“Is she…” Noal asked.

“She lives,” Thom said quietly. “I felt her heartbeat.” He took the bracelet off her arm. It was in the shape of a man bent backward with his wrists bound to his ankles, clothed in a strange suit of clothing. “It looks like a ter’angreal of some sort,” Thom said, tucking it into his coat pocket. “I—”

“It is an angreal,” a voice proclaimed. “Strong enough to be nearly sa’angreal. It can be part of her price, should you wish to pay it.”

Mat spun. The pedestals were now occupied by Eelfinn, four males, four females. All eight wore white instead of black—white skirts with straps across the chests for the males and blouses for the females, made from that disturbing pale substance that looked like skin.

“Mark your tongues,” Mat said to Thom and Noal, trying to contain his worry. “Speak amiss, and they’ll have you strung up, claiming it was your own desire. Ask nothing of them.”

The other two fell silent, Thom holding Moiraine close, Noal carrying his torch and staff warily, pack over his shoulder.

“This is the great hall,” Mat said to the Eelfinn. “The place called the Chamber of Bonds. You must abide by the pacts you make here.”

“The bargain has been arranged,” one of the Eelfinn males said, smiling, showing pointed teeth.

The other Eelfinn leaned in, breathing deeply, as if smelling something. Or…as if drawing something from Mat and the others. Birgitte had said that they fed off emotion.

“What bargain?” Mat snapped, glancing around at the pedestals. “Burn you, what bargain?”

“A price must be paid,” one said.

“The demands must be met,” said another.

“A sacrifice must be given.” This from one of the females. She smiled more broadly than the others. Her teeth were pointed, too.

“I want the way out restored as part of the bargain,” Mat said. “I want it back where it was and open again. And I’m not bloody done negotiating, so don’t assume that this is my only request, burn you.”

“It will be restored,” an Eelfinn said. The others leaned forward. They could sense his desperation. Several of them seemed dissatisfied. They didn’t expect us to make it here, Mat thought. They don’t like to risk losing us.

“I want you to leave that way out open until we get through,” Mat continued. “No blocking it up or making it bloody vanish when we arrive. And I want the way to be direct, no changing rooms about. A straight pathway. And you bloody foxes can’t knock us unconscious or try to kill us or anything like that.”

They did not like that. Mat caught several of them frowning. Good. They would see they were not negotiating with a child.

“We take her,” Mat said. “We get out.”

“These demands are expensive,” one of the Eelfinn said. “What will you pay for these boons?”

“The price has been set,” another whispered from behind.

And it had been. Somehow, Mat knew. A part of him had known from the first time he had read that note. If he had never spoken to the Aelfinn that first time, would any of this have happened? Likely, he would have died. They had to tell the truth.