“Min, if it comes down to facing them, I promise to send you away out of danger somehow.” How could any man face thirteen? The thought made Lews Therin surge again, screaming.

To his surprise, she flourished those knives out of her coatsleeves and opened her mouth, but then slid the blades back just as smoothly—she must have been practicing—before she spoke. “You can lead me by the nose to Cairhien or anywhere else, sheepherder, but you better dig deep and try hard if you think to send me anywhere at all.” For some reason, he was sure that was not what she had been going to say.

When they reached Perrin’s rooms, Rand found quite a gathering. At one side of the sitting room Perrin and Loial were in shirtsleeves, cross-legged on the blue carpet and smoking their pipes with Gaul, a Stone Dog Rand remembered from the fall of the Stone. On the other side of the room sat Faile, also on the floor, with Bain and Chiad, who had also been at the Stone. Through the open door to the other room, Rand could see Sulin changing bed linens, flinging them about as though she would rather rip them to shreds. Everyone looked up when he and Min entered, and Sulin came to the bedchamber door.

There was a good bit of scrambling about once he explained about the thirteen Aes Sedai and what Min had overheard. Not the viewings, though; some in the room knew, some might not, and he was not going to tell anyone unless she did. Which she did not. And not about Lews Therin, of course; not that he was afraid of what might happen to him in a city with thirteen Aes Sedai even if they sat on their hands. Let them think he was panicky if they wished; he was not sure he was not. Lews Therin had gone silent, but Rand could feel him, like heated eyes watching in the night. Anger and fear, and maybe panic too, crawled outside the Void like large spiders.