...I coughed, breathing in liquid though I could clearly see that I sat slumped on dry ground. Cold. I was cold, but a warm breeze rustled the leaves. I coughed again. I tried to suppress it, starting to panic. My throat filled as warm liquid welled up inside. Drowning? I was drowning? I noticed a salt taste, then sticky phlegm, in my mouth that proceeded to drip out the side of my lips because it came up my throat of its own accord. I saw my legs.
That made no sense.
I saw hooves of pure black. I saw legs with fur darker than coal. This wasn't dye.
Those legs, that body wore body-hugging tights. Silk and tight elastic. The pressure was all that had kept... me alive this long, pushing against the pulse of my heart. Every thump, a countdown into oblivion.
A hunting knife, a large one, was stuck to the silver hilt into me, through my throat, all the way to my heart.
My— My—
A purple pony in similar dark clothing skidded on the rocks and slid in through the bushes, causing branches to snap and rustle. His black grease-smeared green-striped mane—the same green color of the streaks in my own mane—flopped across his face. His hooves went to the wound, applying pressure. "Midnight, no, no, no!" he whispered, streaming tears down his muzzle.
Behind him, a yeti pushed aside a branch.
I coughed, sputtering blood, "Firelight, run!"
#
I woke with a gasp, my whole body clenched in a cramp ready to pull muscles from the bone.
I heard breathing beside me. In. Out. A whistling hiss. It was only a nightmare. I relaxed.
Broomhill Dare shared the hotel suite with me, and my bed. Returning the favor I done for her back in Prancetown, I supposed.
Her pony snore made my world seem... oddly okay. Why my subconscious turned my guilt into fabulating an experience of my parents' secret-agent death, I didn't know. I reached for the valerian root with a hoof, not wanting to disturb my bed mate with faint magic light. It tasted like I chewed dirt. Fitting, somehow.
In. Out. Whistling hiss.
I got some sleep.
#
Carne Asada wanted to finish some business before her train ride back to Baltimare tonight. Her doctor wanted her to get bed rest. Good luck with that. This is why I sat at a table, outside the conference room in the hotel business center. We'd reserved the entire floor. I had my magic text books spread out and notebooks open. It gave me a chance to watch the parade of borough chiefs walk by, yet be alert for mischief.
I was mindful of the name and reason I'd learned from Blue Lightning. I was also mindful that I couldn't let Carne Asada know what I had done or learned. I had to solve this problem myself.
Peytral, one of Carne Asada's Hooflyn "business" staff, came galloping up the stairs as one of the regular guard, a brick red earth pony bruiser, watched with amusement. The staff pony, who had golden fur and eyes, also had verdigris hair in his green mane and tail which made him look as tarnished as his soul. He skidded to a stop in front of me. Huffing and puffing, he said, "The EBI is here." Equestrian Bureau of Investigation. "They know the boss is here—"
I thought, Aren't you the pony in charge of things like this? I said, instead, "And you let slip—"
"Agents coming up the other elevator bank—"
My chair flipped out from behind me to hit the sofa. I dashed into the meeting room, where I said, "Maple Town—" I'd taken to calling the chiefs by where they'd hailed from because I didn't want to acknowledge knowing their names. "—EBI's in the building. Take the stairs to the convention level."
The grey pegasus flew out the open door. The backwash of the mare's wings flung me to stumble into the room. Carne Asada banged the table.
"Es stop them from coming up here!" she yelled. "They can't es see me like this. They'll connect me to the skirmish."
The mare had her left leg and wing immobilized and bound by bandages around her barrel. She wore a purple dress that had been butchered to hide most of the bandages and her pony heritage, but plenty of ponies had learned she was a thestral, though I didn't understand her obsession about hiding it. One look would serve to show any new pony that she had both undergone reconstructive surgery and that she was also, at very least, a pegasus pony. She sat on a wheelchair.
I had no quick fix—between the extra weight of the chair, the fact that I hadn't learned the layout of the hotel, and the absurdity of floating her with no support for her injuries in the absolute cold of in-between. My magic might decide I could hurt her, even!
"Too late," Peytral said, cringing and shaking in the door.
I didn't throw him under the bus. I wouldn't later, either, though I might excoriate him with a few choice words that were bouncing around my head, distracting me from planning.
Distracting.
The idea of Don't Look Don't See Don't Hear was attractive, but with the guilt I carried around, I didn't trust myself at the moment to have the proper perfect concentration. I'd also learned about a class of spells called counter-spells. So long as they weren't here to arrest her...
"Get me a blanket."
Peytral jumped outside as I told my boss, "You have a cold."
"I do not."
I looked at the tea service, and the wide bowl-like handle-less tea cups. "I beg to differ."
I took Maple Town's cup, dunked a hoof in it, and messed up Carne Asada nice simple mane style, pasting the hair back and making some strands lay limp on her forehead. I don't know who was more surprised, Carne Asada or Peytral, as he came in with a plush brown blanket stamped with an hotel logo on his back.
I levitated Carne Asada. Other than a startled whinny, she bore it with little more than a bit of a pained expression. I had pigeonholed her doctor after the surgery and gotten him to talk about the muscles and tendons he'd sewn together, and where he'd reconnected them to bones, and what nerves were effected. I treated her like a delicate snow sculpture as I placed her on a supporting bench seat.
I tossed the wheelchair under the table where I hoped it wouldn't immediately be seen, even as I settled the blankets (Peytral had brought two) around her. I poured more tea, and put the steaming thing in front of her, tossing Maple Town's cup into the waste bin where I heard a pop as it broke.
I barrel-rolled a hoof in front of my nose. "Make as if drawing in the steam. Breathe in. Cough. Snuffle."
"I don't have a cold."
"Pretend. Blink a lot. You look in pain. Make it seem like it's in your sinuses."
"Cadaponi es estúpido," she muttered, but snuffled loudly.
I pulled up the blinds on two of the seven outside windows with a loud zwitt-zwitt, filling the dark room with sunlight. I would bet the resulting Equidorian words that filled the air were choice words about my ancestry. I dashed to the opposite side, cranked open the blinds just enough and dashed out.
"Peytral. Sit. Stay." I heard pony flank hit wood with a squelch.
I righted my chair and sat as the further elevators dinged. Red Brick (I didn't know his actual name) sidled over and watched as somepony trotted down the granite hallway.
I checked the ribbons holding my pigtails and then my tail. Shoot, I had the grimoire cutie mark painted on. I adjusted the blue ribbon on my white middle-school uniform blouse and levitated a library book, a protractor, and a couple of yellow wood pencils. I'd kept wearing the uniform as Carne Asada had noticed my disguise, commenting that I ought to wear it more often. I'd had no choice but to normalize the overly cute immature thing lest she question why the sudden purchase.
I think she wanted to taunt me about having a bit of a clothing fetish. Yeah, enjoy the irony, why don't you?
A very green pegasus trotted around the corner. Only one. She wore a blue pin-stripe suit jacket, white blouse, and blue tie. She wore an ID badge around her neck with a gold cloth strap. The badge was enclosed in a polished copper frame, in case you might doubt it was official. Her fur was yellow-green, her mane and tail forest green. Her longish wings partially obscured a wooden house cutie mark.
I saw that all in one glance.
I thought about snidely saying, "Interesting choice of profession."
Instead, I startled. I whinnied loudly, throwing the pencils and protractor into the air, and letting the library book bang down, creasing the open page, as it slid away. I immediately reached my magic for the errant book and spun it further away. Coincidentally, the pencils (not the faceted ones, luckily in my case), rolled toward the edge of the table. I popped up. Like a cat, I batted to capture one then the other.
I looked up. Brick Red escorted the EBI agent my way. She took out black-framed glasses with her wings and put them on, eyes on me.
I slunk back with the pencils, acting embarrassed. I let my flank slide off the seat, pushing my chair back. I ineffectively pushed the library book further toward the edge.
It gave me enough time to see she wore no amulets. She didn't even have a purse. She looked fairly fit, but then most pegasi did because of the flying. Not in fighting trim, in any case. I let myself duck below the table and inserted my muzzle such that my eyes were on her. I bumped my nose, thumping the table, loudly complaining. "Owwie, ow, ow."
The pegasus pony used a wing to push my library book back toward me. I kept my magic on it, causing her primary feathers to flex more. They were normal feathers, not like Crystal "The Knife" Skies'. The edges of the vanes of his feathers were ruby and sharper than broken glass. Some ponies, I'd heard, had steel vanes, but I'd yet to meet one.
The EBI agent was sufficient threat without being an immediate danger.
"I'm Agent Greene and Greene. Do you know where..." She hesitated. She did not say, Your Mom, though that would have been a triumph. Instead, "—where Mrs. Asada is?"
I nodded shyly from under the table. I reached up a hoof and pointed at the conference room.
As Greene and Greene turned away, I winked at Brick Red and he led the way. I spun up Shove.
The instant the pegasus walked in, I scrambled quietly to the outer window of the conference room. The green pegasus kept on this side of the long mahogany table, sparing Carne Asada from having to look into a bright sunny day. The glare would prevent her from seeing me laying my ear against the cool glass unless she looked right at me.
Carne Asada snuffled loudly and said, "You again?"
Greene and Greene said, "The Bureau in Hooflyn is actively investigating the Knife Rumble in Graves End." That was the name given it by the newspapers. My vivisection of Blue Lightning had caused a feeding frenzy in the press, with sensationalist black-and-white pictures sporting black rectangles over the eyes to protect the "innocent". Carne Asada's death might have been equally spectacular, and arguably a gang skirmish would have been only back page news, so I was responsible for that, too. "Did you have anything to do with that?"
I suppressed a guilty chuckle.
"He's not a lawyer," Carne Asada said simply, waving steam into her nose.
The pegasus took a deep breath. "After that incident in Las Pegasus—"
Arguably, also my fault.
"—with you in town, and now this, with you in town. Coincidence?" She shook her head.
"I have a cold and I am going home to Baltimare tonight."
The pegasus appraised her. "Leaving town in the dark of night? With a cold? Perhaps you should stay in bed in this nice and cozy hotel of yours in Hooflyn, Mrs. Asada, where we can keep an eye on you. We're assembling a grand jury. I have few questions to ask, too."
Carne Asada coughed loudly, pointing her right hoof awkwardly at Peytral who had beads of sweat welling up on his golden brow. She repeated, "He's not a lawyer."
The agent's snout twisted in momentary annoyance, but she reached into her ID placard. I barely caught myself from shoving her to the floor in a magical flinch. She took out a business card and presented it with both wings.
Peytral snatched it.
"Have a lawyer by this afternoon, or expect an arrest warrant by this evening." She bowed her head slightly and trotted for the door.
I didn't have to feign disturbing my study materials this time as I hit the table leg, diving for the table. I sunk down below the level of the table top, horn lit, moving books into a stack as the mare gave me a smile as if I were somehow adorable. Did she think I had crayons? She trotted to the first bank of elevators. Soon, she was gone.
I dashed in on Carne Asada. Peytral was bringing out the wheelchair.
"Sorry," I said.
Carne Asada said, "Hija, Hija. This accelerates plans I already had. Peytral?"
He dropped the wheelchair he had with his mouth and front leg with a bang. "Boss?"
"Get the lawyer who handled the last trial." The trial I had read the headline about on my train ride to Canterlot, the one where she had been acquitted.
"Silver Quill?"
"Him."
"On it," he dashed out.
I immediately shut all the blinds. I helped her back into her wheel chair and refreshed her tea, stirring honey into it. Finally, I tried, "This is all my fault."
"Boludo," the mare said. She bent her head down and sipped her tea loudly.
I'd been around her long enough that she used the lowbrow term affectionately to chide me.
"About Las Pegasus: It would have blown up without being managed anyway. It paid me dividends. What you did to that featherbrain, that was art—no blood daughter of mine could have done better. Es Starlight Glimmer, a mare has to do what a mare has to do. Keep on being magical." She sipped her tea.
I fetched Maple Town, then returned to my table. I rested my head on top of it, feeling confused. Keep on being magical? Eventually, I popped some valerian root and chewed, hoping for calm.
Crystal Skies arrived a few minutes later with lunch. He'd flown across town to buy some supplies and to stop at a special rooftop pegasus dive-joint. He pranced in, tail high, carrying the sack in his jaws. The logo read Baa Harbor Crabber Shack.
I cleared the table in one second flat.
As he put it down, crinkling papers as he spread out the packaged food, I reached up a hoof. I rubbed the blue fur on his muscular wing with my frog. "It's got crystal, too!" I said, aloud. It crinkled, even as it felt soft.
He said, "If you're going to make a pass at a stallion, doing it in a middle-school uniform is a bit too kink—"
I slugged him lightly where I had, okay, caressed him.
"Hey."
"Hay is for earth ponies," I chided him. "What pegasus treats did you get?"
Broomhill Dare came trotting up the stairs as Crystal Skies unwrapped pink and white crab legs steamed in foil with butter. The shells had been scissor-cut. I did not miss that Safe stepped out of the elevator immediately after she passed. Neither did I miss that Broomhill Dare's mane sported a sweat curl that looped around her horn where she normally had poofy curly bangs.
She trotted up, saying, "You got lunch— Oh." She saw the crab legs and her nose wrinkled. She veered a little left. Safe talked with Brick Red and suddenly stood very upright.
I chewed my valerian, hoping for a little calm. If it weren't for the soil flavor of the valerian filling my nose to the detriment of the scent of the food, you bet I would have smelled something horsey emanating from her, too. I knew what afterwards smelled like. I said, "I thought you might have gotten lunch when you finished the errand. Shouldn't have taken that long."
"Um."
I spat the chaw into a paper napkin, then pulled a long white and reddish piece of meat out toward my mouth.
Working with a pegasus and a pescatarian unicorn, she knew how to play it cool. When I shoved the hay fries and malt vinegar cup her way, she grabbed some and asked, "Did I miss anything interesting?"
I said, "Crystal Skies, you're right. Peppered hot sauce butter! Nice."
"Am I right?"
"Uh-huh."
I looked at Broomhill Dare, particularly at the sweat curl. I swallowed, and said, "Maiden's Cure."
"Maiden's Cure." She blinked a bit. "What's that?"
"A 'household' spell I learned from a healer in Deep Ford, and the herb that goes with it. I can testify that it works. I've needed it a couple of times. Now I understand how you can sleep over every night with me. You two have been making like little spring bunnies sneaking away during the day—"
Crystal Skies bounced a crab shell off my horn.
"Hey!"
"Stop that," he whispered, practically hissing and pointing.
Broomhill Dare had turned bright red. She didn't look angry, though.
I opened my mouth. "Carne Asada—"
Crystal Skies hit my horn again, and the shell rebounded off the window of the conference room.
"It's important," I said, looking from him to her, pointing. Broomhill Dare had turned to see her husband talking to Brick Red, then her expression changed to one of calculation. Their next tryst? Her face didn't become that much less red, however.
Hmm.
I was going to have to ask her what she had learned from him. I might need that to manage some misbehaving stallion one day.
I opened my mouth. "—"
I caught the shell in my magic. "Three times is gratuitous," I said, tossing the shell into the pile.
I took a deep breath, and added, "You did miss something, though. Both of you, listen. It's important..."