Rand runs and runs like Forrest Gump back to the inn, not stopping for anything. Not even for a beer or whatever it is young men drink in Caemlyn. Cream soda? He tells Master Gill and Loial the Ogier what had happened with the Queen and her creepy kin, which Gill doesn’t believe at first! Poppycock and whatnot! But then when he realizes it’s all true, he goads Rand and Mat into leaving the city immediately before the Whitecloaks ransack every inn looking for them. Loial, again, asks to join Rand on his merry adventures. Rand declines again, but then half-heartedly allows him to join once they shove off.

Whitecloaks have entered the inn! Let the ransacking commence! It doesn’t work, because Gill is an intimidating man that I’m picturing as Jim Belushi and he is able to convince the Whitecloaks to do an about-face and leave the inn forever.

Rand is about to try to explain that he has no idea why the Whitecloaks are after him when a maid pops her head into the room and says that there’s a woman asking for Rand. Who could that be? There would never be any woman asking for Rand, that’s for damn– Nynaeve! Perrin! Egwene! Moiraine! Lan! Simon! Theodore! ALLLLLLVIIIIIINNN!!

They catch up all friendly-like, explaining to one another their various adventures since they all split off. Rand has to tell the group that Thom is dead, which makes everyone shift uncomfortably. Rand notices that Perrin is all weird now, but he doesn’t see his yellow eyes yet. Time to visit Mat! He’s been curled in bed for about 490 hours sick with some sort of plague! Don’t get too close now.

Mat is sick with something all right. He’s sick with “Butthead Fever”, because he starts saying mean, nasty things to the group that he hasn’t seen in days and days. He calls Nynaeve a pretty young woman who isn’t supposed to think of herself as a pretty young woman, but she does anyway. He also calls Egwene a pretty young woman who shares other, more nefarious similarities with Nynaeve. When Moiraine enters the room, he hisses like Catwoman repeatedly. Mat tries to stab her with the ruby-studded dagger that he stole from Shadar Logoth, but Lan stops him in time. Quick as a ninja, that one.

This is the part where Rand finally admits that Mat had stolen the thing, which went explicitly against Moiraine’s very specific instructions to “not fuck up”. That dagger acts like a magnet to Fades, Darkfriends, and Kanye West. No wonder they’ve been chased around for weeks! They probably just brought another Trolloc war to Caemlyn. Total jerk move, guys.

Mat is not far-gone just yet! Hopefully! Moiraine tells everyone to leave her with Mat so that she can work on exorcising his demons. That probably just entails slapping him around for a bit, which is what I would do anyway.