"I was looking for you, Elayne," Vandene said without preamble. Her white hair, gathered at the nape of neck with a dark green ribbon, had always given her an air of age despite her smooth cheeks. Her sister's murder had added grimness, soaked it into the bone, so she seemed like an implacable judge. She had been slender; now she was bony, her cheeks hollow. "These children—" She cut off, a faint grimace thinning her mouth.

It was the proper way to refer to novices—the worst moment for a woman who went to the Tower was not when she discovered she would not be considered fully adult until she earned the shawl, but when she realized that so long as she wore novice white, she really was a child, one who might injure herself or others through ignorance and blundering—the proper way, yet even to Vandene it must have seemed strange here. Most novices came to the Tower at fifteen or sixteen, and until recently, none over eighteen, except for a handful who had managed to carry off a lie. Unlike Aes Sedai, the Kin used age to set their hierarchy, and Zarya—she had been calling herself Garenia Rosoinde, but Zarya Alkaese was the name in the novice books, and Zarya Alkaese she would answer to—Zarya, with her strong nose and wide mouth, was more than ninety years old, though she appeared well short of her middle years. Neither woman had the agelessness despite their years of using the Power, and pretty, black-eyed Kirstian looked a little older, perhaps thirty or so. She was over three hundred, older than Vandene herself, Elayne was sure. Kirstian had been gone from the Tower so long that she had felt safe using her true name again, or part of it. Not at all the usual run of novices.

"These children," Vandene went on more firmly, a deep frown creasing her forehead, "have been thinking over events in Harlon Bridge." That was where her sister had been murdered. And Ispan Shefar, but as far as Vandene was concerned, the death of a Black sister counted with the death of a rabid dog. "Unfortunately, rather than keeping silent about their conclusions, they came to me. At least they haven't blathered where anyone could hear."

Elayne frowned slightly. Everyone in the Palace knew of the murders by this time. "I don't understand," she said slowly. And carefully. She did not want to give the pair hints if they had not really dug up| painstakingly hidden secrets. "Have they worked out that it was Darkfriends instead of robbery?" That was the tale they had put about, two women in an isolated house, killed for their jewelry. Only she, Vandene, Nynaeve and Lan knew any real measure of the truth. Until now anyway, it seemed. They must have gotten that far, or Vandene would have sent them away with a flea in their collective ear.

"Worse." Vandene looked around, then moved a few paces to the center of where the hallways crossed, forcing Elayne to follow. From that vantage, they could see anyone coming along either corridor. The novices attentively maintained their positions relative to the Green. Maybe they had already gotten that flea, for all their eagerness. There were plenty of servants in sight, but no one approaching, no one close enough to overhear. Vandene lowered her voice anyway. Quietness did nothing to mask her displeasure. "They reasoned out that the killer must be Merilille, Sareitha or Careane. Good thinking on their part, I suppose, but they shouldn't have been thinking about it in the first place. They should have been kept at their lessons so hard they had no time to think of anything else." Despite the scowl she directed at Kirstian and Zarya, the two overaged novices beamed with delight. There had been a compliment buried in the scolding, and Vandene was sparing of compliments.

Elayne did not point out that the pair might have been kept a little busier if Vandene had been willing to take part of their lessons. Elayne herself and Nynaeve had too many other duties, and since they had added daily lessons for the Windfinders– everyone but Nynaeve had, anyway—no one at all had the energy for much time with the two novices. Teaching the Atha'an Miere women was like being fed through a laundress's mangle! They had little respect for Aes Sedai. And even less for rank among "the shorebound."

"At least they didn't speak to anyone else," she murmured. A blessing, if small.

It had been obvious when they found Adeleas and Ispan that their killer must be an Aes Sedai. They had been paralyzed with crimsonthorn before they were killed, and it was all but impossible that the Windfinders knew of an herb only found far from the sea. And even Vandene was sure the Kin numbered no Dark-friends among them. Ispan had run away herself as a novice, and even gotten as far as Ebou Dar, but she had been retaken before the Kin revealed themselves to her, that they were more than a few women put out of the Tower who had decided on a whim to help her. Under questioning by Vandene and Adeleas, she had revealed a great deal. Somehow she had managed to resist saying anything about the Black Ajah itself except for exposing old schemes long carried out, but she had been eager to tell anything else once Vandene and her sister were done with her. They had not been gentle, and they had plumbed her depths, yet she knew no more of the Kin than any other Aes Sedai. If there were any Darkfriends among the Kin, the Black Ajah would have known everything. So as much as they could wish otherwise, the killer was one of three women they had all grown to like. A Black sister in their midst. Or more than one. They had all been frantic to keep that knowledge secret, at least until the murderer was uncovered. The news would throw the entire Palace into a panic, maybe the entire city. Light, who else had been thinking over events in Harlon Bridge? Would they have the sense to hold silence?

"Someone had to take them in hand," Vandene said firmly, "to keep them out of further mischief. They need regular lessons and hard work." The pair's beaming faces had taken on a hint of smugness, but it faded a little at that. Their lessons had been few, but very hard, the discipline very strict. "That means you, Elayne, or Nynaeve."

Elayne clicked her tongue in exasperation. "Vandene, I hardly have a moment for myself to think. I'm already straining to give them an hour now and then. It will have to be Nynaeve."

"What will have to be Nynaeve?" the woman herself demanded cheerfully, joining them. Somehow she had acquired a long, yellow-fringed shawl embroidered with leaves and bright flowers, but it lay looped over her elbows. Despite the temperatures she wore a blue gown with quite a low neckline for Andor, though the thick, dark braid pulled over her shoulder and nestled in her cleavage kept the exposure from being too great. The small red dot, the ki'sain, in the middle of her forehead did look quite strange. According to Malkieri custom, a red ki'sain marked a married woman, and she had insisted on wearing it as soon as she learned. Toying idly with the end of her braid, she looked . . . content . . . not an emotion anyone usually associated with Nynaeve al'Meara.

Elayne gave a start when she noticed Lan, a few paces off, strolling a circle around them and keeping watch down both hallways. As tall as an Aielman in his dark green coat, with shoulders belonging on a blacksmith, the hard-faced man still managed to move like a ghost. His sword was buckled at his waist even here in the Palace. He always made Elayne shiver. Death gazed from his cold blue eyes. Except when he looked at Nynaeve, anyway.

Contentment vanished from Nynaeve's face as soon as she learned what would have to be her task. She stopped fingering her braid, and seized it in a tight fist. "Now you listen to me. Elayne might be able to loll around playing politics, but I have my hands full. More than half the Kin would have vanished by now if Alise wasn't holding them by the scruff of the neck, and since she hasn't a hope of reaching the shawl herself, I'm not sure how much longer she'll hold anybody. The rest think they can argue with me! Yesterday, Sumeko called me . . . girl!"