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1: The Day Job2,859 words
2: The Old Flame2,856 words
3: The Hard Fall2,456 words
4: The Interested Parties3,795 words
5: The Crooked Truth3,000 words
6: The Clever Dupe3,616 words
7: The Helping Hoof2,985 words
8: The Complication2,416 words
9: The Worst Breaks3,569 words
10: The Calm Before2,291 words
11: The Very Top4,065 words
12: The White Queen4,228 words
13: The Last Laugh2,321 words

10: The Calm Before

Lanterns lit the interior of the carriage, sending shadows flickering off in the margins. I took a seat across from Tangled Weave, without speaking. As soon as I had, I felt a slight shift as we started moving.

She wore a dress that was black in a way that moonless nights just wished they could be. It was the sort of thing you’d wear to a funeral to send a message – that the pony to pay attention to wasn’t the one being lowered into the ground. I idly wondered just how many funerals she had been to. And how many she had been responsible for.

She didn’t waste time with pleasantries. “Where’s my daughter?”

“I think I need a few answers first.”

“You are pushing your luck, Detective,” a dark current running underneath the ice of her voice.

I showed some teeth. “Let’s just say I don’t exactly have reason to trust you.“

“I don’t see what difference that makes.” A look of disgust crossed her muzzle. “Trust is beside the point. We had a deal.”

“And what part of the deal involved sending an op after me?”

Her eyes narrowed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Red Harvest. That name ring any bells?”

She paused for a long moment, and I saw the wheels spinning behind those eyes, filing and sorting and piecing together information, the likes of which I had no doubt would make a normal pony’s tail curl.

“The name is familiar. We have used his services upon occasion, but not for some time.”

“Tch.” I felt a frown forming. “So it’s not you that’s trying to take me out of the picture.”

“Mister Slate: let me assure you, if I had sufficient reason to get rid of you, you would be gone.”

“Good to know. So you’re not working with Luna, then.”

“No.”

The answer came quickly, casually, in precisely the way that mention of Red’s name had not. I met her eyes, and found nothing there to latch onto. “But you know about Luna’s plans.” It wasn’t a question.

“Yes.”

“How long have you known?”

A soft sigh escaped her lips. “I’ve had suspicions, but it was only after your… more recent adventures, that I was able to find more conclusive signs. Things are moving now. Big things.”

“You think I don’t know that? You’ve got connections, what are you doing about it?”

She shook her head. “What, me, risk starting a war in the streets?”

“What about telling Celestia?”

“My presence is hardly welcome at the palace. And think about it: this kind of accusation is no minor matter. They’ll trace the source back, and when that winds up being me? It’ll look like a plot meant to destabilize the government for my own purposes.”

“So then you do nothing,” I said bitterly. “Or worse, sit back and consolidate your resources, so that no matter which side prevails, you’ll be ready to jump in and expand your own business.”

“I take care of my own,” she said, steel in her voice. “And that brings me back to the original point. Where is my daughter?”

The grimace that crossed my face wasn’t meant for her benefit. “I tried. She had already been moved from DEqSec’s holding. She’s in the palace now.”

“No, she’s not.”

I looked up in surprise to saw a shadow in Tangled Weave’s expression. Her eyes drifted towards the windows of the carriage, even though thick black curtains covered them completely.

“Do you really think I’d rely on you alone? I always have my own contingency plans in place. She was scheduled to be moved from the palace early in the morning two days ago. My agents were in place along the route, ready to… ahem, resolve the problem.” She exhaled softly. “She never made it that far.”

“What?”

“When my people went back to check, the records had already been scrubbed. No sign of the planned prisoner transfer. No sign of her presence there at all. Somepony took her, somepony powerful.”

“Luna,” I said. “So that’s it. That’s why you won’t act. Not without ensuring her safety first.”

Her lips tightened, and I saw that flash of concentration in her eyes again, the calculations taking place and plans being formed behind the cold mask of her face. I’ve always been good at reading emotions – pretty essential for someone who makes his living identifying changelings. And in her expression I saw something else, a brief glimpse of a feeling that took me a moment to recognize.

Tangled Weave was scared.

And that was a terrifying thought.

The carriage stopped only for an instant to let me out, and then it was away, disappearing into the encroaching darkness. I took stock of my location, making out the streetsigns in the dim glow of residential lanterns.

Annoyingly, Tangled had dropped me not more than two blocks from where I needed to be. With her, it was no coincidence. Just one more power play, to let me know who was in control.

I squared my shoulders and kept ears flat in the clammy cold, one eye on the dark clouds still gathering overhead as I wished again for my hat. At least the walk wasn’t far.

It wasn’t the nicest neighborhood but it wasn’t shabby either. Row houses lined the streets, squeezed together like secondhoof books packed against the shelf of Canterlot’s sharp cliffs. I knocked at the third from the corner, a two-story greystone with nothing but the house number in brass on the door.

He opened the door almost immediately.

“Hey Chief,” I said.

The door was cracked only a sliver, allowing me to see a narrowed eye and one half of a frown’s curve. “What do ya want, Slate?”

I glanced around. The street was empty. “I gave a friend your address. Was hoping she had decided to stop by.”

“Sorry. Haven’t seen anypony.” The frown didn’t show any signs of cracking.

“Nopony at all?”

“Nope.”

I leaned in, trying to see around his body but the angle just gave me the wall.

“Is that all, Slate? I’m halfway through a bottle of ‘83 Chevalnon Blanc and don’t feel like sharing.”

“Yeah, that—”

My head tilted to the side, as I met his eyes. The only eyebrow in view raised.

“You know, Chief,” I said casually, leaning forward to press a hoof against the door. “You once told me that the Prench originally invented wine because they were too busy writing poetry to learn to drink anything stronger than mule piss.”

The frown twitched. “Did I? When was that?”

“You were pretty sauced at the time.” I cracked a grin. “I think it was after your second divorce a couple of years back, while you were talking my ear off at some dive bar, pounding back Old Manticore.”

His eye flared. “I think you must be mistaken, Slate. I wouldn’t use that paint thinner to drown a changeling.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Then it’s good we don’t have any changelings around, isn’t it?”

He nodded slowly. “Sure is. At least not any more. See, this is the second time you’ve come by tonight. But this time, I think you better come in, after all.”

Ruby Quartz was anxiously waiting a few steps past the foyer inside, and I whispered a muttered thanks to Celestia at finally getting a stroke of luck. She didn’t look happy with me.

“Took you long enough.”

“I had some other business to attend to. Thanks for trotting off with all the paperwork.”

She sniffed. “If you had been telling the truth, it wouldn’t have mattered.”

“Am I gonna have to separate you two?” the Chief asked, trotting in with a bottle of something dark in the crook of a foreleg.

“No,” I said. “Worked out for the best. But we have to figure out the next move.”

“We release the information.” Ruby’s lips twisted. “I don’t have any contacts but I mean if we get this to the papers, they’ve got to print it, right?”

“They would, but then what happens?” The Chief took a swig from the bottle and passed it over to me. “What if Luna has an agent in place to let her know first? She could act before the presses even get started. All we’d be doing is pushing up the timetables for a coup.”

“Then what? You two work for the government, can you get in contact with someone high up?”

“Not high up enough,” the Chief said. “Again, Luna would have her bases covered. Sompeony there to handle any problems, or else this would have gotten out way sooner.”

I didn’t even taste the alcohol as it burned in my throat. I proffered the bottle to Ruby but she scrunched up her nose in response. I took another long drink.

“No,” I said. “We bring this to Celestia herself.”

“How?” the Chief said sharply. “You expect to waltz into the palace and ask for an audience? Cause let me tell you how that’ll go.”

Ruby pursed her lips. “He couldn’t. But me, on the other hand...”

The Chief shook his head. “Look, I know you two probably haven’t had the luxury of keeping up with the evening news, but there’s a panic in the streets over changelings right now. They’ll have security doubled, with mandatory changeling screening to get anywhere remotely close to the Princesses.”

“Then how do we get in?” I mused.

“From below.”

The Chief’s brows furrowed, and I looked over sharply at the small grin on Ruby’s face.

“The crystal caves,” I said slowly. ““You worked in the palace. And since you’re a changeling and there was always that danger of being caught—”

“I knew a way out,” she finished.

“Which means you know a way in.”

She nodded. “There’s a route through the caves, but it comes out in the cliffside below the city itself.”

“I’ll need climbing gear then. Once we’re in, how difficult of a path is it?”

Ruby shrugged. “Not bad.”

“You’re going?” the Chief said. “Slate, that’s still a fool’s errand. Everypony in the city’s looking for you.”

“Good. Then none of them will expect me to show up at the palace.” I grinned. “I was there when this began. I plan on being there when it ends.”

“And I’m coming with you,” Ruby said. “Someone has to show you the way.”

The Chief shook his head, a smile crossing his face. “You’re crazy, you know that?”

“Damn right I know.” I rubbed my hooves together. “Ruby, can you draw out what you remember of the caves and the palace layout?”

The Chief muttered something about needing more liquor for this kind of thing and went for the kitchen, while Ruby busied herself with finding paper and sketching out a map. I felt a calm set in. It was time to get to work.

It took us couple of hours of arguing to iron out the details, and then the Chief and Ruby both adjourned to catch a few hours of sleep. I had agreed to do the same, but found myself sitting at the table instead, fiddling with the hat the Chief had been so kind as to provide. That little touch at least made me feel a little closer to equine again.

But there was something else weighing on my mind. I poured one last glass of whiskey and stared at it. One way or another, things were going to be resolved, and sooner rather than later. I should have been eager. Or maybe exhausted. But I wasn’t either. I was stuck, stewing in unease, one thing still left to gnaw on the back of my mind. It was a suspicion that hadn’t really left me since my conversation with Tangled Weave. Maybe even earlier.

My hoof bumped against the communication runecrystal weighing down my pocket and I took it out to set on the table next to the whiskey. It had regained a slight glow, drawing just enough ambient magical power to reactivate.

I ran my tongue over my teeth as I gazed at the crystal. Sometimes it’s better not to know, right? But this whole adventure had me lost in the dark so long that I was growing accustomed to it, surviving off my gut instincts and other senses instead. Now I could smell blood in the air. I just didn’t know whose it was. Or if it was really my own.

My hoof reached out to rest against the crystal’s cool surface and I could feel the straining of the magic in it reaching out for its twin, somewhere distant.

The chime sounded, as if somepony had flicked a tuning fork right by my ear. It rang out once. Twice. Then a voice.

“Hello? Red, where have you been? We don’t have a lot of time any more, I need you to get back so we can sort out the guards in—”

The sound cut out, the crystal returning to its burnt-out dullness. I could feel it already starting to painstakingly draw in magic once again.

“Who was that?” a voice called out. Ruby stood in the doorway, watching me.

“A friend,” I said dully.

Of course I had recognized the voice.

It wasn’t as if I would have forgotten what Paisley sounded like.

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