[Pam Korda, Joe Shaw]

"Silvie" is the name given by the old woman Egwene meets in T'A'R in [TDR: 27, Tel'aran'rhiod, 257-259]. All the evidence indicates that she was Lanfear.

The masquerade was most likely part of the plot to get Rand and/or Mat to go to Tear. Egwene and Nynaeve were to be Be'lal and Ish's bait to draw Rand, while Liandrin and Co. were the bait to draw Egwene and Nynaeve. Of course, Rand was already on his way to Tear to stop the Forsaken's attacks through his dreams, but the girls were probably a backup in case he resisted the dreams or learned to shield them on his own. See Perrin's dream about the trap in [TDR: 43, Shadowbrothers, 426] which matches Egwene's dreams about "puppets" in [TDR: 37, Fires in Cairhien, 352-353]. Lanfear was playing along with Ish, but working towards her own goals. (Another possibility is that Lanfear sent them to mess up Be'lal and Mesaana's plan.)

The reason for ripping off Egwene's ring ter'angreal to throw her out of T'A'R was just her cruel streak; Lanfear knew she was a Dreamer since she had been haunting the White Tower as Else, and just wanted Egwene to go to the Heart of the Stone in T'A'R to make sure the girls decided to go there. Once she had accomplished that, why not send her out the hard way? After all, Lanfear claimed T'A'R as her domain (even though Moggy was stronger there), so there was no need for Egwene to learn too much about "her domain." Plus, her precious LTT reborn had once loved this girl; I'm sure she couldn't resist inflicting a little pain on her, especially since the fact that Eg was bait to draw Rand to Tear meant that he still cared about her. That must have driven Lanfear bonkers.