//------------------------------//
// Case Three, Chapter Five: Plans in Motion 
// Story: Ponyville Noire: Tails of Two Private Eyes 
// by PonyJosiah13 
//------------------------------//

When the orange light faded from her sight, Daring found herself standing in a basement. A pair of lamps hung from the ceiling, casting the room in bright light. She observed several tables set up along the length of the room, scattered with maps, blueprints, photographs and letters. Boxes and crates lined the walls of the room; empty soda bottles, coffee cups and the remains of fast food meals were scattered across the floor. Several ponies were sitting or standing around the tables, deep in discussion. 

“I’m home, everypony!” Bright Sparks called out, the others halting their work and looking up at the sound of her voice. “And I’ve brought a friend!”

The other ponies all focused their gazes on Daring. Several eyes widened in surprise; a number narrowed in suspicion.

“What’s she doing here?” a light gray unicorn stallion with white-blue mane that stood up in short spikes atop his head snarled, pointing accusingly at Daring. His cutie mark was a forked lightning bolt and he wore a short dark brown open vest. “She’s with the cops! I saw her with that snoop, the one in that hat!”

“She’s on our side now, Boltstrike,” Bright Sparks said patiently. “Daring, show them.”

Without a word, Daring raised her right hoof, showing everypony the brand mark of the Family on her skin. A gasp rose amongst the other thieves at the sight.

“That doesn’t prove anything,” Boltstrike snarled to Sparks. “She ratted out the rest of you to save her own skin a year ago!”

“The other members of the Family deserved to be turned in,” Bright Sparks said calmly. “They’d just become killers for hire. And she saved me.”

Boltstrike whirled on Daring. “What gives you the right?” he challenged, advancing on her. “What makes you think you can be here?”

He reached a hoof back and lunged it forward, aiming to shove Daring backward. The next thing that he knew, he was sprawled facedown on the floor with his foreleg twisted painfully behind his back and Daring’s knee on the back of his neck.

“That’s what makes me think I can be here,” Daring stated, tightening her vice-like grip on Boltstrike’s knee joint. He yelled in pain and ceased his struggling.

“Okay, Daring, I think you’ve proven your point,” Sparks said, barely containing her laughter. Daring got up off of Boltstrike, who scrambled away from her and climbed to his hooves, cursing her with his eyes the entire time. He limped away, rubbing his foreleg.

“C’mon, let me introduce you to the rest of the team,” Sparks said, excitedly leading Daring ahead of her. “You’ve met Boltstrike,” Sparks said, pointing to the unicorn, who growled back. “This is Dusty Tail,” a tan unicorn stallion shook Daring’s hoof, “Black Licorice,” a black and purple earth pony mare saluted, ”her brother Red Licorice,” a red and orange earth pony nodded, “Sledgehammer,” a bulky, bald dark brown unicorn grinned at her, “Gear Shift…” A gray pegasus with an oily mane and thick beard nodded.

There were just under a dozen ponies for Daring to be introduced to. The last pony in line was a stallion sitting by himself. He was an earth pony with a gray coat and a long, wispy indigo mane. He sat hunched over, staring at his front hooves. His cutie mark was a pair of oak leaves, floating on a gust of wind. He looked up when Daring and Sparks approached, blinking his brown eyes sadly.

“And this is Leaf Dance,” Sparks introduced him to Daring. “He and Silent..” She paused abruptly, her face molding into an expression of numb realization and recall. “He and Silent were brothers.”

Daring looked down at Leaf, who gazed sadly back at her. “I...I tried to stop them,” she found herself stammering. “I couldn’t…” She let out a defeated sigh. “I’m sorry.” That was the only thing she could say.

Leaf Dance merely nodded and looked back down at his hooves. Bright Sparks laid a hoof on his shoulder for a moment; he did not respond.

“All right, everypony, we need to get to work,” Sparks declared, walking back to the center of the room, where a large table was set up with a set of blueprints and maps scattered across it. Everypony else gathered around.

“We just got word from Janus,” Sparks explained, laying her hooves on the table. “The target is definitely at Miranda and Sons.”

“Janus?” Daring asked.

“He’s our contact within Silvertongue’s organization,” Sparks explained. She shuffled through some of the papers and extracted a newspaper clipping. It was a personal ad:

“Lonely mare seeks a good-hearted stallion with a taste for shrimp scampi and long walks on the beach. Call 839-0877 and ask for Janus at 4:15 PM.”

“It’s a different number every time,” Sparks continued. “And when he says a time, he always means three hours later. I have to give him a coded passphrase every time I call, and then he tells me what he knows and gives me the passphrase for next time.”

“Sounds like somepony’s been reading too many spy novels,” Daring snickered.

“Well, it works for him and it works for me,” Sparks shrugged. “And I will admit, it is kinda cool,” she added quietly, as though as an afterthought. Daring’s snickering grew into a hearty chuckle.

“Anyway, Janus told me that he personally witnessed Monopoly bring our primary objective out of its former hiding place at his personal office and bring it down to Miranda and Sons, just as Janus predicted that he would,” Sparks continued. “Unfortunately, he didn’t know where exactly he put it. We’re gonna have to find out ourselves.”

“I suppose that’s what’s she’s for,” Boltstrike snarled, glaring at Daring.

“As a matter of fact, yes,” Daring replied, smirking at him, then turned back to Sparks. “What’s the objective?”

“A scroll,” Sparks replied. “It’s the second half of the one we took from the Central Bank. According to what Janus told us, it’s some kind of spell or ritual. Monopoly bought it ages ago from Silvertongue’s gallery, one of a dozen other spells and magic charms and things like that that get smuggled through there.”

The memory of a dead mare confessing that she and her friends had been sentenced to die because she stole an ancient necklace that was supposed to grant the wearer good fortune from Silvertongue suddenly flashed unbidden through Daring’s mind and she flinched momentarily. Shaking off the thought, she focused on Sparks’ lecture. “What does it look like? How big is it?”

“If it’s anything like the one we stole already, it’ll be a piece of old parchment about a foot and a half long,” Sparks stated.

“Finding that might be tricky,” Daring mused.

“Getting in, fortunately, will be the easy part,” Sparks continued, sliding forward a hoof-drawn blueprint of an office building. “Miranda and Sons is, as most of you know, one of the biggest attorney firms in this city. It’s also the dirtiest firm by far; they’re all in the pockets of Silvertongue, Monopoly and the like.”

An angry murmur like the buzzing of hornets rose up from the gathered thieves at the mention of the names.

“Which is why we had already scouted this area out along with the other possible targets,” Sparks continued, raising her voice slightly to bring everypony’s attention back to her. “I’ve been visiting their offices, pretending to be a battered mare looking to settle a suit against my ex-husband. I’ve already labeled possible entry and exit routes on this map for you. Also, Monopoly increased security at the place recently, but Janus put me in touch with one of them who’s agreed to be an informant for us. He’s explained guard routes and the positions of surveillance crystals.”

Daring bent over the map and noted the marks and arrows drawn all over it. Red lines marked entry and exit pathways, green arrows traced over patrol routes, and green dots marked surveillance crystal. A small room on the second floor was circled: Daring deduced that this must be the surveillance center.

“Our opportune moment will be tomorrow afternoon, around 2 o’clock,” Sparks explained. “Our informant will be working in the surveillance center then, and it’ll be close to the end of shift and after lunch, so the guards will be tired and looking forward to going home. He’ll leave a key for the back door in a dumpster in an alley for you, Daring. This is the plan.”

Everypony leaned forward and listened closely.

“When I come into the office tomorrow, I’ll talk to them for a while, then Boltstrike will come in, pretending to be my ex-husband. The two of us will make a scene; that should distract everypony. While all that’s happening, Daring, you and Leaf Dance will sneak in through the back and start searching.”

Daring looked across at Leaf Dance. He returned her gaze with a baleful look but gave a brief nod.

“You won’t have long, so the two of you should start thinking of where and how you’re gonna search,” Sparks said. Her eyes widened. “Oh, almost forgot!” She bustled over to one of the crates and opened it up. She extracted something and tossed it to Daring, who instinctively caught it.

Daring’s eyes widened. In her hooves was a length of rope, about a foot and a half long, with two round six-ounce weights tied to either end. The hoofmade makeshift weapon was a variant on the kusarifundo, a traditional weapon of ninja. 

"I made it before the meeting," Sparks grinned. "I had a feeling you'd join up with us." 

Daring spun the cord in her hoof a few times, then stepped back to practice a few strikes, the weight snapping and whistling through the air. "Yeah, this'll help," she nodded approvingly and grinned back at Sparks. "Thanks, Sparks." 

“No problem,” Sparks smiled, giving Daring a brief embrace and rubbing her forehead against hers. Daring caught sight of Boltstrike glaring at her over Sparks’ shoulder and stuck her tongue out at him.

“Now, we’ve got work to do,” Sparks said, breaking the embrace. “Leaf, Daring, you need to think up a search pattern and backup plans.”

Daring bent over the table, beckoning Leaf Dance over. “Let’s get to work.”

A thrill like electricity danced through her veins, and for the first time in what seemed like days, the brand didn’t hurt at all. She was back where she belonged: with Family, on the hunt for a challenging take, and even better, taking from those who deserved it and giving it back to those who needed it. She felt good.





The fourth glass of Kanga-Rum sat on the bar in front of him, just as unappetizing and unappealing as the first three glasses were. Phillip stared at his reflection in the dark red liquid for several long seconds, then grasped the glass with a sigh and started to raise it to his lips.

But an orange hoof reached out and stopped him. “Phil, I know the kinds of problems that drive a pony to want to crawl into a bottle,” Applejack said, taking the bottle away and dumping the glass out into a sink behind the bar. “What’s wrong?”

Phillip sighed and laid his forelegs on the bar, listening to Rara practicing a piano rendition of Whiskey Lullaby up on the stage of the Apple Pie. “Daring,” he said.

Applejack nodded. “She break your heart?”

Phillip was silent for a few seconds, then nodded. “Yeah. But not in the way you think,” he added, giving Applejack a brief glare.

Applejack just shrugged in an “if you say so” kind of way. “What happened?”

“Yeah, what happened?” Pinkie Pie asked, sliding onto the stool next to Phillip.

Phillip sighed. “We had an argument. She left.”

“You argued? What about?” Pinkie asked, pulling a notepad and a pencil out of her mane and preparing to take notes.

Phillip grunted, mentally cursing Applejack for taking the rum away. “A case.”

Pinkie waited a moment for him to elaborate, then nodded when it became clear that that was all he was going to say. “Well, an argument doesn’t mean that a friendship is over,” she said, smiling reassuringly.

“Sure doesn’t,” Applejack agreed. “Pinkie and I argue all the time.”

“No, we don’t!” Pinkie Pie cried, looking shocked at the idea.

“Yes, we do,” Applejack replied.

“No, we don’t!”

Applejack paused and raised an eyebrow at Pinkie with a small smirk. Pinkie paused for a moment, her brow furrowing as she thought, then her eyes widened with realization. “Oh!” she said as the irony dawned on her. She giggled, then turned to Phillip with a grin. “See? Friends can argue and still be friends!”

Phillip gave her a deadpan stare. “I’m pretty sure that what we argued about was a bit more serious.”

“That doesn’t mean you can’t work it out,” Pinkie Pie replied.

“But she left,” Phillip pointed out.

“Don’t mean she won’t come back,” Applejack said. “I’ve seen what you two are like when you’re here; a friendship like the one you’ve got isn’t gonna be killed by one argument.”

Phillip blinked at her. “We’re not friends,” he protested bluntly.

“You sure about that?” Pinkie smirked. “You spend a lot of time together, you make each other laugh and smile, you do fun things together, you take care of each other...those are all things that friends do!”

Phillip blinked slowly as the realization dawned on him. “So...what do I do now?” he asked quietly, speaking more to himself than either of the mares.

“You go and find her!” Pinkie Pie declared, putting a foreleg around Phillip and squeezing him tight. “You’ll search the darkest caves, climb the highest mountains! You’ll brave freezing snows and scorching desert winds and tempestuous seas! Chart uncharted lands and battle ferocious beasts!” She spun Phillip around and grabbed him by the shoulders, staring into his widening eyes. “And do you know why?!”

“Uh…” Phillip stammered.

“Because that! Is what! A true, true friend does for a true, true friend!” Pinkie Pie declared dramatically, striking a heroic pose. Her determined face quickly molded into an expression of embarrassment when she realized that everypony in the now-silent tavern was staring at her. She chuckled nervously and sat back down, releasing a bewildered Phillip.

The phone behind the bar rang. Applejack plucked it off the receiver and held it to her ear. “Apple Pie in Your Eye...oh, hello, Twi...yeah, he’s here.” She turned and handed the phone to Phillip, who took it.

“Finder,” he grunted into the hoofset.

“Phil, it’s Twilight,” Twilight’s voice filtered into his ear. “I’m calling from the safehouse crime scene. Doctor Suunkii and I are here, and we think that you should come down here. Captain Case has gone, it’s just us and Officer Sentry.”

For a moment, Phillip was tempted to just say no; he was too tired, too drained, and could feel the buzz of alcohol seeping like a fog into his mind, slowing his thoughts. But then, a single thought charged through the fog, riding astride a charged emotion: Wherever the thieves are, that’s where Daring will be.

“I’ll be there,” he declared.

“Great! We’ll be waiting!” Twilight chirped.

Phillip handed the hoofset back to Applejack and slid off the stool. His hooves struck the floor and then his knees buckled beneath his weight, causing him to wobble and weave as though he were on the deck of a ship fighting through cresting waves. Without missing a beat, Applejack grabbed a pot of steaming, tar-black coffee from a machine with a sticky note on it that read “Do not let Pinkie Pie have any!” She poured out a serving into a cup and slid it over to Phillip. He snatched it up, drained the entire cup in one go, and slammed the cup back down, shaking his head like a wet dog trying to dry itself off.

“Go get ‘em, Phil!” Pinkie cheered as he bustled out the door, giving them a brief wave over his shoulder as he passed the threshold. As he disappeared, Pinkie sighed and leaned against the bar, resting her cheek on her hoof and staring after him with a wistful expression.

“You’re doing it again,” Applejack commented as she wiped down the used coffee cup.

“Doing what?” Pinkie asked innocently.

“Staring off after somepony with that 'shipping' face,” Applejack replied. “Whatever that means.”

“You can’t deny that Phil and Daring make such a great couple!” Pinkie Pie said, tilting her head back to fix Applejack with an upside-down gaze.

“Well, you certainly seem to think so,” Applejack commented dryly.

“Aw, c’mon! You had to have seen this coming!” Pinkie Pie giggled, winking at the audience.

“...who are you talking to?” an utterly bemused Applejack asked, staring at the wall that Pinkie had just winked at.





The taxicab dropped Phillip off in front of Twenty-seven Hermit Thrush Street and he proceeded down the walkway towards the door. As he walked in, he noticed a police motorcycle parked on the curb next to the house, next to a dark blue pickup truck with “Police CSU” painted on the sides in white paint.

Ducking underneath the “CRIME SCENE: DO NOT CROSS” tape that stretched across the doorway, Phillip entered the house and immediately was confronted by the sight of Officer Sentry backing away from a very angry Twilight Sparkle, his hooves held up in a conciliatory gesture and fear on his face.

“You do not just pick up evidence without photographing it first, you nincompoop!” Twilight was shouting, her horn sparking dangerously. “Didn’t you study chain of custody in the academy?!”

“I’m sorry! I was trying to help!” Flash cried, backing up against a wall.

Twilight looked like she might shout at him again but then turned away. She closed her eyes and inhaled as she raised a hoof to her chest, then exhaled as she extended her hoof out.

“I understand,” she said in a quieter voice, turning to face Flash again. “And I appreciate that you were trying to help. In the future, just tell me if you find something. Don’t touch it yourself.”

“Yes, Miss Sparkle,” Flash nodded.

“Oh...you can just call me Twilight,” Twilight said with a small smile that Flash returned.

Phillip cleared his throat to announce his presence. Both ponies looked up. “Sir! Er, Phil!” Flash chirped, standing up straight and saluting. “I, uh, you’re not technically supposed to be here, but…”

“Seems to me, if you’re supposed to stop ponies from contaminating the scene, Officer, you should be standing in front of the door,” Phillip commented dryly.

“Oh, right,” Flash admitted sheepishly. “Guess I need to start living up to my name.” He looked around at Twilight and Phillip expectantly. Neither of them reacted. “Well...because my name is Sentry...get it?”

Twilight gave him a very deadpan look, while Phillip didn’t react at all. Flash’s ears folded back and his posture slumped. “Okay. I’ll go back to my post.”

Phillip turned to Twilight. “He might be of some help,” he suggested.

Flash instantly perked up at the words. Twilight thought for a moment, then turned to the door and lit up her horn and pointed it at the door, closing her eyes and letting out a grunt of concentration. A purple field of energy appeared over the front door.

“There,” Twilight said, wiping a bead of sweat off her brow. “A special shield that will allow us to go out and come in, but nopony else.”

“Neat!” Flash said admiringly.

“Oh, it’s not that hard when you know how,” Twilight replied. “A regular shield spell is relatively simple, even though it takes practice to form the energy into the proper shape and provide enough form to make it solid. But when you want things to be able to pass through, you have to be able to create a vibrating frequency that—” She trailed off slowly, realizing that both stallions were staring at her with expressions of complete incomprehension.

“Uh...magic is great?” Flash offered with a very unconvincing smile.

Twilight sighed. “Let’s just talk to Doctor Suunkii,” she said, turning around and leading the way down to the basement stairs. Flash followed behind, with Phillip bringing up the rear.

“Her eyes aren’t on that end, jackaroo,” Phillip whispered to Flash, who yelped quietly and snapped his eyes up towards the ceiling, his face turning beet red. Twilight glanced backward with a sound of confusion but said nothing.

They entered the basement, which looked the same to Phillip as it did when he left it, save for the zebra in the labcoat crouching in front of the furnace in the corner.

“I dislike being called out of my laboratory, Phillip Finder,” Doctor Suunkii complained as he probed the ashes with a long pair of tweezers. “Sergeant Trace Evidence must be exceptionally desperate for clues as to this mystery.”

Phillip watched in silence as Suunkii pushed some ashes aside and uncovered what looked like a long, thin piece of paper. He plucked it out with the tweezers and held it up to his eyes. “This appears to be a piece of film that the former occupants attempted to and failed to destroy. Twilight Sparkle, please bring me the dark green toolbox from the truck.”

“Yes, doctor!” Twilight chirped, hurrying back up the stairs as Suunkii set the film down on the floor and took a photograph of it, adding a note to a chain of custody list on a clipboard. Twilight returned moments later carrying a small dark green toolbox in her magic. She set it down on the floor.

“Thank you, Twilight Sparkle,” Suunkii said, placing the film in a clear plastic bag and setting it on the floor next to him. He opened up the toolbox, revealing several small bags of colored powder, a jar of crystal clear water, and several plastic test tubes with rubber stoppers. He pulled out a test tube and used an eyedropper to fill it partway full with water, then took out a bag of dark red powder. He scooped out some of the powder and dropped it into the test tube, causing the water to turn red. He added a smaller scoop of some light green powder, then stirred the mixture, causing it to turn a dark purple color. 

He studied the liquid for a moment, then nodded and poured it into the bag with the film. He held up the bag, allowing everypony to observe the film twitching and dancing inside the fizzing and bubbling liquid.

“What’s that doing?” Flash asked.

“It is restoring the film,” Doctor Suunkii explained. “This mixture is my own invention, developed after many months of experiments. Burnt, damaged, or undeveloped film can be restored with this formula.”

Flash whistled. “Dang, this stuff is cool.”

“It is good to hear a pony appreciating my work," Suunkii said with an appreciative nod. 

After a few more moments, the liquid in the bag ceased bubbling. Suunkii extracted the film from the bag and placed it on the table, directly beneath the lamplight so that everypony could examine the pictures.

The first image on the roll was a pale gold earth pony stallion with a purple mane and the cutie mark of a gray hoofprint, sitting on a sidewalk bench, looking at a newspaper. Phillip frowned a little bit at the sight and quickly turned his focus to the next picture. This one showed the mare from the bank, the false security guard, standing on the sidewalk curb, wearing sunglasses and a small but dazzling smile as her mane flowed back in the wind. All of the pictures in the roll showed at least one or both of the ponies—making goofy faces at the camera, licking an ice cream cone, feeding pigeons. The last shot was the two of them standing on the sidewalk, looking at the camera with their forelegs around each other. The stallion had a small lipstick mark on his cheek and was nuzzling the mare, who had her eyes closed in bliss.

Phillip stared at the last picture for a moment, then turned back to the table and focused on the two chairs at the head. He noticed, with a small pang somewhere inside his chest, how close to each other they were, and how the chair where the number two pony sat was angled so that pony sitting there would be half-facing the mare at the head.

“Why would they try to burn these?” Twilight asked. “They’re just innocent photos.”

“If they were innocent, they wouldn’t be in the furnace,” Flash pointed out.

“Flash is right,” Phillip said, arranging the photos around on the table. “These are all taken around the same area; you can see the same tree in these three pics, and that trash can with the markings on it is in both of these.” He frowned and studied the pics beneath a magnifying glass. “Damn. There are no clues as to where, though: I can’t see any street signs.”

“Hold on,” Flash said. He started to approach, then stopped and shot Twilight a nervous look. She stared at him for a moment, then nodded. Flash approached the table and bent over one of the photos that depicted the stallion sitting on the sidewalk, eating a strawberry ice cream cone.

Flash took the magnifying glass from Phillip and studied a sidewalk signpost in the corner of the photo, the writing on it partially obscured. “Tweet...deet...Sweetcream Scoops!” he read. “Sweetcream Scoop’s shop! This photo was taken right outside it!”

“Are you sure?” Phillip asked.

“I eat there all the time,” Flash replied. “I’d know that sign anywhere.”

“Where is the shop?” Phillip asked.

“Along Honeydew, just past Rich Boulevard.”

“Twilight?” Phillip started to ask, but with a flash of purple light, Twilight had already summoned a large purple accordion folder from out of thin air. She flipped through it and extracted a street map of Ponyville from it, unfurling it into its full size with her magic.

“Honeydew...Honeydew…” she muttered, scanning over it. “Here it is!” She pointed at a small building on the map on Honeydew Road, in the northern part of the city.

Phillip studied the map for a moment, then pointed to another building across from it. “Miranda and Sons,” he stated. “An attorney firm. That’s their target.” He glanced down at the photos. “Looks like these are photos taken from behind the building. They were planning out possible escape routes.”

“They must’ve been having quite a party, too,” Flash commented, having wandered over back to the furnace. “Look at all these crates of beer.”

The others turned to look at the stack of three empty beer crates in the corner that Flash was looking at. Phillip frowned in thought. “But there are no empty beer bottles anywhere here,” he commented.

“They could’ve just thrown them out,” Twilight pointed out.

“These crates were only delivered a few days ago,” Flash said, looking at the receipt stamped on the top crate.

“And they left all this other trash lying around,” Phillip added, noting the litter that was scattered across the table.

“Phillip Finder,” Doctor Suunkii said, an unusual note of concern in his voice. He was examining a small scrap of fabric that he’d picked up off the ground. He held it out to Phillip. “Smell that.”

Phillip sniffed at the fabric and his eyes widened. “Gasoline.”

Twilight gasped. “They were making Dragon's Breath cocktails!”

“Hey, guys, what’s in here?” Flash asked, opening up a door that led to another room. Everypony stared in horror at the decorations on the thick, padded walls inside: bullet holes, pockmarking the walls in groupings, and several black silhouette targets, the featureless bodies covered in holes.

“How did nopony hear this?” Flash asked.

Twilight lit up her horn and panned the walls with her magic. “They’re covered in a soundproofing enchantment. You could stand right outside and wouldn’t hear the shots.”

Spotting a discarded cartridge on the ground, Phillip bent down to examine it. It was a .30-06 caliber round. The same caliber used in a BAR. The same gun used by the shooters who murdered Silvertongue’s drug runners.

“Daring,” he whispered.





"I don't trust Finder," Captain Cold Case stated, standing in front of the carved oak desk in the brightly lit room with the red carpeting. "He knows more than he lets on; he always does." 

Across the desk, Chilled Tumbler stared into the full-to-the-brim shot glass in front of him, studying his reflection in the dark amber liquid. “But we can use him,” he admitted, downing the glass’ contents in one go. “He might have a pendant for stirring up shit, but he’s also too smart for us not to use.”

“He’s still got his own agenda,” Cold Case insisted. “Holding information from us, working with that thief…”

Chilled Tumbler just grunted and filled the shot glass again from a bottle. “Be patient, Captain,” he said. “Sooner or later, he’ll lead us to our little merry band, and then we can take them all out in one swoop.”

“And if he or Daring gets in the way?” Cold Case asked.

Chilled Tumbler knocked back the second shot glass and grinned. “Then, as far as this department is concerned, they are in cahoots with a band of armed and dangerous thieves and will be met with the same punishment.”

Cold nodded grimly, her brow darkening. “Understood, sir.”