Yes, the Black Sisters were shielded but Elayne ordered the Kins Women outside the cells to ignore channeling inside the cells and to stand down. My point is that she dived into the situation impulsively and should have given more thought to it as well as taken more precautions. As you point out, the jail break was a stroke of bad luck but the unexpected was what tripped her up the last time that she confronted the Black Ajah with disastrous results. The plan was a basically a good one but she was over confident in both confrontations.

Actually, the WT was reunited by this time. Elayne and Nynaeve had already met with Egwene. I am surprised that the fate of the BA prisoners did not come up at this meeting.

As revealed by the jail break, Sylvase's secretary was obviously a darkfriend. However he diid present somewhat of a suspicious profile from the onset. It is easy to have hindsight but he should have been watched more closely-the pickpocket who was recruited earlier to follow Captain Mellor could have followed him to observe who he was meeting with. That also raises the question of who Sylvase really is and where her allegiances lie. The similarity of her name to the " Silvie" that Egwene met in the Heart of the Stone might indicate that Lanfear/Cyndane is involved.