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"Oh, do give over, Talene" Yukiri’s voice was always an even bigger surprise than Talene’s The woman looked a miniature queen, in dark silver silk with ivory lace, but she sounded a comfortable country wootiations She sracious she should be "I saw the pair of you sniffing about like ferrets at the hencoop," she said, "but I held ht be pillow friends, for all I know, and whose business is that but yours? -- I heldabout who’s been huddling in corners I’ve seen a bit of huddling in corners ht head their Ajahs as well, so Sometimes six and six make a dozen, and sometimes they ht"

"We are not leaving until you do tell," Talene put in even more heatedly than before

Pevara snorted and folded her arms "If the head of my Ajah spoke tords to me, I’d see no reason to tell you what they were As it happens, what Seaine and I were discussing has nothing to do with the Red or the White Snoop elsewhere" But she did not release saidar Neither did Seaine

"Bloody useless and I bloody knew it," Doesinelet you talk me into this Just as bloody well nobody else knows, or we’d have sheepswallop all over faces for the whole bloody Tower to see" At tiue like a boy, too, a boy who needed his mouth washed out

Seaine would have stood to leave if she had not feared her knees would betray her Pevara did stand, and raised an impatient eyebrow at the woered her knife hilt and eyed the a step "A puzzle," sheinto Seaine’s lap so quickly that Seaine gasped She tried to keep the Oath Road hidden, but the only result was that she ended with Saerin holding the Rod waist high with one hand while she held the other end and a fistful of her skirts "I enjoy puzzles," Saerin said

Seaine let go and adjusted her dress; there see else to do

The appearance of the Rod produced a momentary babble as nearly everyone spoke at once

"Blood and fire," Doesine growled "Are you down here raising new bloody sisters?"

"Oh, leave it with theht on top of her "Whatever they’re up to, it’s their own business"

Atop both, Talene barked, "Why else are they sneaking about -- together! -- if it isn’t to do with the Ajah heads?"

Saerin waved a hand, and after a ained quiet All present were Sitters, but she had the right to speak first in the Hall, and her forty years counted for so, too "This is the key to the puzzle, I think," she said, stroking the Rod with her thulow of saidar surrounded her, too, and she channeled Spirit to the Rod "Under the Light, I will speak no word that is not true I am not a Darkfriend"