Loial did not appear until everyone else was on the dock, and the horses, too. The Ogier came thumping up the gangplank trying to don his long coat while carrying his big saddlebags and striped blanketroll, and his cloak over one arm. “I did not know we had arrived,” he rumbled breathlessly. “I was rereading my. . . .” He trailed off with a glance at Moiraine. She appeared to be absorbed in watching Lan saddle Aldieb, but the Ogier’s ears flickered like a nervous cat’s.

His notes, Perrin thought. One of these days I have to see what he is saying about all this. Something tickled the back of his neck, and he jumped a foot before he realized he was smelling a clean, herbal scent through the spices and tar and stinks of the docks.

Zarine wiggled her fingers, smiling at them. “If I can do that with just a brush of my fingers, farmboy, I wonder how high you would jump if I—?”

He was growing a little tired of considering looks from those dark, tilted eyes. She may be pretty, but she looks at me the way I’d look at a tool I’d never seen before, trying to puzzle out how it was made, and what it is supposed to be used for.

“Zarine.” Moiraine’s voice was cool but unruffled.

“I am called Faile,” Zarine said firmly, and for a moment, with her bold nose, she did look like a falcon.

“Zarine,” Moiraine said firmly, “it is time for our ways to part. You will find better Hunting elsewhere, and safer.”

“I think not,” Zarine said just as firmly. “A Hunter must follow the trail she sees, and no Hunter would ignore the trail you four leave. And I am Faile.” She spoiled it a bit by swallowing, but she did not blink as she met Moiraine’s eyes.

“Are you certain?” Moiraine said softly. “Are you sure you will not change your mind . . . Falcon?”

“I will not. There is nothing you or your stone-faced Warder can do to stop me.” Zarine hesitated, then added slowly, as if she had decided to be entirely truthful, “At least, there is nothing that you will do that can stop me. I know a little of Aes Sedai; I know, for all the stories, that there are things you will not do. And I do not believe stone-face would do what he must to make me give over.”

“Are you sure enough of that to risk it?” Lan spoke quietly, and his face did not change, but Zarine swallowed again.

“There is no need to threaten her, Lan,” Perrin said. He was surprised to realize he was glaring at the Warder.