Chapter 28: Footprints in Air

Riding down the Arinelle with Moiraine and Lan, Nynaeve chafes at the silence and at Moiraine's deflections. Moiraine will say only that she means to take Nynaeve to Tar Valon, and that she can follow the one boy who still carries his coin across half the world.

They cross the White Bridge into Whitebridge to find half the square burned out, jumpy militia patrolling, and townsfolk who flinch at every sound. The stories they tell each contradict the next, but the shape underneath is clear: a boat cut its moorings and fled downriver the day before with a mob howling onto the docks behind it. One woman mentions a gleeman aboard, and Nynaeve wonders if Egwene and the boys ran with Thom.

In the inn, Moiraine senses that two of the boys passed through a day or two earlier, alive but frightened. Without their coins she cannot say which two or which way they went. Lan can smell that a Halfman has been through the town.

Moiraine chooses to ride for the one she can still track, somewhere to the northeast, trusting the other two will eventually make for Caemlyn. The three turn onto the Caemlyn Road.