Mat decides to walk alone to Jurador to buy a horse for Tuon.  When he returns to the show, he notices Aluda taking receipt of two wagon loads of various sizes of barrels, as well as the wagons and horses. This piques Mat’s curiosity as to what all she purchased in such quantity.  Mat notes that Aludra releases two or three nightflowers a night, just after dark so that everyone could see them before going to bed.  Mat is still thinking about why she needs a bellfounder and thinks he has an idea, but to him, the only one that made sense made no sense he could actually see.

When the circus makes camp at Runnien’s Crossing, Aludra sets up a canvas-enclosure to use to launch her fireworks.  Mat pulls back a flap and enters the enclosure, earning a glare from Aludra.  She is holding a large ball, the size of a melon, and dark.  Mat figures a town the size of Runnien’s Crossing only merited a single nightflower.  Before Aludra can erupt at his entrance he blurts out “Lofting tubes!” and then tells her that she wants a bellfounder to make bronze lofting tubes, but he still hasn’t figured out why.  His reasoning was that two people could lift a wooden lofting tube, but it would take a derrick to lift a bronze one.  Aludra was silent for a long moment before finally telling him, with a low, throaty laugh, that he was such a clever young man.  She muses that her tongue always gets her in trouble when she makes promises to clever young men.  She also says that at this point she will not share the secrets with him that would make him blush, as he is already juggling two women, and she will not be juggled.  Mat is shocked to hear that he had guessed it correctly.  She tosses him the firework and he thinks a firework that large would blow up both him and Aludra. 

 After getting over his initial shock, Mat figures she would not have tossed it to him if likely to explode, and he begins nonchalantly tossing it back and forth between his hands.  He knew that she wanted to make weapons to get back at the Seanchan for destroying the Guild of Illuminators but did not see how the bronze tubes would make a better weapon.  She snatches the nightflower back from him, muttering to herself and inspecting the leather covering closely to make sure it was not damaged at all, and Mat thinks that maybe it was not so safe after all.  She tells him that a proper lofting tube would send the nightflower she is holding up to 300 paces straight up, and further if the tube was canted at an angle, but still not as far as she wants.  Aludra explains to Mat that the bronze tubes will allow her to use more powder to send the projectiles further, as the explosion of that much powder would destroy the current wooden tubes.  She further explains that with a bronze tube, she could send a projectile a little smaller than the nightflower close to two miles.  Aludra tells him that the projectile would be made of iron, packed with explosive powder on a slow fuse.  Mat was very aware that the force equalizer on the battlefield would be like having Aes Sedai or Asha’man on your side, but better since Aes Sedai were not allowed to use the Power as a weapon unless they were in danger.  

Thinking things through in his head, Mat brings up the fact that the weapons were great unless the enemy was coming from the other direction, as the tubes would not be mobile enough to react.  Aludra tells him that she has named them Dragons, and the projectiles are called Dragon’s Eggs.  She chose the name Dragon because the Seanchan will howl at their bite.  Mat starts asking her specific questions about how to move the Dragons around and she is pleased that he is more than a pretty face.  Mat watches as she prepares the tube for launching the nightflower.  Aludra tells Mat that she has already drawn plans for what she calls Dragon Carts, with four horses pulling one cart, and a second cart to hold the Eggs.  Aludra asks Mat if he wants to learn the secret of the powders now, saying that she had promised to share them with him, bitterly adding that she was the Guild now and she can decide what is secret.  Mat tells her that he wants her to come with him when he leaves Luka’s circus.  Mat tells her that he knows someone that would not only pay for it, but he can have every bellfounder from Andor to Tear stop working on anything else but the dragons.  Mat said he could afford to have hundreds made himself if it came to that.  When Aludra asks who the person was, Mat told her it was the Dragon Reborn.  Mat tells her that only a few people know, and it has to remain a secret.  Aludra replies that she has been keeping the secrets of the Guild since she was a girl and will keep this secret as well.  She tells Mat that dragons, and revenge on the Seanchan, are her life now.  She tells Mat that she believes him, that she will leave with him when he goes, and he will help her make the dragons.

Mat and his party leave Luca’s show at Maderin.  A couple of days later, while having lunch, Aludra is playing stones with Thom, and has beaten him twice in the past few days.  Mat uses a striker to light his pipe, and Aludra tells him that the strikers should not be wasted.  She tells Mat that it takes her two days being in the same place to be able to make more, and muses that men always want to make work for woman.

While Talmanes is leading the party to meet up with the Band of the Red Hand, Thom and Aludra are riding near Tuon.  Aludra glances briefly at Tuon before looking away.  Tuon notes that Aludra always has a wooden face when looking at either her or Selucia.  Tuon believes that Aludra is one who has not accepted The Return.  She notices Aludra looking at Mat and thinks she has a satisfied look on her face.  Tuon wonders why Mat brought Aludra along, as it was surely not for her fireworks.

While Mat’s troops are starting to attack Seanchan positions, Mat impatiently wonders what is keeping Aludra.  A while later a scout reports seeing two green nightflowers in the sky.  This was the signal to let Mat know that the raken was not at the supply camp, and Reimon would be overrunning the camp any minute.

When Furyk Karede catches up with Mat’s group, Talmanes takes him to meet with Thom.  Thom is sitting on a blanket with Aludra, playing a game of Stones.  Aludra’s face takes on a hateful glare when she sees Karede and the other Seanchan.

After Tuon leaves with Karede, Mat prepares to engage with Seanchan forces.  Aludra is inspecting one of her lofting tubes, but Mat wishes she had stayed back and not joined them in the battle.   He thinks that anyone could have used one of Aludra’s strikers to light the fuse, but Aludra insisted on doing it herself.  He notes how fierce Aludra was, and how she was not pleased even temporarily working with the Seanchan that Mat is using.  She didn’t like the Seanchan seeing her weapons without being on the receiving end of them.

When the Seanchan attack, Aludra has a squad of 50 sling men.  Each had a short sword, but also carried a 4-foot long sling staff.  Each man had a vest custom-made to hold the explosive short leather cylinders.  Aludra herself lit the slow matches the sling men used to light their cylinders, using each striker until it nearly burned her fingers.  Aludra complains during the fight that she wished she had her Dragons, but then admonished herself for speaking of that in Mussenge’s presence.  Aludra sends a red night flower up directly in front of the advancing Seanchan, keeping their attention forward as thousands of crossbow bolts start hitting them.

As the sling men begin their volley of explosives at the enemy, they have a choice of different sized fuses on the various cylinders.  Aludra had designed them having bits of thread at varying lengths along the fuses to allow for different burning times.  This allowed them to all go off at various times and heights in their trajectory.  Aludra had also wrapped a layer of hard pebbles around the layer of explosives in the cylinder, creating explosions with shrapnel.