I gasped and jumped back. Rambler waited on the platform, framed in the doorway as I turned the corner. My heart rate spiked and purple phosphenes swirled in my vision.
I lost my spell prep. I had to work on not doing that.
He asked, "Young sir, are you all right? Did you sleep well?"
I chuckled nervously, glancing over his head. No constables in direct view. From my experience yesterday, I expected nothing to go my way. I began my spell prep, which would cause a green aura to form around my horn, but I wouldn't blow a getaway for assuming it impolite. "I slept quite deeply."
"Good, then."
"Thank you for everything." I glanced at my brass shoes, indicating my pleasure at having unexpectedly clean clothes that no longer smelled of my perspiration or Woodcutter's steel scent. I did smell... a hint of lemon and the innuendo of lilac—subtly masculine. Probably in the starch when he ironed my khakis, or a spritz of cologne. I would miss this fellow...
If he hadn't given me up to the authorities. I finished my spell prep whilst I kept my smile from fading.
"My pleasure. But first—" He sat and reached to my collar. With deft earth pony hooves, he untied and retied my string tie into a jaunty bow. "There. Ready to conquer the world."
"Find something I love to do, right?"
He winked and stepped aside. "Do that. Definitely."
"I will," I said, stepping into the sunlight. My pause in the railcar's doorway wasn't enough. I squinted under a hoof, but it gave me an excuse to scan my surroundings. I saw ponies. None resembled constables, or pictures of royal guard I'd seen in books. My heart raced, but I kept my spell spinning. The faint impressions of the numbers of the spell equations swirled through my vision as my horn solved the requisite equations—like the ghosts of strangely shaped comets. Nopony in the sky. No pony on the roof of the depot.
I spotted the white unicorn mare from yesterday, wearing a yellow sundress sporting point de venise rose-motif lace—the expensive stuff—and an elegant floppy sunhat that shielded her face completely. The stallions accompanying her carried her pink and white overnight case in addition to coltish teak trunks.
I walked up behind. I didn't join them. When the mare glanced back, I affected the scratchy voice I had yesterday and said, "Thank you."
She smiled, nodded, and continued her conversation.
I followed them out of the station closely enough to be mistaken for part of their group. I spotted a brochure rack and grabbed a map and a visitors guide. I opened the visitors guide, giving me a good reason for having a lit horn. I over-powered the spell, ready to fight.
There it was: Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns. Castle Way, a few blocks to the right off of Alicorn Way. I glanced at a street sign. I walked on Alicorn Way. Canterlot Castle dominated the city twelve blocks directly uphill.
I'd stopped in shock. I scooted to "rejoin" the group, but I felt my skin cool. In less than an hour, I might meet Sunburst. Learn what had happened...
How surreal! I now knew the meaning of the word because I felt it in my gut and it made me dizzy like I was in a dream.
"Don't overthink it," I warned myself.
At Ponyville Way, a wider thoroughfare than Alicorn Way, the group turned left. I waved as if I'd expected that.
I needed to take account of my surroundings and to stop acting like a stunned filly. I waited for a couch and eight, a city bus, to cross. The other traffic was hoof traffic, some pulling pony carts. One galloping yellow cab dashed through the intersection before I crossed and looked up the street.
I counted thirty ponies in this block. Most wore business suits, stallions and mares alike. Three wore no clothes. Two mares wore saddle parasols in full-length dresses fit for a high tea, in red and gold. All but two were unicorns.
Canterlot is a unicorn majority city.
The other two were pegasi, but they trotted well-dressed in black jackets with wings outside, one blue and one white, conversing with their co-workers. The buildings were all white-washed stucco, over brick judging by an unrepaired cornice. Purple swirls and hearts were popular motifs to paint on walls, though I saw a few dancing mares. Some plaster work and store signs looked gilt. Canopies—most stores had them like they also had glass fronts—varied greatly in color. Many were red or royal blue.
The turrets of the castle loomed ahead, and beyond that tall lithe white towers with indigo onion domes. The crenelated bailey wall looked six stories high. The sun had started to wester, causing the ramparts to cast a shadow into the city. The end of Alicorn Way would soon be shadowed. The dark and light contrast seemed ominous...
An aspect I kept well in mind.
I peered into a quill and sofa shop across the street, an excuse to glance the way I'd come. After a minute, I felt some confidence that I wasn't being followed. Canterlot was an expensive destination. Proper Step had no reason to think I had any bits.
Except for Woodcutter's...
Logical or not, I wasn't taking chances. The proprietor of the store—an orange mare in a pinstriped blouse–trotted to the door. I turned away and continued west, brochures afloat. A theatre advertised a play about "Cats" and it being held over another week. The chocolate store smelled tantalizing. After gazing into a couture taller, a brass furniture store, and a perfume shop, I understood I'd entered the high rent district.
Instead of being inconspicuous, my nice clean and pressed work pony giddy-up might be too dressed down not to be noticed. I spotted a dozen tourists, some dressed in flowered shirts and some not dressed at all. Okay, maybe I didn't stand out that much. I took a deep breath and decided just to enjoy the wealthy Canterlot ambiance as I strolled.
I didn't notice the incongruity until I cantered right up to it. My subconscious did, however.
Was that Proper Step!?
Instinct swiftly turned me sharp right and I stepped into a bakery, the door chime dinging. Scents of yeast and sugar struck me square in the nose.
The bakery So Famous baked bread. I saw braided eggbread, loops of boiled rolls, lengths of golden Prance bread, and loads of brown seeded-bread both round and oblong—most of it in baskets piled up in the window, creating an irregular wall of brown crust with some viewing portals to the street. More rested in whicker basket bins behind the counter. A deft unicorn in white baker's linens wielded ten saw-knives simultaneously to slice breads for a dozen pastel ponies, all mares, that packed the little shop. I smelled and saw pastries arrayed on blue porcelain trays at the same time I spied the single empty cafe table.
"I'm sorry," I said, only fully lowering my voice at the end, blocking a pink filly no more than a year older than me with a poofy yellow blouse only matched by her poofy mushroom-like yellow mane. Simultaneously, I grabbed coppers from my purse and dropped them on the counter, swiping what was closest. "I'm waiting for a filly friend."
I sat.
Blue eyes frowned at me, then she smiled and nodded.
The table provided a view through the doorway. The sun illuminated the north side of the street harshly.
Blinking away afterimages, I glanced at my impulse buy. I saw a tricorn hat pastry—dough folded into a triangle with jam stuffed in a tiny dough-cup at the center. It glittered with green, yellow, and pink sugar crystals that set-off what looked like a shellacked exterior. Looking up and squinting again outside, I bit into the weird cookie.
Honey! It had been brushed with egg-white and honey when baked. I almost, almost, looked at the thing in surprise. But I worked to resolve the image of the pony that made my subconscious shock me into hiding.
I stopped chewing. In profile, he resembled Proper Step. My butler and guardian was average size but long of bone. He had a refined hardened look, thinner than typical ponies and not at all tall and elegant like Woodcutter. He faintly resembled a schnauzer dog, especially the shape of his head—though not his perfectly shaped ears that I swear could point any direction so long as it was in the direction of a misbehaving filly. Proper Step's moustache accentuated that. Sunburst had explained to me that most stallions couldn't grow facial hair, but those that did usually shaved it. In Sunburst's case, I suspected he let it grow to look grown up.
Proper Step used it to look both older and authoritative, as did this Canterlot pony.
Same moustache. But... his mane looked wrong. My eyes adjusted fully, I realized the pony was a milk-in-tea brown, not blue grey like Proper Step. I felt my shoulders slump.
He was older; wispy grey bangs blew across his forehead. He dressed in unmistakable livery: a red tailed corduroy jacket with a dun-colored wool collar and fore-cuffs over a grey pullover. A gold chain led to his jacket's watch pocket from the gold timepiece he lofted impatiently in his magic. It incidentally matched his cutie mark. He wore his mane and tail ponytailed with white yarn.
He resembled Proper Step, down to his mane style.
Wait. This pony wore gold pince-nez. Proper Step had the eyes of an eagle with me as its prey and needed no glasses.
I crunched on the cookie, not liking the coincidence. I took another nibble. Ponies resembled their parents in shape and build, if rarely in color—unless it was a mixed tribe affair. Could they be related? Proper Step spoke nothing about his past. He acted as new and empty and uncaring as a newly enchanted golem most of the time. Could he really have a family? I almost scoffed. Maybe this was an older brother and they shared the same trade...
A brother he might have called to trace a runaway ward?
Tan—I decided to call him that. Tan stood before a cake shop, blocking my view of tall frosted lemon and chocolate layer cakes displayed in the window. The arc of antique silver letters on the glass read Mister Cake's. A dead giveaway. He put away his pocket watch as shadows approached. More assistance to track me down?
A purple and a yellow mare talked as they appeared. Each unicorn wore a demure black business dress, each tailored to have the same tails that Tan's jacket had, exposing a halved lemon and a feather-duster cutie mark. Guess which had the lemon?
Tan sighed. He pointed over his shoulder at Mister Cake's, issued an order, and trotted off.
I stood.
"Excuse me. Mister Colt?"
I stopped mid-step. Apparently my giddy-up worked quite well. I looked.
Ten-knives Baker levitated me over a white paper bag, crimped at the top. Hum & Touching and Colt were scrawled in black ink.
Considering how few coins I had left, I grabbed them with a smile. I paused in the doorway, hoping the pink mare had already left. I hadn't kept track. I waited as Tan crossed the next street continuing uphill, glanced to see no obvious tails to the east and to note the two mares had entered the cake shop. I fast trotted after.
I dismissed taking a different route. Better to see your enemy than to be ambushed. I had paid attention to my warcraft studies.
He could be bait in a trap. Yes, and how crazy was I?
A third liveried mare stepped out of what I gathered was a department store. Sacks on Alicorn Way. Appropriately, the brown earth pony with raven hair was weighed down with sacks of packages in her teeth and balanced on her back. Tan whirled a hoof as if he wanted her to go faster, and with typical earth pony physicality, she cantered along and swiftly turned left onto Castle Way.
Celestia's school was to the right. 50:50, right? I hoped so.
With me a half block behind him, Tan turned right.
I pursed my lips. My visitors guide up before me so I kept my spell spun up, I rushed ahead, but kept to the left side of the street. I slowed at the corner.
Tan walked up to a unicorn stallion aristocrat wearing a black top hat and a blue business suit. It matched his powder blue coat and black streaked blue mane. Top Hat and Tan slowly strolled, entering into conversation. It didn't look like Tan was watching me.
If it was a trap, I'd predictably followed.
I kept pace behind, approaching the portcullis in the bailey wall. A light grey stallion earth pony with a white mane approached Tan, facing my way, and waved. My heart bounced in my chest, even though Grey's blue eyes weren't on me.
Tan and Top Hat stopped.
Which made it worse.