It's also possible that Elza was afraid to touch the Access Key. She must have known that Rand had trapped Callandor with wardings in the Stone. As you mentioned in another post, her terror for SH would have made her go for the DB immediately but she might have wondered about her safety with the Access Key.

I would have to disagree on this point. If Elza is brave enough to take the wardings off the bundle with the male a'dam then I don't think she would be terrified of the CK at this point.

What is more likely, to me, is that SH instructed her to leave the CK behind. As I have already stated the shadow clearly had the intel that the male a'dam was there. Therefore it follows that they also knew the CK was there. I think SH must have devised a plan as to what he wanted to do with the CK. In this case, as my theory goes, I believe SH instructed Elza to leave it behind.

What would be more fruitful, at this time, is to figure out how the shadow knew where the male a'dam was. Soirlea and Bair were the primary witnesses, but there may have been secondary people such as Elza that may have also found out.


On the other hand, Elza being Black Ajah, might discount anything that involves saidin because it provides her with limited personal gain, unless she can give it to one of the male Forsaken.

If SH told her to leave it behind then she had a very clear motive not to mess with it.

As for TP addiction, I'm not sure if it's a huge problem. Demandred seems to be happy with saidin and generally stays away from the TP, so Rand should be able to do the same.

This argument definitely doesn't hold. Rand was clearly affected by the usage of the TP. Addiction varies between people. Not everyone gets addicted from cocaine the 1st time but many people do.