Spencer found Moiraine in the fortress library two hours after leaving Verin's quarters.
The Aes Sedai sat alone at a reading table, a single candle illuminating pages she wasn't actually reading. Her silver-blue thread pulsed with the patient calculation Spencer had come to recognize — a mind working through problems too complex for single solutions.
"Aldan." She didn't look up. "You've been having tea with Verin Mathwin."
"News travels fast."
"News travels at precisely the speed I require it to." Moiraine closed her book and gestured to the chair across from her. "What did you discuss?"
"Unusual Talents. Historical records. The theoretical possibility of identifying Darkfriends through visual impressions." Spencer sat. "She's fishing for information about my abilities."
"Verin fishes for information about everyone." Moiraine's thread carried something that might have been amusement. "She has compiled more knowledge about Talents and unusual abilities than any three Browns combined. Her curiosity is genuine, even if her methods are not always straightforward."
If only you knew. If only anyone knew except me.
Spencer took a breath and made his play.
"I wanted to tell you about one of the embassy sisters. The Red — Liandrin."
Moiraine's expression didn't change, but her thread sharpened with immediate attention. "What about her?"
"My impressions. The wrongness I sense." Spencer chose his words carefully. "When Liandrin arrived, I felt the same thing I felt with Fain. Fainter, more controlled, buried deeper — but the same essential wrongness. Like oil beneath silver paint."
The library was silent except for the candle's soft hiss.
"You believe Liandrin Guirale is Black Ajah," Moiraine said. Not a question.
"I believe something dark is hiding inside her thread. Whether that's Black Ajah, Darkfriend corruption, or something else I can't identify — I don't know. But I wanted you to have the information."
Moiraine studied him with the patient assessment of someone who'd been weighing souls for longer than Spencer's original body had been alive. Her thread churned through calculations he couldn't follow.
"This is a serious accusation. Liandrin is Red Ajah — aggressive, unpleasant, known for her contempt of men who can channel. But Black Ajah is an entirely different matter."
"I know."
"If you're wrong, and I act on your impression, the consequences could be severe. For both of us."
"I know that too."
Moiraine was quiet for a long moment. Then she nodded once — the controlled acknowledgment of information received, not necessarily believed.
"I will observe Liandrin more closely. I will not act without confirmation through my own methods." Her eyes held Spencer's. "And I will ask you not to mention this to anyone else. If Liandrin is what you suspect, alerting her — or alerting her allies — would be catastrophic."
"Understood."
Spencer rose to leave, but Moiraine's voice stopped him at the door.
"Aldan. The ability you're describing — the ability to see corruption beneath a person's surface — is extraordinarily rare. If it functions as you've implied, you are more valuable than anyone in this fortress realizes."
"Valuable and dangerous often mean the same thing."
"Yes." Moiraine's thread pulsed with something that might have been respect. "They do."
---
Spencer spent the next several hours avoiding Liandrin.
It wasn't difficult — the Red sister kept to her quarters and the embassy's common areas, interacting with Fal Dara's population only when protocol required. But Thread Sight showed Spencer something alarming: Liandrin's black-tinged thread had extended feelers throughout the fortress, connecting to servants, soldiers, anyone who might provide useful information.
She was building an intelligence network. Or activating one that already existed.
And twice in the last hour, those feelers had reached toward Spencer's general location.
She knows someone can sense Darkfriends. She doesn't know it's me specifically — but she's hunting.
Fain must have told her. Or the Tower's Black Ajah network passed the warning. Either way, she's aware.
Spencer adjusted his routine, varying his routes through the fortress, keeping crowds between himself and Liandrin's quarters. The Pattern Correction had finally faded — no more broken chairs or spilled soup — but he didn't need supernatural bad luck to understand the danger of a Black Ajah sister who knew she might be identified.
Two more days until the embassy departs. Two days until I'm in a group with Liandrin for three weeks on the road to Tar Valon.
This is going to be complicated.
---
That evening, Spencer used Thread Tracing to check on Fain.
The corrupted thread was still in the dungeon — Spencer could feel its oily presence through the fortress's stone floors. But something had changed. The corruption around Fain's signature was expanding, sending tendrils through walls and corridors like roots seeking water.
Spencer followed one tendril and felt his stomach drop.
The thread-extension reached the outer wall. Specifically, it reached a section of wall where the mortar was weakest, where a determined force could breach the fortress's defenses with minimal effort.
He's mapping the fortress. Finding weak points. Preparing for the attack.
The Trollocs are coming. The Horn will be stolen. And Fain will escape to set everything in Book 2 into motion.
Spencer could warn Agelmar. Could describe the weak point, demand additional guards, try to prevent what he knew was coming. But the calculus was brutal: the Horn needed to be stolen for the Great Hunt to happen. Mat needed to pursue the dagger. Rand needed the journey that would lead him to Falme, to the battle above the city, to his public declaration as the Dragon Reborn.
Canon has to happen. Or close enough to canon that the critical beats still land.
I hate this. I hate knowing and not acting.
He packed his saddlebags by lamplight, checking that his Codex Inventory held everything essential. The pure saidin sat in slot one — his secret weapon, his insurance against whatever came next. Slots two through five held supplies he might need on the road.
Tomorrow was the last full day before the embassy departed. Tomorrow night, the drums would come.
Spencer lay awake for hours, counting the beats of his own heart, making the hardest kind of decision — the one where inaction was the right choice, even when everything in him screamed to act.
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