The next morning, the trio stood looking out over the royal gardens from a stone balcony just around the back of the castle, the promised carriage pulling up a minute or two after they arrived.
Once the three of them were seated and the carriage was in motion, Adagio went over the plan. "Alright, when talking starts, we let him believe he's in complete control, sharing only what he directly asks and-"
Aria interrupted with an uneasy expression. "You're enjoying this way too much."
If the diabolic grin she'd been wearing since the door closed wasn't hint enough, Adagio's sinister chuckle said a thing or two about her intentions. "He's shown us he can be underhanded, I won't underestimate him twice. Wait and see," she said under her breath, her tone just faintly suggestive as she began staring off into space, "I'll show you who the true mastermind is!"
Sonata leaned a little closer to Aria, smiling as she whispered. "Aren't you happy for her?"
"Kinda creeped out, actually," Aria whispered back, "who likes this kind of stuff?"
"I think it's cute, she's found a playmate!"
Adagio seemed to snap out of her megalomaniacal, possibly-erotic fantasizing. "What was that?"
Sonata jumped. "I-I said Aria's hair smells like grape!"
The carriage was silent, two confused sirens staring at the third.
Adagio shrugged, looking out the window towards the landing platform the airship was waiting on. "That's nice, Sonata."
Aria gave Sonata a look as though she wasn't sure how she should respond to the 'grape-scented' remark, the unicorn in question smiling sheepishly as her cheeks tinted red.
---
The carriage stopped at the end of a long runway, the trio getting out to get a good look at the airship.
Aria gaped when she saw it. "No. Way."
It was huge, appearing to be a hybrid of boat and blimp, the balloon a massive, purple fish-type of thing, complete with a tail fin that might have been used for steering. The ship attached by a number of tethers was extravagantly decorated as well, similar shades of purple to the balloon used toward the underside, giving the appearance of riding along waves, complete with large, yellowish fins that were presumably also for steering in some way.
The carriage driver was already heading back, but Aria kept her voice down just in case. "D-does... does he, Adagio, did you tell him we were-?"
"Hm? What's got you so agitated?" She paused to examine the ship, not seeing the problem. "What, that the theme seems to be-" Her eyes widened for a split second before a cat-like smile found it's way onto her face. "Ohhoho, I see. Well-played, Prince Blueblood, you must be craftier than I thought..." He even got it roughly to my preferred color scheme!
Sonata, as usual, was hopelessly confused by her companions' vagueness. "What?"
"Urg," Aria groaned, "don't you get it? He's known the whole time that we're sirens, and got 'em to make a whole... floaty, boat-balloon thing just to rub it in!" Now that she was thinking about it, what did the word 'Pisces' mean? The name of the room he had them put in? She couldn't recall exactly, but she knew it was something that made her want to knock his snooty block off even more.
Blueblood stood at the base of the ramp leading up the ship, smiling. "Welcome!"
Adagio's followers weren't sure how to place the smirk she was wearing now, but they knew they didn't want it pointed at them. "Good morning, Mister Blueblood. Might I ask how long in advance you prepared this vessel?"
He looked surprised for a second. "Oh, some time last night, I suppose. Shortly after we returned?"
The trio shared a split-second look. Whoever Blueblood had working for him must have worked fast!
"Now then," he continued, moving up the ramp, "we can converse on board, breakfast with a view at the ready."
---
They soon found themselves in an eloquent little room, wide windows on each side, offering a breath-taking view of the world below. In the center was a long table with multiple large dishes, nothing disturbed by the gentle motion of the ship.
"Please," Blueblood said as they were seated, "help yourselves, I suspect we'll be talking up here a while."
"Indeed," said Adagio with that same unplaceable look on her face, "to begin, how long have you known the truth?"
"Well," he said with a shrug, "I had my suspicions, as I said, but I wasn't sure until some time last night." He chuckled. "Good thing, that, to discover the three of you were essentially normal would have been awkward to say the least."
"No, I mean," she waved a hoof to indicate the immediate area, "the specifications of this ship are a little too... precise, don't you think?"
He stared back at her, lost. "What?"
Aria groaned. "She means 'how long have you known we're sirens?', you dunce!"
Adagio shot her a mildly pouty glare, as if she was more disappointed than angry. "That is not how you play this game."
"Ooh," ooh'd Sonata, "we're playing a game?"
"Hey look," Aria quickly deadpanned, "they've got cheese here."
"Oh, boy!"
Sonata engaged in eating and thus not talking, Adagio smiled a little. "That, Aria, that was much better."
"Thanks?" She decided to grab a bite of fruit tart herself.
Blueblood raised a hoof, looking uncertain. "Um, pardon me, did you say you were sirens?"
Aria and Adagio looked back at him, equally confused.
"There are stories among sea-faring sorts about those creatures, monsters that lure non-aquatic lifeforms to their doom with spell-binding songs, drinking in their feelings of anger, pain, and despair like some magical inhalant." He looked around at the three of them, the smallest trace of fear visible in his eyes. "Is... is that what the three of you-no, that makes no sense. Why would you be, but, that would explain why you didn't..." Closing his eyes for a moment, he took a deep breath. "Are you telling me that you are those nigh-mythical beings?"
Adagio nodded slowly. "I, we were under the impression you already knew. Why else would you bring us aboard a vessel that resembled a fish?"
His eyes widened. "Oh!" There was a short, slightly abashed chuckle. "Would you believe that's pure coincidence? My family has a long history of sailing, the design of this ship was my idea of honoring that." He glanced around the corners of the roof, speaking quietly. "This was actually meant to be a gift to my mother and father, but they seem to prefer traditional navy-class vessels for their oceanic voyages. No idea when they'll be near Equestria again, but to answer your question, no, I did not know that you were sirens that looked like ponies." He gestured at the three of them with a hoof. "On that note, perhaps you could explain? I don't remember anything about shape-shifting in grandfather's stories."
Adagio deflated a little. He's really not playing along? No elaborate game of intrigue, no psychological cat-and-mouse, nothing? Perhaps this is another ruse...
The table was silent, apart from Sonata happily ingesting various kinds of cheese. Aria looked at Adagio in anticipation of a reply, but their leader just looked lost and maybe kind of depressed, so she spoke up herself. "Actually, we're not too sure why we look like this either."
She shared the short version of how they got banished to the other world, took on alien forms, and eventually found their way back to this one, looking like they did now when they stepped out of Twilight's mirror-statue-door thing. She left out the part about their gems being shattered, both in case Adagio had a plan for that, and not really wanting to share that information anyway.
When she was finished, Blueblood nodded a little. "That's quite the story. And now that you've returned, what might be on the agenda? Revenge? I'm not entirely certain, but most are under the impression that Starswirl is quite dead."
"Simple," said Adagio, recovering from her sad moment, "we need to drum up as much negative energy as possible by getting the population to fight itself, ponies arguing and expressing hatred for each other on as wide a scale as possible. Outright violence and riots are best avoided, however, as dead and unconscious ponies are... less productive to our cause." She smiled a little. "Or any, really."
Blueblood nodded, doing a good job of masking whether or not that sentence bothered him at all. "Indeed. Get ponies to hate each other, then? Not an impossible task, but it's typically sorted out again before long. What did you have in mind?"
Her grin grew devious. "You have a holiday here called Hearths Warming? A festival of cheer and good will?"
He looked the tiniest bit uncomfortable. Adagio didn't miss it. "Yyyeesss...?"
"What might it take to turn that on its head? To leave all who would have taken even a modicum of pleasure in seasonal celebrations seething with rage and cursing those they once held closest?" She closed the statement by biting into a tomato, making it the first thing he'd seen her eat today.
Something in the back of Blueblood's mind recoiled at the sheer -he could deny it no longer- evil of the idea, of whom he was involved with, but he steeled himself. He would help, no matter how wicked the scheme. This was for the greater good.
Besides, nopony really believes in all that 'Hearths Warming Cheer' rubbish, do they? It's all about the sales, the spectacle, the facade of the thing.
He folded his forehooves under his chin, elbows resting on the table. A tiny part of him wondered if the trio joining him today knew that was kind of a faux pas in fine dining. "It wouldn't be easy, I think. There are a lot of little things, little parts that make up the whole that is Hearths Warming. Ponies may be upset about a thing or two going wrong, but we'll have to be thorough to orchestrate an outrage on the scale you're looking for. Did you have anything in mind already?"
Adagio shrugged. "Not really. I was hoping you could lend a few tips, actually, being raised in Equestria? Unless you're about to tell us you're in the same boat we are." She blinked, glancing at their surroundings. "Figuratively speaking."
Blueblood nodded, mentally going down the list of yearly sights the holiday brought. "There are all manner of general festivities; feasts among the ponies, 'banquets' by the wealthier citizens, (it's effectively the same thing, just with longer, more self-aggrandizing speeches) parties of one kind or another, standard celebratory events painted the colors of the holiday. There's also caroling, the act of going door to door singing seasonal songs more or less for it's own sake. Not a greatly popular activity these days, at least in Canterlot."
He smiled a little, feeling what might have been some kind of twisted pride in his own short bout of Morally Flexible thinking. "However, none of this gets into full swing until right about the end of the day before; Hearths Warming Eve. That is when an annual tradition takes place; a play retelling the events of the founding of Equestria. Every year at the end of the play, ponies leave the theater with that all-important 'holiday cheer' at it's peak, the sense of camaraderie and good will coloring their mood for the next day or three, if all goes well."
Aria looked bored. "You going somewhere with this?"
The prince's grin tinted toward fiendish, finding a strange kind of Morally Flexible mirth in what he was about to suggest. "If all goes well, I said."
Adagio seemed to take the hint, her own smile much more malevolent than his. "It hinges on this play, does it? If something were to go wrong, very wrong, then all would carry their outrage and disappointment with them for some time?"
"The ponies who care about that sort of thing, yes. According to the yearly theater revenue on a few particular days, that's about ninety-five percent of them."
There was a short cackle from the siren leader. "Then that's where we'll strike. Can you give us any specific details of this year's arrangements?"
"Not off the top of my head, but getting the basic information shouldn't take long." He smiled wryly, glad his title might actually be useful to something he wanted to do for once. "It'll only look like I'm scouting the place out with thoughts of bringing company, at that, so the theater designated for it may well trip over itself to tell me what I want to know. It's still a few weeks away, so things aren't likely in place yet, but when they are, we'll know exactly where the pieces are arranged."
"Excellent," she replied, "I'll be waiting for details."
With the plan roughly squared away, there was a bit of a lull in conversation.
"So," offered Blueblood, "let's talk a little about the princesses. You've already made an enemy of Twilight Sparkle, it sounds like, you met my aunts, and-"
"Yea," interrupted Aria, "I think Luna might have a screw loose."
He raised an eyebrow, looking the tiniest bit offended. "I beg your pardon?"
"We ate dinner with just her last night," clarified Adagio, "it was a little odd." Then she began to blush, averting her eyes. "On that note, it's possible she, and probably half the damn castle, may think you and I are an item now."
His face grew contemplative. "We could use that, actually."
The trio's eyes grew wide, Adagio the first to speak the thought. "What?"
Blueblood seemed to realize what he said, sweating a little as he quickly and emphatically reworded the sentiment. "Wait-I mean, f-for the plan, you know? Let them think we're a couple so you three have reason to stay in the castle? It wouldn't be unexpected, with the time your group has already spent here, and I recall Auntie even extending invitation to that effect," he glanced away, sounding annoyed as he muttered, "her meddling again, but this time I'm grateful for it." His eyes were equally panicked and inquisitive. "So, what do you think?"
Blinking twice, Adagio smiled. Every time I think he's going to get irritated, he does something completely different. Is he really not playing a game with me? "That arrangement should suit our purposes, yes."
Sonata resurfaced from her feeding frenzy for a moment, looking pleased. "We'll have to yell at Princess Luna that you guys are a thing now."
Blueblood chuckled. "I take it she asked you three to shout across the table yesterday evening?"
There was an annoyed nod from Aria as she took a bite of Prench toast.
"You could have refused. While not attending to important functions, my nocturnal aunt is nothing if not whimsical, but she wouldn't persist in something she knew made others uncomfortable."
Adagio facehoofed, hard. I humiliated myself for nothing, then. Outstanding. Then again, she at least seemed to get Luna's approval out of it, so maybe that was a small victory. "I think two princesses like us, at least, so this may go over rather well."
Sonata looked at Blueblood as Adagio bit into a danish. "You said there were four princesses, right? Other than the one with the broken armor?"
"Yes, the last is Mi Amore Cadenza, or 'Cadence'. She rules over the Crystal Empire alongside her idiot husband, Princess Twilight's brother..."
He spent the next half-hour explaining the relations and roles of the four princesses, and the next twenty minutes after that summarizing the crises that led up to where they were today. The stunned silence he got in reply said it was a lot to take in, so he'd let them digest it all in their own time.
"C-changelings," Sonata uttered as Adagio and Aria traded worried looks, "are real?"
Blueblood nodded. "As I said; infiltrated, replaced Cadenza, bewitched Shining Armor, invaded the city. I may not have been in the room when their queen overpowered Celestia, but that's what happened." He shook his head in mild exasperation. "All of those things happened, I was there for half of it! And yet, everypony just goes merrily along with it, no matter how many lives could have been shattered, no matter how close to oblivion we linger. That, has to stop."
"Too true," conceded Adagio somewhat nervously, "and Twilight Sparkle was at the heart of it all?"
He shrugged. "More or less, I guarantee things wouldn't have happened the way they did-" he looked to the window, "-without her influence."
The others whipped their heads to face the same window, half-expecting to see Twilight floating just outside, already charging up her gem-destroying magic. Instead, they saw something almost as frightening far below; her crystal tower.
There was a short-lived panic as Aria accused Blueblood of being stupid/crazy enough to fly the boat-blimp thingy close to Twilight's turf, but he defended that they were already relatively close, explaining the proximity of Ponyville, Twilight's new place of residence, and Canterlot. This was followed with assurances that they had nothing to worry about, Twilight hardly ever visited, and she likely wouldn't have given the time of day to anyone but Celestia or Luna, as she hardly ever interacted with anypony at all prior to finding the Element of Magic.
While that had been going on, Adagio looked out the other window and noticed that Canterlot was, indeed, built on a mountain, which explained the view from the Pisces room. Returning her attention to the table, she raised an eyebrow. "And what of Discord?"
"May betray us again at any time, but he supposedly means it this time when he says he's reformed."
"Tch," Aria spat, "yea, because that guy's totally good for his word." The irony of those words coming from a siren hit her roughly half a second after she said them.
Blueblood didn't seem to think anything of it, instead smiling. "Indeed, but that's the world we live in now, and that's the world we're going to change, isn't it? On that note, we should probably go over the plan for tomorrow's event."
Sonata blinked twice. "What event?"
There'd be time later to formally ask whether or not she had been toying with his brain all this time. "The charity drive, the thing I first invited the three of you to attend. As it's being hosted by Fancy Pants, we can be reasonably sure that everypony who's anypony will be there."
Adagio grinned. "Making contacts, then? You'll be introducing us to the most influential members of the community so we'll know who to twist to our ends?"
"In Canterlot, we usually just call it 'making friends,' but yes. Talk to random ponies, mingle, see whom you might be able to make use of and who has no place in your plans. Once you have something in mind, I'll provide all the money and information you need to make it a reality."
Aria huffed, not sold on how smooth it all sounded. "Yea? What makes you so sure a bunch of rich stiffs, 'anypony who's anypony,' will even talk to any of us?"
He smirked, which only annoyed her further. "You'll be there as guests of Prince Blueblood. They'll be as eager to be seen talking with any of you as they are Fancy Pants himself, for at least a few days."
What's this, thought Adagio, a smile akin to the one she wore when boarding the airship stretching across her face, a tinge of vanity? There may be hope for him yet...
Aria just rolled her eyes. "Yea, whatever. Speaking of ponies you hang around..."
She briefly shared what she'd overheard the guards talking about a few days ago, all three sirens giving him inquisitive looks as she wrapped up.
Blueblood rolled his eyes. "I was hoping to save this little facet of high society life for later, but no time like the present. You really can't believe everything you hear, Miss Blaze, most of what you heard is false."
She raised an eyebrow. "Most of what I heard?"
There was only a faint blush. "W-well, to start, I only briefly knew Trixie Lulamoon, but it was years before she made her debut in Twilight Sparkle's -yes, Trixie became one more of those- life story. I did spend a few minutes in the company of Lightning Dust prior to her dishonorable discharge, (or whatever they call it) but she immediately dismissed me as too dull to hold conversation wi-" he scowled, "something you find funny?"
Aria tried to hide her snickering by stuffing a donut into her mouth. "Nah, nuffin'." Glancing over at Sonata, it was hard to tell if she was just really enjoying another chunk of cheese or if they'd had the same idea.
Seeing that Adagio only rolled her eyes at her minions' antics, Blueblood went on. "Right. There's no proof to the assertions that the mare I introduced to then-Captain-of-the-Royal-Guard Shining Armor was the Changeling Queen," he looked just slightly remorseful. "but it would explain a thing or two." That she more or less lost interest in Blueblood himself might have had something to do with his not gawking at her like Twilight's idiot brother did.
Really, I know her dress was a little risque for a garden party, but I didn't know we hired guards from colt-scout troops.
Maybe there was something to the name?
"Another one," said Adagio with an inquisitive look, "was said to be Celestia's student."
"Ah, well..." He scratched the back of his head, averting his eyes. "She was, I didn't really know her, but Sunset Shimmer was more of a distant, coltish crush than anything else." He noticed Aria and Adagio staring back at him in shock, Sonata's mouth hanging open as she visibly tried to piece something together in her head. "What?"
Composing herself in the blink of an eye, Adagio cleared her throat. "As it happens, we ran into Sunset Shimmer in the other world. That she was tutored by a princess might explain a thing or two."
Reading Aria's anger and Sonata's downcast expression, Blueblood connected a few dots himself. "She works on the Twilight Sparkle end of things now, I take it?"
Adagio's icy reply gave him a hint as to how their encounter went. "You could say that."
"Rrrright, well, that sums up the rumo-"
"Wait," Aria interrupted, "there was one more, somepony named 'PON-3'?"
Blueblood facehoofed, muttering under his breath. "Of course, couldn't forget that one, could we?" He gave them a tired look, but the trio of stares said he probably wouldn't get by without sharing this one. "DJ PON-3 is the stage name of one Vinyl Scratch, whom I saw for about a week. She's an eccentric sort, but not terribly dangerous, give or take random injections of percussive noise. Palace staff were not the only ones who did not approve. The end."
Aria raised an eyebrow. "And that all of them did something bad is a total coincidence?"
Blueblood threw his forehooves up, exasperated, which Adagio interpreted to mean he'd been asked about this before. "It's not my fault! Yes, all of them have had lapses of sanity, but all of those times, I had nothing to do with it!
"So," Adagio asked, her face contemplative, "when you said you'd learned to 'spot the tells'...?"
Composing himself by resting his forehooves on the table, Blueblood took a deep breath. "Those experiences may have helped, yes."
"Hey, guys?" Sonata was looking downward, visibly confused. "I feel, like, weird." She put a hoof over her stomach, not showing any sign of being in pain, but definitely baffled. "Not bad-weird, but..."
Adagio and Aria turned to Blueblood, faces lit up with surprise and darkened into a scowl, respectively. "You bastard," accused the latter, who was starting to feel something strange as well, "you brought us here to poison us!!"
Blueblood's jaw dropped, Adagio's expression quickly turning to doubt. "Wait, that makes no sense, he's been eating from the same table as we have."
Perhaps it was some combination of chemicals mixed into different dishes and only he knows where the right poisons and the right effective antidotes are, banking on us ingesting them haplessly while he would know what was in what.
Sonata shook her head. "I said it wasn't bad-weird, Aria! I just feel like... What do you call it, that feeling when you know you don't need to eat anymore, but like, more?"
The possible poisoner prince blinked twice, feeling a familiar sort of dread in answering one of Sonata's questions. "You mean, full?"
She still looked confused. "I don't know. Up to now, we've always eaten until most of the pain stopped, or, until it was just normal again."
"Same as anypony else," said Adagio with a roll of her eyes. "We're effectively on a forced diet in regard to our normal means of sustenance, but ordinary food seems to work in short for-" She blinked, realizing something had changed in the last hour or two they'd been sitting and eating here. It had been almost unconscious, the way she'd kept eating as they talked.
Hunger had always been there, a constant, driving force for the three of them for as long as she could remember. The first way they ever found to appease it was by absorbing power that appeared when others weren't happy with each other, and they stuck to it right up to the day they were banished. The energy in the other world was badly lacking and there were a few times Sonata got desperate enough to imitate what she'd seen others doing.
"Huh. I'd prefer a tasty shouting match or a lover's quarrel, but this isn't so bad!"
When their gems were broken, Aria and Adagio were forced to do the same, eating enough to get back to the point the gems would take them. To them, being 'full' was when the stabbing pain of hunger became a dull ache, the feeling they'd always known and couldn't recall not feeling. She was brought back to the conversation by Aria's voice.
"Alright, alright," she said while folding her forehooves and looking away. "I might have jumped the gun on that one."
"I should say so," muttered Blueblood, "thinking I'd go to all this trouble just to..." He shook his head. "So, hunger. The Changeling Queen had taken in enough energy to overpower Celestia herself and still wanted more. Does that ring a bell for you three?"
Sonata nodded. Even after getting the Rainbooms' magic at the Battle of the Bands, she was still hungry for more power. How much would she have had to absorb to feel like she did now, after just a few plates of stuff?
"We, uh," Aria still wasn't making eye contact with anypony, "kinda thought everyone had it like this. Ponies, people, fish, manticores, and so on. I mean, how often do you hear stuff like 'it puts food on the table' or 'I have to feed my family'?"
Blueblood stared back at them, expressionless. These three have spent their entire lives hungry. Is it the same for all entities like them? For Discord? Or the Changeling Queen? What about Celestia and Luna? Do Cadenza and Twilight feel this too? Problems. Everypony had problems...
Noticing the uncertain looks his three guests were giving each other, Blueblood opted to change the subject. "So, where did you hear about what amounts to my love life, exactly?"
Aria shrugged. "Heard some guards talking about it. Did you know they think you're a doom magnet?"
His answer was completely deadpan. "It has not escaped my notice." Considering whom he was talking to, he couldn't begrudge anypony that thought as much.
"Another thing," she said with a raised eyebrow, "why was your room so blank? It had this empty, hotel-room feel to it."
Blueblood looked surprised. "What were you doing in my chambers?" He wasn't sure if he'd been asking too many questions by this point, but Adagio wasn't displaying any outward signs of annoyance.
Aria froze. Before she could explain the circumstances behind her intrusion, Adagio put on a shocked expression. "Why Aria, I had no idea you indulged in such hobbies!"
"WHAT?! I-I don't, I was, b-because you told me to-"
Sonata started laughing out loud, Adagio's own act falling to poorly-hidden giggles as Aria turned red. Noticing Blueblood's bewildered look, Adagio chuckled. "Sorry, it was part of the investigation phase of my earlier plan."
"Ah, well..." Given the way he investigated their claims under the guise of budget reports, it didn't seem fair to judge them for being equally clandestine with their curiosity. He shrugged. "To answer the question with another, did your investigation happen to include Castle Canterlot itself?" Aria was still grumbling under her breath as Adagio shook her head. "When it was constructed, it was a larger, more lavish palace than Celestia had use for. Over the centuries, she decided on uses for as many chambers as possible. To date, there's a reading room whose shelves are stocked mostly with fiction, a gym, a place for board games, a theater..."
Eight minutes later.
"...an arcade, what amounts to a spa, a small chamber with two chairs primarily used for staring contests, and, of course the ball pit. None of this counts the massive garden, containing a cage-less zoo, tennis courts, mountain-cli-"
Aria nearly screamed. "ALRIGHT, we get it!!"
Blueblood just nodded. "Good, because I grew weary of giving tours ages ago."
Adagio looked baffled. "H-how... how is it that we've never noticed any of this in three days of staying there?"
"How often did you open random doors?"
Sonata scratched her head. "Uhh... Never?"
"Many rooms have been re-purposed multiple times, so labeling has low priority. Truth be told, I think most palace staff simply familiarize themselves with their regular work areas and two or three leisure rooms and leave it at that. Circling back to the original question, I don't keep much of anything in my quarters because it would do little more than clutter the space with things I could find in another room." He looked away, scratching his head. "I could probably stand to organize a little better, if anything."
Glancing at Sonata and Adagio, Aria decided against asking about the blank diary. No sense in giving them more ammo.
"So," Blueblood inquired after a short silence, "are there any other questions?"
"Just the one," replied Adagio, "you're certain nopony at all knows what's going on with the four of us?"
He smiled humorlessly. "Let's just say the activities of the castle accountant are not closely monitored. Not even Princess Celestia herself thinks of you three as more than possible fillyfriends."
Aria raised an eyebrow, something in that last part sending shivers through her guts. "What, you even keep secrets from your family? That's pretty cold."
"Hmph." Blueblood narrowed his eyes. "You don't know my family. Did you know that the Nightmare Moon of legend was Celestia's little sister? I didn't until the day she arrived in the palace. Princess Cadence's role as ruler of the Crystal Empire? She and Twilight Sparkle becoming princesses at all? The plan to reform Discord, if it's even over yet? All news delivered to me, whom Celestia trusts to sort out the nation's tax systems, at the same time as everypony else." His voice took on a slight edge, but with a hint of acceptance. "You wonder if I feel guilty about not telling them what I'm up to? No, no I don't."
There was a long silence as the sirens stared back at him, Adagio surprised to find herself speechless.
Adapting a cheerful tone, he forced a smile. "Good thing, too, as I don't think we'd get far in the plan otherwise!"
And then she was back. "Right," said Adagio with a relaxed smirk, "we'll see who we can make use of tomorrow." She fluttered her eyelashes teasingly. "You'll introduce us to prominent ponies, of course?"
"Of course."