The interior of the train station was cloaked in shadows.
The spacious waiting area that made up the bulk of the building’s interior was barely illuminated by a small candelabra that was set on a counter on the other side of the room. Each of the five candles it held were burning low, leaving puddles of wax drying beneath it. The light it spread was feeble enough that large swathes of the place were hidden from view. But Lex was less concerned with the lurking shadows than he was with the implications presented by that sole source of light. Even in the dim conditions, he could still see oil lamps hanging on nearby walls, unlit. Why hadn’t-
“What’s that?!” yelped Scrubby suddenly, pointing upward at a distant corner of the room. Lex heard Sonata gasp at the other pony’s sudden shout, but his only reaction was to look in the indicated direction, his eyes flashing green-and-purple as he called on his dark magic to enhance his vision. The source of Scrubby’s fear immediately became obvious, and Lex couldn’t help but let out a snort of contempt at what he saw.
Clustered around the outside of one of the upper windows were a half-dozen pegasi, all of whom were now gawking at him. “It’s nothing,” he announced irritably, “just a few ponies peering in the windows.”
“Geez, that almost gave me a heart attack!” complained Sonata, putting a hoof to her chest.
“Sorry,” sighed Scrubby, still not completely reassured. “I just saw some movement and it freaked me out.”
Lex let out a disgusted sigh. Because it was still pre-dawn, the open windows blended into the murky surroundings of the waiting area. But there was just enough light from the approaching sunrise to make those windows slightly lighter than the surroundings, enough that the silhouettes of the pegasi trying to look inside were just barely visible to someone with sharp eyes. Apparently Scrubby was one such individual. “I’m drawing the shutters,” Lex announced flatly, before grabbing them in his telekinesis and shutting them a loud snap. He turned to do the same to the rest of the windows-
…and stopped in his tracks, having just found Block Party.
Able to see the entire area clearly now that his vision was enhanced, the former leader of the camp was impossible to miss. His unmoving body was hanging from a noose, the other end tied around a rafter that stretched across the upper portion of the waiting area. Beneath him was an overturned chair, with what looked like a quill and piece of paper lying next to it. The gruesome sight was completed by how Block Party’s eyes – not only open but bulging out – were pointed in their direction.
For a moment he couldn’t help but stop and stare, taken completely aback by what he was looking at. When Cloudbank had informed him that Block Party was dead, he’d never imagined that it was a suicide – the contemptible stallion whom he’d imprisoned had seemed far too self-assured for such a thing to be remotely plausible – but that was quite clearly what this was. No, he silently corrected himself. That’s what this looks like. What it actually was had yet to be determined.
“Um, Lex?” Sonata’s voice was nervous as she reached out to tap him on the flank. “You’ve kinda been staring at the middle of the room for a little while now, and it’s, like, starting to be totes creepy. Say something, please.”
Brought out of his contemplations, Lex glanced at her before looking back at the corpse hanging from the ceiling. “I’ve found Block Party,” he announced grimly.
“Not helping with the creepy,” muttered Scrubby, glancing back at the way they’d come in.
“What about Nosey?” Sonata glanced around, worried that her bestie hadn’t signaled them somehow. This place didn’t look that big from the outside, so surely she’d heard them talking!
“I don’t see her,” admitted Lex as he started to telekinetically close the rest of the shutters.
That wasn’t the answer Sonata wanted to hear. According to every horror movie she’d ever seen back on Earth, Nosey had to be in trouble right now, which meant that they needed to go save her right away! Furrowing her brow as she tried to think of a plan, Sonata glanced over at Scrubby. “You said that Nosey ran back in here because she said she was going to be sick, right?”
“Uh-”
“Then that means she’s probably in the little fillies’ room! So I’m gonna go check-”
“No,” snapped Lex as he shut and latched the last of the shutters. “You’re staying right here. Both of you.”
“I’m okay with that,” muttered Scrubby with a relieved sigh.
“But Nosey could be in trouble!” retorted Sonata.
“We don’t know what the situation here is,” retorted Lex, not looking at her as he changed his focus, lifting the candelabra in his telekinesis now. “If there is something dangerous happening here, then charging in blindly is the worst possible action that we could take, save only for doing so after splitting up. Even then, I doubt Nosey would voluntarily return here if she had any reason to believe that doing so would place her in danger.”
“Huh.” Sonata paused as she digested that. “I guess that makes sense. But I still think we should find her, like, soon.”
“I agree,” nodded Lex, “and the most efficient way to do that is to brighten this place first, so that we can see where to look.” He was already moving the candelabra as he spoke, letting it float gently through the air so as to not cause the candles to sputter. Slowly, he brought it over to the oil lamps on the nearby walls, igniting each one in turn until they lit up the room enough to where it was dim rather than shadowy.
…which was enough to clearly illuminate Block Party’s body.
Sonata blanched, stepping back reflexively at the grisly sight. Scrubby gave a sharp gasp of fright, one hoof going over his mouth as he stared wide-eyed at the corpse before spinning around, taking deep breaths as he started to shake all over. Lex ignored both of them, however, slowly moving towards the body, considering it carefully all the while.
“L-Lex?” Sonata's voice, usually mellifluous no matter her tone, came out as a croak. “What’re you doing?”
“Checking for magical emanations,” he replied distantly, mentally activating his circlet’s power to let him view the magical spectrum.
Sonata had no idea what an “emanation” was, but as he stared at the corpse with a thoughtful frown on his face, she couldn’t help but look away. Glancing around in hope of finding anything else to look at, she paused as her eyes settled on a door with a small silhouette of a pony wearing a dress on it, realizing that it was the restroom. That was where Nosey probably was! Shooting a furtive glance at Lex, he had lowered his gaze from Block Party’s body to the overturned chair beneath it…or maybe he was looking at the paper on the floor. Either way, now was a great time for her to go and try and find Nosey!
She had just started to trot toward the door when she felt a hoof wrap around her back leg, preventing her from leaving. Jumping a bit, Sonata spun around, only to see Scrubby giving her a miserable look. “Where are you going?” he asked anxiously. “Lex said not to wander off!”
“I’m just gonna go check out the ladies room,” protested Sonata quietly. “Nosey should be in there, and I wanna make sure she’s okay.” Privately, Sonata frowned at his attitude. It had only been yesterday afternoon that this same pony had been admitting that he was afraid of Lex after seeing what he’d done to Garden Gate. But now he was all too eager to listen to Lex’s advice when the situation seemed frightening.
Releasing her leg, Scrubby’s hoof went to the side of his head, rubbing it nervously. “Look, I’m worried about her too, but maybe we should let Lex finish what he’s doing first.”
“I already have,” came Lex’s voice, causing both of them to jump. Looking back at Lex, they were just in time to see him create a small black crystal, telekinetically raising it and cutting the rope around Block Party’s neck. The body hit the floor with a sickening thud, its limbs akimbo as it stared upward, sightless and unseeing. Both Sonata and Scrubby watched in morbid fascination as Lex slowly moved the body back into a more normal position before reaching a hoof out and closing Block Party’s eyes.
Sonata recovered first. “So, um…any magical amplifications?”
“Emanations,” corrected Lex without missing a beat as he walked over to join them, letting that black crystal disintegrate. He’d gotten used to her having trouble with any word that had more than three syllables, and although he normally found it irritating, at the moment he was grateful for it. Even if it was necessary, handling a pony’s corpse wasn’t something he found comfortable. “And no, there weren’t any.” The admission made him frown, not pleased that the necromantic aura he’d picked up around Block Party before was gone now.
Of course, the absence of that spell aura meant very little by itself. In all likelihood, the spell had simply expired; most magic that Lex knew of was relatively short-term anyway. Even the fact that he couldn’t find a residual aura on the body wasn’t that unusual. For all that his circlet let him view magic, its abilities weren’t as refined as he would have liked. While it had little trouble picking up aura from active magic – though when there were multiple magical signatures in the same location, stronger ones tended to obscure weaker ones – residual auras from expended magic were different. Such readings tended to decay rapidly, and even the strongest signal would be gone in an hour at the absolute most. If Block Party’s spell had worn off some time ago, then it was normal to find nothing.
But as benign as that explanation was, Lex couldn’t bring himself to accept it. It was simply too coincidental that Block Party had a necromantic spell around him before and just so happened to have died mysteriously a short time later. There was a connection, of that Lex was sure, but what was it?
“So, um, that’s good right?” asked Sonata.
Lex grunted, not bothering to answer as he held up a piece of paper. “What do you think of this?”
Sonata blinked, looking at the blocky print writing on the page. “‘I understand now what I’ve done. I can’t live with the guilt. Please tell everyone I’m sorry. B.P.’” She paused then, turning the words over in her mind, before coming to a conclusion. “It’s, like, a suicide note!”
Scrubby shuddered, looking at the note anxiously before glancing back at Lex. “Listen, you don’t need me here for any more of this, right? I wasn’t even here for most of last night, and anypony can tell you what happened this morning with No-”
“What do you mean you weren’t here?” interrupted Lex sharply. “You were the one I left to guard this place after Block Party was locked in here.”
Scrubby blinked in confusion. “Well…yeah, for a little while. But then you sent Nosey to relieve me.”
Lex’s eyes narrowed. “No. I didn’t.”
Scrubby’s eyebrows rose sharply. “But…I, I swear, she told me you did! She walked right up to me and said that you’d told her to come and fill in for me, and that I was supposed to come back and switch off with her again right before dawn!”
Lex shook his head. “I didn’t send anyone to fill in for you.”
Sonata cocked her head. “So if you didn’t send her, why would Nosey say you had?”
“Because I wanted an interview with Block Party.”
Sonata spun to face the familiar voice, Lex and Scrubby doing the same. There, in front of the ladies’ room door, was Nosey. For a moment Sonata was surprised, not having heard the door open or shut again, but the sight of her best friend drove those thoughts away. Nosey looked terrible. Her eyes were red, her nose was running, and there were tear-tracks on her face. Her mane was disheveled and even her glasses were slightly askew on her muzzle. “Nosey…” What had happened to drive her to this state? Block Party’s condition was awful, but not enough to reduce her friend to this.
“I wanted an interview,” repeated Nosey, sniffling, “and this is what happened.” She shut her eyes, a mournful look crossing her face, and Sonata saw fresh tears make their way down her cheeks. When Nosey spoke next, her voice was barely audible.
“I killed him.”