call them next. They certainly would light a fire or a lamp. They could also burst into flame if the blue-gray heads rubbed against each other or anything else rough. For herself, she would stick with flint and steel, or a coal kept properly banked in a box of sand. Much safer.