“If the thing does what these children claim,” Morvrin said absently, “we need to study it. And if Elayne really believes she can make a ter’angreal. . . .” The Brown sister shook her head. Her real attention was on the flattened stone ring, all flecked and striped in red and blue and brown, that she held in one hand. The other two ter’angreal lay on her broad lap. “You say that this came from Verin Sedai? How is it this was never mentioned to us before?” That was not directed at Nynaeve or Elayne, but at Siuan.

Siuan frowned, but not the fierce frown Nynaeve remembered. It held a touch of diffidence, as if she knew she was speaking to her superiors, and so did her voice. That was another change Nynaeve could hardly believe. “Verin never told me of it. I would very much like to ask her a few questions.”

“And I have questions about this.” Myrelle’s olive face darkened as she unfolded a familiar paper—why had they ever kept that?— and read aloud. “ ‘What the bearer does is done at my order and by my authority. Obey, and keep silent, at my command. Siuan Sanche, Watcher of the Seals, Flame of Tar Valon, The Amyrlin Seat.’ ” She crumpled the paper and its seal in her fist. “Hardly something to be handed out to Accepted.”

“At the time, I did not know who I could trust,” Siuan said smoothly. The six Aes Sedai stared at her. “It was within my authority then.” The six Aes Sedai did not blink. Her voice took on a thread of exasperated pleading. “You cannot call me to account for doing what I had to do when I had a perfect right to do it. When the boat’s sinking, you plug the hole with what you can find.”

“And why did you not tell us?” Sheriam asked quietly, but with a hint of steel. As Mistress of Novices she had never raised her voice, though sometimes you wished she would. “Three Accepted—Accepted!—sent out of the Tower chasing thirteen full sisters of the Black Ajah. Do you use babies to plug the hole in your boat, Siuan?”

“We are hardly babies,” Nynaeve told her heatedly. “Several of those thirteen are dead, and we thwarted their plans twice. In Tear, we—”