Pevara took a deep breath. Insufferable woman! Surely she wasn’t going so far as to ignore Pevara’s leadership of the group? After the Highest herself had placed Pevara in charge? Light, but Javindhra was growing erratic.

They parted without another word, Pevara spinning and walking back down the path. She kept her temper with difficulty. That last statement had been close to outright defiance! Well, if she wanted to disobey and remain, so be it. It was time to be returning to the White Tower.

Men in black coats walked all around her. Many nodded with those too-obsequious grins of feigned respect. Her weeks here had not done anything to make her more comfortable around these men. She would make a few of them Warders. Three. She could handle three, couldn’t she?

Those dark expressions, like the eyes of executioners while waiting for the next neck to line up before them. The way some of them muttered to themselves, or jumped at shadows, or held their heads and looked dazed. She stood in the very pit of madness itself, and it made her skin creep as if covered in caterpillars. She couldn’t help quickening her pace. No, she thought. I can’t leave Javindhra here, not without trying one more time. Pevara would explain to the others, give them the order to leave. Then she’d ask them, Tarna first, to approach Javindhra. Surely their united arguments would convince her.

Pevara reached the huts they had been given. She purposely did not look to the side, toward the line of small buildings where the bonded Aes Sedai made their homes. She’d heard what some of them were doing, trying to control their Asha’man using…various methods. That made her skin crawl, too. While she thought most Reds had too harsh an opinion of men, what those women did crossed the line with a heedless leap.

She stepped inside her hut, and there found Tarna at the desk writing a letter. The Aes Sedai had to share their huts, and Pevara had picked Tarna specifically. Pevara might have been made leader of this group, but Tarna was Keeper of the Chronicles. The politics of this particular expedition were very delicate, with so many influential members and so many opinions.

Last night, Tarna had agreed that it was time to leave. She’d work with Pevara on going to Javindhra.

“Taim has locked down the Black Tower,” Pevara said calmly, sitting on her bed in the small, circular chamber. “We now need his permission to leave. He said it offhandedly, as if it weren’t really meant to stop us. Just a rule he’d forgotten to give us a blanket exception to.”

“Likely, that’s just what it was,” Tarna said. “I’m sure it’s nothing.”

Pevara fell still. What? She tried again. “Javindhra still irrationally thinks he will change his mind on letting us bond full Asha’man. It’s time to bond Dedicated and leave, but she’s hinted that she’ll remain regardless of my intentions. I want you to speak to her.”