(no subject)

*By her reckoning, it is now Christmas. Moiraine looks around her neatly-kept room, lit by the flicker of blue flames in a crystal on a shelf and by the soft light of a lamp on the small table. Her gaze falls on a certain gift, which lies upon the table wrapped in blue foil with a silver ribbon.

The Aes Sedai smiles in hopeful anticipation, and thinks of Dream. Her hand rises to the amethyst key at her throat.*