"The question now is how to get you back to the tents without them finding out you were here. I expect they have eyes-and-ears in the Palace."

"Rand, you have to —!"

"How about riding in one of those big laundry baskets? I can have a couple of Maidens carry it."

She very nearly threw up her hands. He was as eager to be rid of her as he had been of the Aes Sedai. "My own feet will do well enough, thank you." A laundry basket, indeed! "I wouldn’t have to worry if you told me how you step from Caemlyn to here whenever you want." She did not understand why asking should rasp so, yet it did. "I know you can’t teach me, but if you told me how, maybe I could work out how to do it with saidar."

Instead of the joke at her expense she more than half-expected, he took the end of her shawl in both hands. "The Pattern," he said. "Caemlyn," one finger on his left hand tented the wool, "and Cairhien." A finger on the other hand made a tent, and he brought the two tents together. "I bend the Pattern and bore a hole from one to the other. I don’t know what I bore through, but there’s no space between one end of the hole and the other." He let the shawl drop. "Does that help?"

Chewing her lip, she frowned at the shawl sourly. It did not help at all. Just the thought of tearing a hole in the Pattern made her queasy. She had hoped it would be like something she had worked out concerning Tel’aran’rhiod. Not that she ever meant to use it, of course, but she had had all that time on her hands, and the Wise Ones kept grumbling about the Aes Sedai asking how to enter in the flesh. She thought the way would be to create – a similarity seemed the only way to describe it – a similarity between the real world and its reflection in the World of Dreams. That should make a place where it was possible to simply step from one to the other. If Rand’s method of travel had seemed even slightly the same, she would have been willing to try, but this... Saidardid as you wanted as long as you remembered it was infinitely stronger than you and had to be guided gently; try to force the wrong thing, and you were dead or burned out before you could scream.

"Rand, are you sure there isn’t any sense of making things the same... or... " She did not know how to put it, but in any case, he shook his head before she trailed off.

"That sounds like changing the weave of the Pattern. I think it would tear me apart if I so much as tried. I bore a hole." He poked a finger at her to demonstrate.

Well, there was no point in pursuing that. She shifted her shawl irritably. "Rand, about those Sea Folk. I don’t know any more than I’ve read" – she did, but she still was not going to tell him – "but it must be something important to bring them this far to see you."

"Light," he muttered absently, "you jump around like a drop of water on a hot griddle. I’ll see them when I have time." For a moment he rubbed at his forehead, and his eyes seemed to see nothing. With a blink he was seeing her again. "Do you intend to stay until they come back?" He really did want to be rid of her.

At the door she paused, but he was already stalking up the room, hands clasped behind his back, talking to himself. Softly, but she could make out some. "Where are you hiding, burn you? I know you’re there!"

Shivering, she let herself out. If he really was going mad already, there was no changing it. The Wheel weaved as the Wheel willed, and its weaving must be accepted.

Realizing that she was eyeing the servants passing up and down the hall, wondering which might be Aes Sedai agents, she made herself stop. The Wheel weaved as the Wheel willed. With a nod for Somara, she squared her shoulders and tried very hard not to scuttle on her way to the nearest servants’ entrance.

There was little talk as Arilyn’s best coach lurched away from the Sun Palace followed by the wagon that had borne the chests, burdened now only with the serving women and driver. Steepling her fingers in the coach, Nesune tapped them thoughtfully against her lips. A fascinating young man. A fascinating subject for study. Her foot touched one of the specimen boxes under the seat; she never went anywhere without proper specimen boxes. One would think that the world must have been catalogued long since, yet since leaving Tar Valon she had tucked away fifty plants, twice as many insects, and the skins and bones of a fox, three sorts of lark, and no fewer than five species of ground squirrel that she was sure were nowhere in the records.

"I did not realize you were friendly with Alviarin," Coiren said after a time.

Galina sniffed. "It is not necessary to be friends to know she was well when we left." Nesune wondered whether the woman knew that she pouted. Only the shape of her mouth perhaps, but one had to learn to live with one’s face. "Do you think he truly knew?" Galina went on. "That we had... It is impossible. He must have been guessing."

Nesune’s ears perked, though she continued to tap her lips. That was clearly an effort to change the subject, and a sign that Galina was nervous besides. Silence had held as long as it did because no one wanted to mention al’Thor and there seemed no other topic possible. Why did Galina not want to speak of Alviarin? The two certainly were not friends; it was a rare Red who had a friend outside her Ajah. Nesune filed the question in its own mental cubbyhole.

"If he was guessing, he could make his fortune at the fairs." Coiren was no fool. Bombastic beyond all reason, but never a fool. "However ridiculous it might seem, we must assume he can sense saidarin a woman."

"That might be disastrous," Galina muttered. "No. It cannot be. He must have guessed. Any man who can channel would assume we would embrace saidar."

The woman’s pout irritated Nesune. This entire expedition irritated her. She would have been more than happy to join it if asked, but Jesse Bilal had not asked; Jesse had practically shoved her onto her horse physically. However it might be in other Ajahs, the head of the Browns’ council was not expected to behave so. Worst of all, though, Nesune’s companions were so focused on young al’Thor that they seemed to have gone blind to all else.

"Do you have any notions," she mused aloud, "as to the sister who shared our interview?"

It might not have been a sister – three Aiel women seemed to turn up when she went into the Royal Library, and two could channel – but she wanted to see their reactions. She was not disappointed; or rather, she was. Coiren only sat up straight, but Galina stared. It was all Nesune could do not to sigh. They truly were blind. Only a few paces from a woman able to channel, and they had not sensed her because they could not see her.

"I don’t know how she was hidden," Nesune went on, "but it will be interesting to discover." It had to have been his work; they would have seen any weaving of saidar. They did not ask whether she was sure; they knew she always identified a guess.

"Confirmation that Moiraine is alive." Galina settled back with a grim smile. "I suggest we set Beldeine to find her. Then we take her and bundle her into the basement. That takes her away from al’Thor, and we can carry her to Tar Valon along with him. I doubt he’ll even notice, so long as we let enough gold glitter under his nose."

Coiren shook her head emphatically. "We have no more confirmation than we already had, not of Moiraine. It may be this mysterious Green. As far as finding whoever it is, I agree, but we must consider the rest carefully. I will not risk everything that has been so carefully planned. We must be aware that al’Thor is connected to this sister – whoever she may be – and that his plea for time may be only a strategy. Fortunately, we have time." Galina nodded, however reluctantly; she would marry and settle on a farm before she risked their plans.