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eyes never ceased moving. Warders wearing swords and plainly guarding their Aes

Sedai’s back, in the Tower. That was all too common, yet Pevara could have wept at it.

Only, there were too many reasons for weeping to settle on one; instead she set about

solving what she could.

Tsutama could command Reds to bond Asha’man, command them not to go running to

Elaida, but it seemed best to begin with sisters who might be willing to entertain the

notion without being ordered, especially with rumors spreading of three Red sisters dead

at Asha’man hands. Tarna Feir had already entertained it, so a very private conversation

with her was in order. She might know others of a like mind. The greatest difficulty

would be approaching the Asha’man with the idea. They were very unlikely to agree just

because they themselves had already bonded fifty-one sisters. Light of the world, fifty-

one! Broaching the subject would require a sister who possessed diplomacy and a way

with words. And iron nerve. She was still mulling over names when she saw the woman

she had come to meet, already at the appointed place, apparently studying a tall tapestry.

Tiny and willowy, and regal in her pale silver silk with a slightly darker lace at her neck

and wrists, Yukiri appeared throughly engrossed in the tapestry and quite at her ease.

Pevara could only recall seeing her the slightest bit flustered on one occasion, and putting

Talene to the question had been nerve-racking for everyone there. Yukiri was alone, of

course, though of late she had been heard to say she was thinking of taking a Warder

again. Doubtless that was equal parts the current times and their own present situation.

Pevara could have done with a Warder or two herself.

“Is there any truth in this, or is it all the weaver’s fancy?” she asked, joining the smaller

woman. The tapestry showed a long-ago battle against Trollocs, or was purported to.

Most such things were made long after the fact, and the weavers usually went by hearsay.

This one was old enough to need the protection of a warding to keep it from falling apart.

“I know as much about tapestries as a pig knows about blacksmithing, Pevara.” For all

her elegance, Yukiri seldom let long pass without revealing her country origins. The

silvery gray fringe of her shawl swung as she gathered it around her. “You’re late, so let’s

be brief. I feel like a hen being watched by a fox. Marris broke this morning, and I gave

her the oath of obedience myself, but as with the others, her ‘one other’ is out of the

Tower. With the rebels, I think.” She fell silent as a pair of serving women approached up

the hallway carrying a large wicker laundry basket with neatly folded bed linens bulging

from the top.

Pevara sighed. It had seemed so encouraging, at the start. Terrifying and nearly

overwhelming, too, yet they had appeared to be making a good beginning. Talene had

only known the name of one other Black sister actually in the Tower at present, but once

Atuan had been kidnapped—Pevara would have liked to think of it as an arrest, yet she

could not when they seemed to be violating half of Tower Law and a good many strong

customs besides—once Atuan was safely in hand, she had soon been induced to surrender

the names of her heart: Karale Sanghir, a Domani Gray, and Marris Thornhill, an

Andoran Brown. Only Karale among them had a Warder, though he had turned out to be

a Darkfriend, too. Luckily, soon after learning that his Aes Sedai had betrayed him, he

had managed to take poison in the basement room where he had been confined while

Karale was questioned. Strange to think of that as lucky, but the Oath Rod only worked

on those who could channel, and they were too few to guard and tend prisoners.

It had been such a bright beginning, however fraught, and now they were at an impasse

unless one of the others returned to the Tower, back to searching for discrepancies

between what sisters claimed to have done and what it could be proven they actually had,

something made harder by the inclination of most sisters to be oblique in nearly

everything. Of course, Talene and the other three would pass along whatever they knew,

whatever came into their hands—the oath of obedience took care of that—but any

message very much more important than “take this and put it in that place” would be in a

cipher known only to the woman who sent it and the woman it was directed to. Some

were protected by a weave that made the ink vanish if the wrong hand broke the seal; that

could be done with so little of the Power it might go unnoticed unless you were looking

for it, and there appeared to be no way to circumvent the ward. If they were not at an

impasse, then their flow of success was reduced to a creeping trickle. And always there

was the danger that the hunted would learn of them and become the hunters. Invisible

hunters, for all practical purposes, just as they now seemed invisible prey.

Still, they had four names plus four sisters in hand who would admit they were

Darkfriends, though likely Marris would be as quick as the other three to claim she now

rejected the Shadow, repented of her sins, and embraced the Light once more. Enough to

convince anyone. Supposedly, the Black Ajah knew everything that passed in Elaida’s

study, yet it might be worth the risk. Pevara refused to believe Talene’s claim that Elaida

was a Darkfriend. After all, she had initiated the hunt. The Amyrlin Seat could rouse the

entire Tower. Perhaps a revelation that the Black Ajah truly existed might do what the

appearance of the rebels with an army had failed to, stop the Ajahs from hissing at one

another like strange cats and bind them back together. The Tower’s wounds called for

desperate remedies.

The serving women passed beyond earshot, and Pevara was about to bring up the

suggestion when Yukiri spoke again.

“Last night, Talene received an order to appear tonight before their ‘Supreme Council.’”

Her mouth twisted around the words in distaste. “It seems that happens only if you’re

being honored or given a very, very important assignment. Or if you’re to be put to the

question.” Her lips almost writhed. What they had learned about the Black Ajah’s means

of putting someone to the question was as nauseating as it was incredible. Forcing a

woman into a circle against her will? Guiding a circle to inflict pain? Pevara felt her

stomach writhing. “Talene doesn’t think she’s to be honored or given an assignment,”

Yukiri went on, “so she begged to be hidden away. Saerin put her in a room in the lowest

basement. Talene may be wrong, but I agree with Saerin. Risking it would be letting a

dog into the chicken yard and hoping for the best.”

Pevara stared up at the tapestry stretching well above their heads. Armored men swung

swords and axes, stabbed spears and halberds at huge, man-like shapes with boars’ snouts

and wolves’ snouts, with goats’ horns and rams’ horns. The weaver had seen Trollocs. Or

accurate drawings. Men fought alongside the Trollocs, too. Darkfriends. Sometimes,

fighting the Shadow required spilling blood. And desperate remedies.

“Let Talene go to this meeting,” she said. “We’ll all go. They won’t expect us. We can

kill or capture them and decapitate the Black at a stroke. This Supreme Council must

know the names of all of them. We can destroy the whole Black Ajah.”

Lifting an edge of the fringe on Pevara’s shawl with a slim hand, Yukiri frowned at it

ostentatiously. “Yes, red. I thought it might have turned green when I wasn’t looking.

There will be thirteen of them, you know. Even if some of this ‘Council’ are out of the

Tower, the rest will bring in sisters to make up the number.”

“I know,” Pevara replied impatiently. Talene had been a fount of information, most of it

useless and much of it horrifying, almost more than they could take in. “We take

everyone. We can order Zerah and the others to fight alongside us, and even Talene and

that lot. They’ll do as they’re told.” In the beginning, she had been uneasy about that oath

of obedience, but over time you could become accustomed to anything.

“So, nineteen of us against thirteen of them,” Yukiri mused, sounding much too patient.

Even the way she adjusted her shawl radiated patience. “Plus whoever they have

watching to make sure their meeting isn’t disturbed. Thieves are always the most careful

of their purses.” That had the irritating sound of an old saying. “Best to call the numbers

even at best, and probably favoring them. How many of us die in return for killing or

capturing how many of them? More importantly, how many of them escape? Remember,

they meet hooded. If just one escapes, then we won’t know who she is, but she’ll know

us, and soon enough, the whole Black Ajah will know, too. It sounds to me less like

chopping off a chicken’s head than like trying to wrestle a leopard in the dark.”

Pevara opened her mouth, then closed it without speaking. Yukiri was right. She should

have tallied the numbers and reached the same conclusion herself. But she wanted to

strike out, at something, at anything, and small wonder. The head of her Ajah might be

insane; she was tasked with arranging for Reds, who by ancient custom bonded no one, to

bond not just any men, but Asha’man; and the hunt for Darkfriends in the Tower had

reached a stone wall. Strike out? She wanted to bite holes through bricks.

She thought their meeting was at an end—she had come only to learn how matters

progressed with Marris, and a bitter harvest that had turned out—but Yukiri touched her

arm. “Walk with me awhile. We’ve been here too long, and I want to ask you

something.” Nowadays, Sitters of different Ajahs standing together too long made rumors

of plots sprout like mushrooms after rain. For some reason, talking while walking seemed

to cause many fewer. It made no sense, but there it was.

Yukiri took her time getting to her question. The floor tiles turned from green-and-blue to

yellow-and-brown as they walked along one of the main corridors that spiraled gently

through the Tower, down five floors without seeing anyone else, before she spoke. “Has

the Red heard from anyone who went with Toveine?”

Pevara almost tripped over her own slippers. She should have expected it, though.

Toveine would not have been the only one to write from Cairhien. “From Toveine

herself,” she said, and told almost everything that had been in Toveine’s letter. Under the

circumstances, there was nothing else she could do. She did hold back the accusations

against Elaida, and also how long ago the letter had arrived. The one was still Ajah

business, she hoped, while the other might require awkward explanations.

“We heard from Akoure Vayet.” Yukiri walked a few paces in silence, then muttered,

“Blood and bloody ashes!”

Pevara’s eyebrows rose in shock. Yukiri was often earthy, but never vulgar before this.

She noted that the other woman had not said when Akoure’s letter arrived, either. Had the

Gray received other letters from Cairhien, from sisters who had sworn to the Dragon

Reborn? She could not ask. They trusted one another with their lives in this hunt, and

still, Ajah business was Ajah business. “What do you intend doing with the information?”

“We will keep silent for the good of the Tower. Only the Sitters and the head of our Ajah

know. Evanellein is for pulling Elaida down because of this, but that can’t be allowed

now. With the Tower to mend and the Seanchan and Asha’man to be dealt with, perhaps

never.” She did not sound happy over that.

Pevara stifled her irritation. She could not like Elaida, yet you did not have to like the

Amyrlin Seat. Any number of very unlikeable women had worn the stole and done well

for the Tower. But could sending fifty-one sisters into captivity be called doing well?

Could Dumai’s Wells, with four sisters dead and more than twenty delivered into another

sort of captivity, to a ta’veren? No matter. Elaida was Red—had been Red—and far too

long had passed since a Red gained the stole and staff. All the rash actions and ill-

considered decisions seemed things of the past since the rebels appeared, and saving the

Tower from the Black Ajah would redeem her failures.

That was not how she put it, of course. “She began the hunt, Yukiri; she deserves to

finish it. Light, everything we’ve uncovered so far has come by chance, and we are at a

full stop. We need the authority of the Amyrlin Seat behind us if we’re to get any

further.”

“I don’t know,” the other woman said, wavering. “All four of them say the Black knows