Mat didn’t look down at the coins. He met her eyes as they all rolled and vibrated to a stop. She glanced at them. Two dozen coins. Each had landed face up.

“One in a thousand is good odds,” he said. “For me.”

“Bloody ashes. You’re as bad as Elayne! Don’t you see? All it takes is one wrong throw. Even you miss once in a while.”

“I’ll take the chance. Burn me, Birgitte, I know it’s stupid, but I’m doing it. How do you know so much about the Tower anyway? You’ve been into it, haven’t you?”

“I have,” she admitted.

Mat looked smug. “Well you got back out! How’d you manage it?”

She hesitated, then finally took up her mug of milk. “That legend didn’t survive, I’m assuming?”

“I don’t know it,” Mat said.

“I went in to ask them to save the life of my love,” she said. “It came after the battle of Lahpoint Hills, where we led the Buchaner rebellion. Gaidal was wounded horribly; a blow to the head that made him unable to think straight. He forgot who I was, some of the time. It tore my heart, so I took him to the Tower to be Healed.”

“And how’d you get out?” Mat asked. “How’d you fool them?”

“I didn’t,” Birgitte said softly.

Mat froze.

“The Eelfinn never Healed him,” she continued. “They killed us both. I didn’t survive, Mat. That is the end of that particular legend.”

He fell silent. “Oh,” he finally said. “Well, that’s kind of a sad story, then.”

“They can’t all end in victory. Gaidal and I don’t deal well with happy endings anyway. Better for us to burn out in glory.” She grimaced, remembering one incarnation when she and he had been forced to grow old together, peacefully. Most boring life she’d ever known, though at the time—ignorant of her grander part in the Pattern—she’d been happy with it.

“Well I’m still going,” Mat said.

She sighed. “I can’t go with you, Mat. Not and leave Elayne. She has a death wish the size of your pride, and I mean to see she survives.”

“I don’t expect you to go,” Mat said quickly. “Burn me, that’s not what I’m asking. And…” He frowned. “A death what the size of my what?”

“Never mind,” she said, drinking her milk. She had a soft spot for milk, though she didn’t tell people of it. Of course, she’d be happy when she could drink again; she missed Old Snert’s yeasty drinks. She liked ugly beer as much as she liked ugly men.

“I came to you because I need help,” Mat said.

“What more is there to say? You’re taking iron, fire, and music. Iron will hurt them, ward them, and hold them. Fire will scare them and kill them. Music will entrance them. But you’ll find that both fire and music grow less and less effective the longer you use them.

“The tower isn’t a place, it’s a portal. A kind of gate to the crossroads between their realms. You’ll find both of them there, Aelfinn snakes and Eelfinn foxes. Assuming they’re working together currently. They have a strange relationship.”