As Twilight entered the library, she was immediately rounded on by everypony waiting there and almost accidentally closed the door into Rainbow Dash's face. She told the others in all detail about the detention of Frank.
"Poor Mr. Blanket", Fluttershy said. "I hope they are treating him kindly."
"He's well enough", Rainbow Dash responded. "When I was there he was all into his studies and Inkhorn brought him food and stuff."
"So he seemed okay with everything?" Twilight asked.
Rainbow Dash shrugged. "Pretty much. The one thing he said he was worried about was that everypony would think of him as the thief if the real thief isn't caught."
"It still remains an outrage", Rarity said. "Locking a pony up on so flimsy a suspicion. There isn't even any evidence, but just this outdated town law. It should really be impossible to treat anypony like that!"
Twilight nodded, but she was so conspicuously silent and her look so unfocused that Applejack gave her a slight nudge.
"You alright, sugarcube?" she asked.
Twilight nodded, but then she said: "You know, I could have told them to let him go there and then."
"You could have? How?"Apple Bloom burst out.
"Princess thing", Twilight said. "Mayor Mare said that my vote or veto could overrule the law in a matter like this."
"And you didn't tell them to let Frank go?" Scootaloo called angrily.
"Why didn't you?" Sweetie Belle demanded to know.
"Yes, why not?" even Rainbow Dash joined the protests of the Cutie Mark Crusaders.
"Now give Twilight a break y'all!" Applejack said.
"Frank himself told me not to do that", Twilight said almost a little defensively and raking her brain for what he had said she quoted: "Laws agreed upon by many ponies should not be overridden by the vote or the veto of a single one, princess though that she may be, is what he said, I think."
"Sounds mighty decent of him", Applejack said approvingly.
Apple Bloom however didn't share her elder sister's appreciation: "Then what good is it to be a princess anyway?"
"Isn't the whole point of being a princess that what you say is more important than what others are saying?" Scootaloo said.
"No!" Twilight said sternly. "That is not the whole point of being a princess!"
"If it doesn't allow you to keep someone out of prison who hasn't done anything to get there then what is the whole point of being a princess?" Sweetie Belle asked.
"Now that is enough, Sweetie Belle!" Rarity reprimanded her little sister sternly.
Twilight was a little relieved about Rarity's intervention, but she couldn't help admitting to herself that the question about the point of being a princess had been one she had been trying to figure out ever since she had happened to become one. Being asked that very question so directly however made her uncharacteristically self-conscious.
"Like you just said Rainbow...", Twilight said overplaying her self-consciousness, "...Frank is worried that he may end up linked to this theft unless the real thief is found. If he were to avoid investigations like that it surely wouldn't help his reputation."
"A vote of confidence from a princess would damage his reputation?" Scootaloo asked, but everypony ignored her.
"By the way, Inkhorn said that there will be a public hearing about this in the town hall tomorrow at noon", Rainbow Dash said.
"Very good", Twilight said. "No need to draw this out any longer. I'm sure Frank will be permitted to leave after that hearing."
"Are you?" Applejack asked.
"Of course", Twilight said, raising an eyebrow in surprise. "Why, do you have any doubts?"
Applejack shook her head slowly. "Don't get me wrong. Ah don't think Frank had anything to do with it, but what Ah'm thinking doesn't matter. What matters is what they are thinking."
"They?"
"Everypony at the hearing."
"Applejack, they really don't have anything to bring up against Frank. Even Mayor Mare seemed more embarrassed than anything else because of what that law required her to do."
"Inkhorn probably would have been happy had you ordered Frank to be released", Rainbow Dash said with a smirk. "Now she and Featherscribe have to cater and guard him till he is released."
"Just sayin' that y'all seem certain he'll be released no matter what", Applejack said. "Ah know all they got is that he wasn't seen by anypony after leaving the party and that nopony here knows him well but—"
"Don't worry, AJ", Twilight said. "I have been to Mr. Rich's place and there is plenty of evidence that Frank can't have done it."
"Oh, how is Mr. Rich doing?" Fluttershy asked immediately. "The others said he was hospitalized?"
Twilight nodded: "Yes, but he has been released again."
"So Mr. Rich is feeling well again?" Rarity asked.
"Hmm... sort of", Twilight said. She glimpsed notably at the Cutie Mark Crusaders who instinctively did their best to appear as inconspicuous as possible.
"Girls... wouldn't you like to go play outside?"
"No", the three fillies answered flatly.
"Sweetie Belle, I think what Twilight wants to say is that she would like to talk to us in confidence", Rarity said.
"We are not disturbing you!" Sweetie Belle wailed. "Come on!"
"I know you are not, girls", Twilight said. "But there are some things we really got to keep among ourselves".
"But Twilight!" Apple Bloom pleaded with a look which Applejack knew was almost impossible to resist.
"Off you go, little sis!" she said with a tone of finality that allowed for no opposition.
"What would be the point of being a princess if it didn't even allow for me to get three little fillies out of my library?" Twilight tried to joke, but none of the Cutie Mark Crusaders was laughing.
As they trudged for the door, they were grumbling unintelligibly though Twilight was pretty sure she caught the words 'firefighter' and 'revolution' among the muttering.
"You could visit Frank in the town hall", Rainbow Dash called after them as a suggestion, but she got no response.
Twilight sighed as the door closed behind them.
"No way to allow them to stay?" Rainbow Dash asked.
"I don't think so", Twilight said shaking her head. "With all the quarreling between them and Mr. Rich's daughter I think they are better to be kept out of this. Also, I want to avoid any gossiping about anything. I got to tell you some things, but so far a lot of it is speculation."
"Uh, I love speculoos!" Pinkie Pie chirped happily. "The Cakes really should bake them not just in winter time. And you got a lot of it, Twilight? How did you? I promise I'm not gossiping about your speculoos, but can I have some pleeeaasse?"
Pinkie Pie was batting her eyes and gave Twilight a look not so different from the one she had only just gotten from Apple Bloom.
Twilight had grown rather used to Pinkie's randomness, but she still gave her an almost desperate look and took a deep breath before she answered: "No Pinkie, I don't have any speculoos and this is not about any kind of biscuit! This is really serious and I want you, all of you, to be discreet about what I am going to tell you... not to tell anypony about it I mean", she added to make sure there wouldn't be any misunderstanding.
Pinkie looked a little disappointed about the lack of speculoos, but she made a zipping gesture to her mouth which Twilight knew was as good as a Pinkie promise when coming from her. All the others, including Spike, nodded in silent agreement.
"So, you were saying that you have plenty of evidence that Mr..., Frank I mean, can't have done it?" Rarity asked.
Twilight nodded. "A servant of Mr. Rich showed me the study from where the money was stolen. He was also kind enough to show me the kind of bags full of gold the thief took along."
"So he still has some of those?" Applejack asked.
"Plenty", Twilight said with a nod.
When she had asked Swallowtail if he could show her the kind of bags the thief had taken he had led her to a different windowless room. From the outside, the door of the room might have been mistaken for that of a storeroom, but as the servant had unlocked the door, it turned out to be a lot more massive than it looked. The room behind the door had turned out to be a storeroom indeed, but it stored an amount of coinage and securities that had made Twilight feel a little queasy and reminded her a bit of a dragon's hoard.
"I could barely lift one of those bags!" Twilight said. Her teeth were still hurting slightly from the effort of having tested their weight.
"Maybe you could lift two of them", Twilight nodded at Applejack and Rainbow Dash. "But I don't think anypony in Ponyville, with the possible exception of Big McIntosh and Bulk Biceps, could lift six of those."
A frown appeared on Applejack's face. "Are you sayin'—"
"Of course not!" Twilight said hastily and firmly. "I'd suspect myself rather than thinking that Big Mac or Bulk Biceps tiphooved their way into the Rich Mansion and tiphooved out again with a load of gold that would be heavy even for them."
Rainbow Dash burst into laughter at the image of Bulk Biceps tiphooving anywhere.
"And of course I know Big Mac would not take a single bit from anypony even if that pony lost it on the way to Sweet Apple Acres", Twilight assured to smooth out the last wrinkles of Applejack's frown.
"So you are suspecting yourself, Twilight?" Pinkie Pie asked. From somewhere she had produced a deerstalker hat and a bubble pipe.
Twilight snorted slightly. "Since nopony saw me after I left the party yesterday I fulfill at least one of the same criteria as Frank to be suspicious and given the fact that any thief must have used magic to lift all those bags I guess one could say that I am a more likely suspect than Frank."
"Elementary, Twilight", Pinkie said eyeing her with a look so suspicious that Twilight was wondering if in Pinkie's inscrutable mind there was any room to actually consider the possibility of her being the thief.
"Oh Twilight, I had no idea princesses were so poorly paid nowadays", Spike commented. "Do you want me to testify on your behalf? Hey, Celestia is a Princess too! And she is good with magic! Should we tip off Mayor Mare about her?"
Twilight silenced Spike with a grim look. She wasn't nearly as humorous about jokes at Princess Celestia's expense as she was about jokes at her own.
"My point is that I don't think anypony could have done this without the use of magic", Twilight said. "This narrows down the possibilities quite a bit."
"Uhm... but Twilight...", Fluttershy carefully intervened, "...maybe there was more than one? Beavers often carry logs in groups which a single one of them could never carry. I mean... maybe more than one pony carried away all the bags?"
Twilight gave Fluttershy an approving smile for her contribution, but before she could say anything Rainbow Dash called: "Yes, what makes you think only unicorns could pull this off, Twilight? Maybe one pegasus just flew in and out several times carrying one bag each time."
"Rainbow, this is not a sport competition. I didn't try to fly when lifting that bag and of course I am not much of a flyer, but I am sure that even you couldn't fly properly with that kind of weight between your teeth or even on your back where the bags would also be in the way of your wings."
Rainbow Dash gave a defiant look as if she had just received a challenge, but Twilight ignored this and turned to Fluttershy instead: "You are right, Fluttershy, that it is theoretically possible that there was more than one thief, but it is not likely. The study is on the first floor and a thief would have to walk through most of the mansion. With a bagful of clinking coins it is pretty much impossible this wouldn't be heard. A single unusually strong pony carrying six bags of coins, one pony carrying one or two bags of coins at a time and returning several times, or several ponies at the same time, no matter what, it would be impossible not to hear it. The only way to avoid such noise is to transport the money away with magic. Also, the mansion's door is rather massive. It would require magic to open it, or rather to just teleport in and teleport out along with the money."
"These are all good reasons to think Frank didn't do it, Twilight...", Applejack said, "...but Ah guess at the hearing they'll also wanna know who stole that money."
"Frank too", Rainbow Dash reminded them. "He worries that if the real thief isn't found everypony will keep thinking of him as a thief."
"Do you have any idea who may have done it, Twilight?" Rarity asked.
As they were talking, Twilight had moved towards the library door and as Rarity finished her question, Twilight yanked the door open.
Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo were standing there, their heads in unmistakable eavesdropping position. Ignoring the indignant shouts of Applejack and Rarity at their respective little sisters, Twilight told them quite calmly: "So far so good, but I'll now cast a sound barrier spell. You are not going to hear anything, so you may visit Frank, practice firefighting or plan for a revolution just as well."
"Twilight...", Sweetie Belle began.
Twilight gave them a little smile: "I understand you, but there are things which are not for all too many ears."
"Don't practice firefighting!" Applejack called as Twilight closed the door.
Twilight concentrated for a moment and a slightly iridescent sphere formed along the walls of the library. Pinkie Pie was quite fascinated and touched the sphere to find that unlike the iridescent bubbles from her bubble pipe this sphere would not burst upon touch.
"How did you know they were there?" Rarity asked Twilight.
She shrugged: "I probably would have been there if I was one of them."
"So what's the big mystery nopony is supposed to hear, Twi?" Applejack asked.
"Mr. Rich; he has not been injured, but he doesn't remember anything at all from yesterday noon to this morning. He doesn't remember he was at the party yesterday."
"How can one just forget a whole day?" Rainbow Dash asked.
"That's not everything, his mood was... strange. He looked totally... drained. He was crying, but not about the money he lost."
Twilight bit her lower lip. Even to her best friends she didn't feel any need to go into details about what exactly Mr. Rich had told her.
"It can't be a coincident that the same day all this money is lost is also eradicated from his mind like that. He was not injured, but still utterly depressed. I think that Mr. Rich was attacked with magic."
There were some moments of silence before Fluttershy quietly said: "But that's terrible! Who in Ponyville would do that?"
Twilight gave a frustrated sigh. "The question is also who could even do that. Transporting away all that money and teleporting in and out of the mansion would be tricky already. Most unicorns here in Ponyville know little more than simple levitation and other spells specifically relevant to their respective profession. But messing up the mind of a pony like that, making him forget a whole day, draining him and making him all depressed... this is really, really dark stuff. Even I don't have a clue how to do that, because I really don't want to know. It is the kind of magic long declared illegal by Princess Celestia. But since I never ever studied anything like that I don't know how this works or who could do anything like it."
Again there was some silence before Rainbow Dash spoke up: "So that's what all the secrecy is about? Somepony doing some illegal dark magic?"
"This is absolutely certain?" Applejack asked. "No chance at all that Mr. Rich just got like that because of his fright over the theft or something?"
"I don't think so. Some of the stuff he told and some of his reactions were... I really don't think something like that would come from a mere fright. But honestly I know so little about this that I cannot tell for certain."
"If you do not know much about this, maybe you should ask Princess Celestia if she can give you more information", Rarity suggested.
Spike gave a chuckle and mimicking the writing of a letter he said with a fair imitation of Twilight's voice: "Dear Princess Celestia, could you please teach me about dark magic? You know, the kind you declared illegal long ago and that is used to mess up the minds of ponies and—"
"Spike!" Twilight silenced him with an angry shout. "The Princess is not in Canterlot at the moment anyway."
"She's not?" Applejack asked surprised.
"Nope", Twilight tapped the letter from the princess she had received earlier today and that was lying on a nearby table. "She wrote she is headed for Cloudsdale—"
"For Cloudsdale? What is she doing in Cloudsdale?" Rainbow Dash interrupted.
"I was going to tell you. Apparently a dozen cloud brewing kettles burst there recently and the princess wants to investigate. She doesn't really spell it out, but I don't think she believes it was just an accident."
"So that's why we don't get any clouds or rain!" Applejack said.
"A dozen cloud brewing kettles?" Rainbow Dash asked aghast. "How did that happen?"
"Apparently vents have been adjusted wrongly—"
"Vents adjusted wrongly?" Rainbow Dash blurted out angrily. "The princess really should investigate upon that!"
"What do you mean?" Twilight asked surprised at Rainbow's harsh tone.
"Let me put it like this", the pegasus said. "These cloud brewing kettles are not exactly complex. I could teach you everything you ever need to know about how to handle such a kettle in like five minutes. Hooves, these things are so fool-proof I'd feel at ease if Derpy was in charge of them!"
"Rainbow!" Fluttershy protested. "That was a nasty thing to say!"
Rainbow Dash sighed. "Right, I'm sorry. But my point is, it is almost impossible to make one of those things burst. And more than a dozen at a time? No way this could just happen by accident!"
"Maybe you could ask Luna about this meanie magic, Twilight?" Pinkie Pie suggested.
Resuming his mimicking and mock-Twilight voice Spike said: "Dear Princess Luna, I'm writing to you since I believe your sister is busy and you may know better about what I want to ask anyway. You see, I would like to know about evil, dark, sinister magic to manipulate the minds of—"
"Spike! Not helping!" Twilight called angrily as annoyed about Spike's antics as she was about the smirks they earned him from Applejack and Rainbow Dash.
"Zecora", Fluttershy said quietly.
"What?" Twilight asked confused.
"Maybe you could ask Zecora", Fluttershy suggested. "I mean she is of course no evil enchantress, but maybe she knows a lot about magic from elsewhere and types of magic you don't know as much."
"That's a great idea!" Twilight said approvingly. "Best suggestion yet!"
"Do you still want to write Princess Celestia though?" Spike asked.
Twilight gave him a glare that only relaxed when she was certain Spike's question was not an introduction to yet another mockery.
"No, I don't think so", she said hesitantly.
"Why not?" Spike asked, raising an eyebrow. He couldn't help noticing that Twilight was looking somewhat uncomfortable.
She sighed. "The princess is busy with her own investigations and there is really not much beyond speculation that I could tell her about what is going on here. And also... never mind."
Everypony kept looking at Twilight who suddenly seemed to take great interest in the texture of the nearby tabletop and was avoiding the looks of the others.
"Darling, are you alright?" Rarity asked concerned.
"Of course I am", Twilight said grinning at the others.
Twilight had always been a horrible actor and if there had been any doubts left in the mind of anypony that something was bothering Twilight, her fake grin eradicated any such doubts.
"What is it, sugarcube?" Applejack asked with an endearing smile and a knowing look that dismissed any possible attempts at denials or excuses.
Twilight shifted uncomfortably and looked back over her shoulder as if she expected to find an eavesdropper there.
"It is just... well... I am a princess too now. I don't think I can just keep calling for Princess Celestia every time there is a problem."
"You never did that to begin with", Spike pointed out. "When sometimes you better should have!"
"I know", Twilight admitted. "Still, I can't just call for help from her. At least I must have really something to tell or to show her. I mean, she doesn't put her investigations on my shoulders either!"
"Totally different thing", Rainbow Dash said.
"How so?" Twilight asked.
"Oh come on Twilight! She is Celestia! You know? Celestia! The one whose name ponies call out in moments of distress! The one who raises and lowers the sun! I mean, she is Celestia, while you are not. I mean you are..."
As Rainbow Dash talked, Twilight's look had become increasingly dismayed and Rainbow Dash noticed this much for her own chagrin.
"Oh for Equestria's sake, Twilight!" Rainbow Dash shouted and pulled her into a hug. "Go ask some egghead for the right words! And darn you for turning me all sappy now!"
"What Ah think Rainbow wants to say is that you are awesome and don't have to think you would be any less awesome for telling the princess about this. It don't matter you're a princess yourself now, sugarcube", Applejack said as she joined the hug.
"That's what I meant to say, AJ", Rainbow Dash confirmed. "I didn't know you were such an egghead with words."
Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy joined the hug and as Rarity did too she dragged Spike along. The baby dragon gave some token resistance, more outspoken against such display of sentiments than even Rainbow Dash, but he didn't put up much of an effort and couldn't help smiling while rolling his eyes. He too could not deny to himself that moments such as this one were probably the most direct manifestation of every reason why Princess Celestia had sent Twilight to Ponyville with the 'order' to make some friends so long ago.