Mave watched Ali for long seconds, her gaze unreadable. She liked Ali and had to admit that he was a handsome man, still the fact that agents of the Shadow were seeking him for unknown reasons should have been reason enough to hold her tongue but almost in spite of herself she found herself speaking. “I am on my way to Illian,” she said, feeling an odd sense of relief steal over her. Since Velma’s murder she hadn’t spoken to a soul about what she was going on. “A Sister of mine,” she explained, again speaking the technical truth, “was murdered because of something she uncovered in the Tower archive. Murdered by darkfriends.” Even to Ali, she didn’t go so far as to say the Black Ajah, it was too monstrous a thing to give life to by speaking of it. “I don’t even know what it is, but she left me a rough map, pieced together from clues she had found. Other people might be looking for it but so far as I know my sister only made one copy of the map, I hope that will be enough.” She blew out a breath, surprised and a little chagrined at how much she had just shared. Realising her admission opened up another question she addressed it quickly. “I come from Arad Doman originally but I didn’t walk over the Mountain’s of Mist as I implied. Darkfriends had me cornered in Caemlyn and so I used an ancient waygate to escape. I didn’t even know I was in the Two Rivers until I spoke to you.” “As for fancying me,” she smiled wrly, “don’t they teach you proverbs about getting messed up in the affairs of Aes Sedai?”