Do Changelings Dream of Twinkling Stars?

by Sharp Spark

Rating: teen
Tags: Alternate Universe, Other, Changelings, Original Character, Adventure, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark
Length: 39481

It's no easy job, tracking down changelings on the cold city streets, but I'm good at what I do. These days though, things are different. Something's rotten in the city of Canterlot and I intend to get to the bottom of it. Even if it kills me.

The name's Slate. Straight Slate, detective by trade. It's no easy job, tracking down changelings on the cold city streets, but I'm good at what I do. I've been doing this a long time, ever since the attempted invasion at the royal wedding. But these days... These days, things are different. Something's rotten in the city of Canterlot, and one way or another I intend to get to the bottom of it. Even if it kills me.

Note: Comments are likely to contain spoilers as the story progresses. If you're starting from the beginning, I recommend avoiding them until you've caught up to the chapters in question.

Cover image by: Coin-Trip39

Thanks are due to many people for help and inspirations, both large and small.

Published 2015-07-03 19:10:02 UTC
Last updated 2015-07-23 20:00:36 UTC

1: The Day Job

You can see Canterlot from just about anywhere in Equestria. The city of light, they call it. All spires, arches, ornamentation, like some spun sugar dessert for a high-class party.

You don’t see the rest until you get up close.

Ivory towers take a lot of upkeep and don’t have much room. The common pony has to make do without that kind of luxury. Take the the neighborhood I was walking through. It sat in the shade of the palace and housed the ponies that kept the noble world spinning, the types that ran everything while maintaining a respectable invisibility. Maids, gardeners, ponies that left every morning to staff the banquet halls and ballrooms and then came back to a flat the size of a shoebox to scrape together a meal for the family.

It was a street you didn’t come to without a good reason. Not because it was dangerous, no. These were decent, honest ponies – the kind who looked out for one another. The kind that didn’t have anything valuable to steal in the first place.

No, you didn’t come here unless you had a reason because to most of Canterlot, these ponies weren’t worth the time to even acknowledge. Sad but true, and I wasn’t any exception. I had my reason to be there.

I kept up a slow canter down the narrow street, my hooves thudding against the worn-down cobbles. No gilded roads down here. The buildings on either side were squat tenements, indistinguishable muddles of gray butting up against one another, breaking only for the occasional narrow alley or barred door.

The building I sought was like all the rest. Unremarkable. The wall had a poster plastered up, one of the old “See Something, Say Something” numbers from right after the big attempted invasion. It was still mostly intact. I could make out the snarling dark silhouette, though somepony had taken the opportunity to stencil on a moustache and top hat.

Ironic that it’d be here of all places.

I leaned on the door and it swung open. Despite the heavy frame, the lock had been busted at some point and never fixed. It was rusted over, so it had to have been a while.

The inside stairwell was bare but clean. In a rougher neighborhood there’d have been strung-out squatters using the place as shelter from the elements. Instead it was empty and quiet.

I needed apartment 313B. My hooves were loud as I climbed the concrete staircase and made my way through. There wasn’t another pony in sight, all the way to the door at the end of the hall: chipped blue paint on a wooden frame, a faded mat out front saying “Welcome”.

I knocked.

The door was flimsy, the hinges rusted over. I’d be able to shoulder through it, if necessary, but I was only midway through that thought when it opened the tiniest sliver.

“Can I help you?” a soft voice called out.

I doffed my hat, realizing a bit late that the gesture meant I had shown my horn. Don’t know whether I was off my game or deliberately pushing fate. I knew well enough it was always better to keep your cards as close to your chest as possible. “I’m looking for a Ruby Quartz.”

The door closed. I placed my hat back on and squared my shoulders, but heard a sliding sound as she undid the chain lock. The door swung open again.

“Come in,” she said, and trotted further into the apartment.

I followed, keeping my head on. There wasn’t much of an apartment to go into. One room, and it felt crowded with two bodies inside. The shutters on the single window were open, and the sunset threw an orange haze in the room.

Just the two of us, nowhere to hide another. My eyes roved around the small space, trying to pick up on any sign of expected company. Nothing that indicated a coltfriend who had stepped out for a walk around the block. That was unexpected but not unwelcome. Certainly made things easier.

“Can I get you something, Officer? Water? Tea?” Her voice was still soft. Uncertain, but not afraid.

I eyed her. Red coat, darker mane. Attractive in a plain way. Her file had her at twenty-two, but she carried herself with the weary resignation of someone older. “I’m fine. And it’s Detective. Detective Straight Slate.”

“You won’t mind if I start a pot for myself?”

“By all means.”

She pulled a battered kettle out of a cabinet and filled it with water. It went on an old-model thunderhead warmer. Wasn’t enough room in here for a proper stove. She turned back to me. “What can I help you with, Detective Slate?”

I used my magic to pull the grubby notepad from my jacket. Flipping to a blank page, I floated out its partner, a chewed pencil. “I had a few questions for you. Shouldn’t take much of your time.”

“About what?”

“Census information.”

It was a transparent lie, but she went along with it. She was an earth pony and wouldn’t be able to tell what I was really doing with my magic, but it doesn’t take a degree in math to put two and two together.

“Name?” I asked.

“Ruby Quartz.”

“That’s your original name?”

“Yes,” she said without hesitation.

I already knew it, but it was a nice test, back from the old days when we didn’t have the spell. There’s only a few ways to approach living a lie. You think before saying anything suspect, which makes the space between simple questions the tell. Or you keep on your hooves, lie big, and push through with confidence. That particular bird tends to crash hard on its own.

And then, occasionally, you got the smart ones, who knew their cover backwards and forwards. Those were the dangerous ones, because they were also smart enough to know that trouble would catch up with them sooner or later. And that meant having plans for such an eventuality.

“How long have you lived in Canterlot?”

“Three years.”

“Before then?”

“Baltimare.”

“Moved for work?”

"Yes."

“Which is…?”

“Assistant cook, administration wing of the palace.”

My eyes drifted to the gem on her flank. She winced slightly. “Odd cutie mark for a cook.”

She met my gaze levelly. “Have to make a living, talent or no.”

I made an affirmative noise. “Any family?”

“Not in Canterlot.” Of course.

“Married? Single?”

“Single,” she said, coming off sharp. “And not looking.”

“Just the questions I have to ask, ma’am.”

Her eyes lingered on the badge pinned to my jacket. “Didn’t know the Department of Equestrian Security ran errands for the Census Bureau.”

“We’re always willing to lend a hoof. Clarifying discrepancies. You know.”

“Mm-hmm. Such as?”

I flipped the notepad shut and tucked it away in my jacket. Enough time had passed for the spell to solidify, particularly since I decided to forgo the normal trailing sub-enchantments that would immobilize the target. She was clever but seemed harmless enough.

“Miss Quartz,” I said. “Are you a changeling?”

She didn’t so much as twitch. The silence stretched out as we stood there, until whistling broke through. She turned, biting down on a rag before grasping the handle of the teakettle in a mechanical motion.

I let the spell finish. All the energy that had been swirling in an invisible ley grid underhoof boiled up, wrapping around her. It steamed off in a fog of green, clearly visible to anypony with a pair of working eyes.

“Miss Quartz,” I continued, “I am legally obligated to inform you that this test constitutes onus probandi for astral banishment. Please come with me peacefully, and I will guarantee you are treated well until one of the Celestial Sisters can attend to—”

I barely threw up a shield in time to keep boiling water out of my muzzle. The kettle clanged off it half a second afterwards. She was out the window before I could say nay, and my knee slammed against the sill as I jumped to follow.

I tumbled out of the window, falling several hoofsbreadths to land on my shoulder hard, in a roll across cement. It was a wide, flat roof, the top of the shorter building next door. I ignored the pain in both front and back and staggered up. She was a red figure already at the edge of the next building and I forced myself into a gallop to follow.

She was young and full of the fearlessness that came from not having anything to lose. She soared across the gap between my building and the next with an easy leap.

I barely made it, my forelegs landing on solid stone while my backlegs scrabbled over a two-story drop. I hauled myself up with the strength of desperation.

She had halted mid-step to look back at me in alarm, but bolted off again seeing that I was okay. That moment of weakness gave me the window I needed.

She had youth on her side. I had a long-distance motor restraint spell and a crack shot with my horn.

The beam hit her in the barrel, locking up both of her back legs and causing her to fall forward in an ungainly slide across the roof.

I took my time, brushing some of the dirt off my jacket as I walked over. She dragged herself a few inches further with the strength of her forelegs, but stopped at seeing its pointlessness. Good for her. Better to go out with some dignity, I say.

I had caught my breath by the time I reached her. A modified flare spell arced into the sky, one coded to signal the Royal Guard. Never did care for their type, but I didn’t exactly feel up to dragging a full-grown pony down two flights of stairs and across the city on my lonesome.

“Why do you do it?” She looked up to me with emotion flowing in those dark eyes. I tried to pin down exactly what.

“It’s my job.” I chewed on the thought for a moment. “I could ask you the same question.”

Pity. It was pity in her eyes. “It’s my life,” she said simply.

I didn’t have much to say to that, and apparently, neither did she. We waited there, watching the sun slip below the horizon for good. The stars would be out soon.

There were a lot of stars in the sky these days.

By the time I got back to the DEqSec, the rush of a successful capture had curdled into something sour.

It bugged me, no pun intended. She was good. Smart. Had the right answers, the right attitude to slip through the cracks. But she had screwed up, too. When it came to the chase, if she had gone with her natural form, or even thrown on some pegasus wings, she would have been home free.

That’s what they normally did – fight or flight, and the latter literal. Didn’t usually work out for them. A restraint spell could lock up wings as easy as legs, and ugly as it was to say it, not everyone in my line of work felt inclined to catch a changeling gently on the way down.

But I couldn’t quit thinking of her staring at me, like of the two of us, I was the one to feel sorry for.

It made me long a little for the days when they’d come right at you, disguise off, fangs flashing. More dangerous, but cleaner that way. These days, more often than not, I wouldn’t even see a hint of carapace. Surprise, denial, sometimes a disgusted acceptance, but they’d go to the stars in the skins of ponies.

Maybe I was getting too old for this line of work. Too introspective. That’s what the whiz kids nipping at my heels would say, anyways. That was the way of the young, to know everything and understand nothing.

I walked into the office to get a face-full of just that.

“Slate!” he called out, raising an aluminum can high in the air. I could smell the cider on his breath from across the room. “Celebrate with us!”

His name was Rising Star, an unfunny joke on his work and career trajectory both. He had only been at the Department for Equestrian Security six months, and in that time set the records for changeling captures twice over.

Not all of them were clean. Nothing I could put a hoof on and call foul, but too many trips out on a ‘hunch’ that ended with somepony lighting up the night sky. I couldn’t recall the last time he had submitted a report of a detection spell that hadn’t come up green.

“What’s the word?” I muttered.

He hopped off the front secretary’s desk, the pretty mare behind it watching him with rapt adoration. “Rising Star just brought in Blueblood!” she chirped. “The Prince Blueblood!”

An eyebrow arched on my face. “Replaced? Have they found the original?”

“Naw,” Rising Star crowed. “Original bug, baby.”

“You’re telling me the single extant prince of the realm has been a changeling all along?”

“Yeah. I mean, think about it. It’s perfect. Who would ever think to test him?”

“You, apparently.”

The smirk that blossomed on his face was begging to be wiped off with forceful application of hoof. “You know it!”

I grunted and pushed past.

“Oh, Mister Slate!”

I paused, looking back as the secretary shuffled through some papers at her desk. “I have… somewhere… Aha.” She beamed at me. “The Chief wants to see you in his office.”

It took a force of will to stifle the grimace. “Thanks,” I said, walking onwards. Not to the cluttered hole nominally called an office that I shared with three others. To the big boss.

I paused in front of the frosted glass door to his office, pragmatism fighting with a generalized resentment in my stomach. I pushed it down and knocked. I wagered it was bad news either way. Not worth antagonizing him by muscling in unannounced.

“Come in!” he barked out and I did so.

The Chief hadn’t seen street work in a long time and it showed in his paunch. He sat behind his desk like a princess on her throne, and certainly acted the part here at the Department. At least he had some roots in the old-school like me. His desk was piled high with documents, requisitions, a thousand incident reports. None of that paperless-office wash.

“You wanted to see me?”

“Your numbers are low this month, Detective.”

I took a seat in front of the desk without being asked. “I just brought one in.”

“I’ve heard. South Guard Station sent over the paperwork.”

“Then there you go.”

He leaned over the desk. “A cook, they said.”

“Assistant cook. Administration wing of the palace.”

“Not good enough!” I didn’t flinch at the roar. He didn’t scare me, and both of us knew it, but I didn’t fault him the attempt. “You know that Rising Star just bagged a Prince?”

“So I’ve heard.”

“I’ve got brass riding my back over a supposed new wave of changeling invaders at the highest levels, and in the meantime you’re chasing down assistant cooks.” He shook his head. “Wake up, Slate. Lift up the rock and it’s crawling with bugs underneath. Wild timberwolves roaming the streets and you’re bringing me a pussycat.”

“You’re mixing metaphors there, boss.”

He fell silent. Calculating. “I’ve got a job for you.”

“I follow my own leads,” I said. “You know that.”

“Not this time.” He pushed a folder forward across his desk.

“What makes this any different?”

For a moment, the anger in his face flickered into regret. “Look, Slate, I respect you. You’re the best damn detective in this squad, you know that?”

I let him take an answer from my silence.

“I’m giving you this one out of that respect. It could easily be another notch in Star’s billet. But I figured you’d want to handle this one personally.”

“Meaning?”

He nodded down at the folder.

I stayed slumped in the seat, but slid the folder across the desk and into my hooves with a swish of magic. I opened it to come muzzle-to-muzzle with an old and very familiar face. I could taste bile in my mouth.

“No. Not her.”

The Chief wouldn’t meet my eyes.

“It has to be done, Slate.”

“And if I say no?”

“I’ve got a dozen other agents outside that door that’d line up for the privilege. Is that what you want?”

I stood up. Took my hat off. Put it back on.

“I’ll take it,” I said. He nodded. “And boss?”

“Yeah?”

“Go to hell.”

2: The Old Flame

I’ve never loved a pony like I did Paisley Pastel.

From the very beginning we got along like a house on fire – loud screaming, extensive structural damage, and the kind of heat that’d singe your coat right off. I met her when I was just getting started as a beat cop on the streets. Her parents hated me from the word go. That turned her on even more.

It was never stable enough to last. We swung between love and war like a pendulum, devoting a certain kind of white-hot passion to each. “I hope I never see you again!” someone would say, her or me. And then six months later a chance encounter would have us crashing back into one another again, two planets that could never quite escape the other’s pull.

That’s just how we were, and how we always would be.

Or so I thought, once. It had been a long time.

These days, she headed up PHAIR - Ponies for Harmony Across Interspecies Relationships. They billed themselves as speakers for those without a voice. Talk to one pony on the street, and they’d tell you the group performed a vital service in agitating for the rights of minotaurs, griffons, you name it. Talk to another, and you’d hear the whole thing was a front for changeling infiltration.

The truth was somewhere in between. Paisley always had some odd notions but she’d never compromise her ideals. And PHAIR did a lot of good work, chalking up more than a few judicial victories when it came to immigrants and workers’ rights. But anyone with an ear to the ground knew they offered different under-the-table ‘services’ where their progressive politics ran ahead of the law.

I had seen it myself, putting in the better part of a month running down a lead on a changeling, only to go in for the collar and find the place cleared out. No one in the building seemed to remember the neighbor that had been there the week before. It didn’t take much digging to discover all the trails, one way or another, led back to PHAIR.

I put it off for as long as I could manage, dodging the duty under pretense of finishing the incident report from last night. But by mid-afternoon, the Chief was throwing meaningful glances in my direction and I hit the street. Their offices had been in Hightown the last I knew, but the file I had been given listed them as over a storefront in the Market District. It was as good a place as any to start.

From the very beginning it was clear that I wasn’t the only one in town interested. Across the street, a crimson-coated pegasus leaned in the alcove to a nightclub that wouldn’t be opening for another six hours, diligently studying a newspaper like there would be a test tomorrow.

I knew the stallion, name of Red Harvest. We shared the same line of work, only his sleuthing was for-profit, private. Mostly divorce cases, as I hear that biz usually ran, but he occasionally took on serious investigations the Guards declined. I had in the past pulled notes for him on certain outstanding cases, and he returned the favor by helping with leads on bughunts of my own.

But it was a professional relationship and that was it. He cared about the bits at hoof and didn’t ask any more questions than necessary. Could have been working for anyone – it’s not like PHAIR didn’t have its share of interested enemies. And he took the ‘private’ part of private dick seriously. Wouldn’t be ratting out his client, not even if I did have the legal means to put some pressure on him.

I gave him a nod out of courtesy. His eyes glittered, but he gave the same in response. If nothing else, it was good to know I had a witness on the street, in case anything out of the ordinary happened.

I shelved my badge and trotted into the grocer’s below, intending to play it soft. Case the place before discreetly inquiring about Paisley’s whereabouts.

The reaction to my arrival disabused me of that idea.

It was a small store, busy but not crowded. Customers browsing the wares, business as usual. But at the dinging of the bell above the door all eyes were on me and not inclined to move. It appeared that today’s shoppers were regulars, and not in a way that meant they were there for groceries. I dialed up a placid smile and stepped forward to examine a cabbage.

No takers on that. The sounds of the market filtered in through the thin walls, but you could have heard a parsnip drop in the store. A mare poked her head in the door but decided that trouble wasn’t on her shopping list and backed out slowly.

The pony at the counter, a graying older stallion, cleared his throat. “I think that you should leave, son.”

I ran my tongue across my teeth. “I’m in dire need of some rhubarb. Baking a pie.”

His head jerked to indicate a sign pinned up behind the wall. We reserve the right to refuse service to anypony.

“Now now. That’s hardly fair.”

That pushed some buttons. A mountain crammed into a stallion’s skin stepped away from the radishes and towered over me. “You heard the pony. Time for you to scram.”

My eyes drifted up and then further up, taking his measure. The big ones are only used to one kind of a fight, the kind where they’re handling the choreography. This one was no exception, given the smirk on his face.

I doffed my hat and set it on a nearby cantaloupe. “Hey now,” I said. “Did you bring enough muscles for the rest of the class?”

He reared up, forelegs spread as steroidal savior. A few chuckles sounded from the peanut gallery and I weighed my options as I watched the muscles in his biceps flex.

The first thing you learn on the streets is that if you plan on starting something, make sure you finish it. The second is that the only pony worried about ‘rules’ in a fight is the one who doesn’t manage to break them first.

So when I slugged him it was aimed low, and I put a solid lean into it. He hit the floor like a sack of wet cement and all of a sudden the crowd didn’t have anything to chuckle about. From the gasping groan, he was down and staying, so I flipped my hat back onto my head and tried to stare down everypony in the room at once.

“Anyone else want to take a poke or can we move along here?”

They were made of sterner stuff than I imagined. Most of the time when you knock the gorilla out of the tree, the chimps scatter, but this crew still bristled. Another stallion took half a step forward and I grimaced.

Looks like this would be the hard way, alright.

“Hold it.”

A newcomer poked her head out of the door at the back. She was dressed like a secretary, brown eyes behind thick spectacles, black mane in a bun. But all it took was one word to get the undivided from my fellow shoppers. Somepony important, then.

“Ms. Pastel says to send him up. She’s been expecting him.”

She disappeared behind the door again. I looked down at the hulk, who was still clutching his gut and glaring up. “Sorry about that, big guy.”

He showed some teeth in response as I trotted around his prone form. I ignored the whispered consultations behind me and stepped light. My mind was already elsewhere, up those stairs and to an ex who had been expecting me.

That’s a hell of a thing to look forward to.

Up in PHAIR’s offices proper, ponies had much less time for me than the welcoming crew downstairs. I got my share of worried glances but everypony seemed more concerned with their own business.

That business being papers. Papers here that needed to be there, there that needed to be here, and more than anything else, papers that needed to cease existing altogether. I could smell the acrid scent of low-strength disintegration spells through the whole floor.

Something had them in a panic. Decent odds it was me.

Paisley was standing in the doorway of an office at the very back. I only caught a glimpse across the busy huddle of desks, but I’d recognize that body anywhere. She had been a model once upon a time, but never hungry enough for the limelight and too hungry for the skin-and-ribs physique. She still managed the sleek look. I could ramble about her coat or mane or eyes, but I’ll skip to the point – those legs. She had the kind of legs a guy could write similes about.

She caught my eye and stepped back into her office with a smile.

“She thinks very highly of you, you know?”

The secretary from before was at my side.

“You sure we’re talking about the same mare?”

Her eyes narrowed behind the thick frames. “I don’t see why, myself.”

“Must be my charming personality.”

She made a noise neither one way or another and walked forward, parting the angry sea of office work. I kept my head down and a close tail.

“Don’t waste too much of her time.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

And then the secretary was gone, diving back into the chaos to bark out orders like a general in a warzone.

I cleared my head and adjusted my hat. I had a meeting to get to.

Walking into that office was stepping back ten years.

“Good to see you, Straight. It’s been a long time.” She moved in front of her desk and ran a hoof through that aqua-streaked mane in a motion I knew all too well. She could pass for far younger than the records claimed, but stress and time had written lines across her muzzle. “Too long.”

“The last time we spoke, you called me a jackbooted fascist thug and threw a vase at my head.”

“Maybe I’ve had time to reconsider.” She stepped towards me but her smile didn’t touch her eyes. “These days I would throw something less expensive.”

“And lighter?”

“Don’t put words in my mouth.”

I reached up with a hoof to brush back her mane but she pulled away from my touch. I took my hat off instead, turning aside to set it on her desk. My horn lit up with magic. “You mind if I use a little charm to keep this conversation between us?”

“Don’t pretend that’s all you’re doing. You’ve probably reason to think a lot of bad things about me, but you know I’m not slow.”

My eyes drilled into the wall away from her as I kicked off the detection spell with a runner to keep our talk private in the meantime. “Nice place you have here.”

“You like it? Our old offices got firebombed last month.” She smirked at my expression. “We’re getting by, as we always do.”

“I hadn’t heard that.”

“It was a footnote in the papers, if they covered it at all. We’ve got some powerful enemies out there.”

“Let me guess, the attack was all part of some big conspiracy?”

“Hardly. A lone nutjob with a persecution complex who sees changelings around every corner.” She walked across the room to stare out a window, and my eyes instinctively followed the back and forth of her tail. “Physical attacks like that just make us martyrs. Donations over the past month have been better than ever.”

She turned to look me right in the eyes. “No,” she said, “I think if there was a conspiracy that wanted PHAIR out of the way, they’d play it smart. Discredit us. Cut off the head.” She let that hang in the air for a moment. “Frame the mare in charge as a changeling.”

“Is that what you think of me? I’m no one’s patsy.”

“Yeah. For better or worse, you’ve always been straight, Slate.” Her mouth quirked at the turn of phrase. “Believe it or not, I wasn’t certain which of us they’d take down first. You’ve always been too honest for your line of work.”

“The spell doesn’t lie.”

“The hell it doesn’t.” Her hoof slammed against the floor with enough force for the window to rattle. “Let me throw a few names at you. Tell me if any ring some bells. Silver Script.”

“Nope.”

“Pencil-pusher in City Planning. Sent to the stars as a changeling four months back.”

“So?”

“He was working on transit and security. Had drawn up a comprehensive guard patrol plan for the entire city that had to be immediately shelved afterwards. How about Jet Set?

“Huh? Some noble. A minor fuss when he was flipped as a changeling, sure.”

“Two and a half months ago. It skated by without much mention because he was a shmuck and everypony who was anypony knew it. You know how he made his fortune?”

“No, but I’m sure you’d love to tell me.”

“Weapons. His company provided arms and armor for the entire Day Division of the Royal Guard. Since the changeling thing, of course, that’s all had to change. They’re still managing the transition, using a patchwork fill-in of smaller manufacturers and scrounging leftovers from their Night counterparts.”

“Okay. I get it. But—”

“Prince Blueblood.”

“What are you saying, Paisley? DEqSec’s been deliberately setting ponies up?”

“You’re thinking small. This goes higher. This goes to the very top.” She closed her eyes, and for a moment, the facade cracked. I could see the exhaustion. I wondered how long it had been since she had a full night’s sleep.

Her eyes opened again and her mask of quiet confidence snapped into place. “They started with the little guys, those who wouldn’t be missed but still posed some kind of threat. And moved on to the ponies no one could stand, hoping everyone would be so happy to see them go that they wouldn’t ask questions.”

“Even if a tenth of what the tabloids say about Blueblood are true, he’s too big. Questions are gonna be asked.”

“Exactly. They’re entering the last phase of whatever their plan is.”

“So who’s ‘they’? Who wants Canterlot weak?” I let out a bark of humorless laughter. “Another changeling invasion? And here I was, thinking I was the one preoccupied with bug-hunting.”

She shook her head, ignoring the barb. “I’m still not certain myself. I know how to find out. But I need help.”

“Me? I—”

I heard some muffled commotion from outside.

Paisley grimaced. “Looks like we’re out of time. Cast the spell.”

“What?”

“Cast the spell, Straight.” I hesitated, but she stared back with a familiar steely insistence. “Now.”

I released my hold on the magic, and the tendrils of power flowed up. I could feel them spiral as they encircled Paisley, but nothing was visible until the corona of green enveloped her.

“Paisley,” I whispered. After all of it, her whole spiel, I should have known. I should have known from the moment I opened that file in the Chief’s office. Seeing the green still hit me hard in a place that I didn’t know could still hurt. “Why?”

She crossed the room in one long stride as the door burst open, and I felt her lips press against mine with a heat and intensity matching the heights of our old times.

“Step away from the changeling,” a voice barked out.

I ignored it and kissed back like a drowning sailor hanging onto his lifeline. A pair of guards had to pull us apart, and I gasped, suddenly remembering a need to breathe.

“Ma’am, under Equestrian law, it is my obligation to inform you that…”

His words were just a buzzing as Paisley and I kept our eyes locked on one another. Her mouth moved in a subtle motion, but I caught the words she never spoke.

“Trust no one.”

Then she was gone.

They ignored me after that, too busy with turning the entire office upside-down, confiscating anything not nailed down and terrorizing the workers. I hadn’t called for backup. Particularly a whole squad of the Day Guard. But clearly someone thought I needed it. Maybe they were right.

I don’t know what they did need me for.

I made my way out, sleepwalking through the motions. I didn’t check to see what she had slipped into my jacket pocket during the kiss until I was well clear of the building.

Paisley always was good with her hooves.

3: The Hard Fall

When I got back to the office, I dispensed with the knocking. I burst into the Chief’s office breathing fire and snorting lightning.

He was leaning back in his chair. Way back. He stared at the ceiling, both forelegs folded over his gut. I didn’t let it throw me off.

“What the hell were the Crowns doing there? I didn’t call for any backup!”

He remained in place, but his eyes slid down to me. “Hm?”

“You know what I’m talking about. Who called in the Royal Guards? I had things firmly in hoof.”

“Don’t know anything about that,” he said.

“Yeah, well, someone thought I needed the push. Who else knew about the op?”

“Could be the same pony who called in the tip in the first place.”

“And that was?”

“Anonymous.”

My eyes narrowed. “We don’t bring ponies in based on anonymous tips. You’re telling me that you sent me to go kick a hornet’s nest on that alone? What if it had been wrong? A high profile mistake like that is egg all over the Department’s face.”

“Didn’t have much choice. Word came from above to follow through. Passing it onto you was my only play in the matter.” He sat up, and then leaned over to open the bottom-right drawer in his desk.

Two glasses hit the table with a clink, followed by a bottle of something dark.

“Scotch?” he offered.

My anger was fading, disarmed by the lack of a pushback. I expected a shouting match. Not whatever this was. I nodded once, stopping to watch the Chief more carefully. “Breaking out the bottom drawer? You planning on sacking me, boss?”

He laughed, hearing a joke I hadn’t told, and poured the scotch.

“You ever miss the old days, Slate?”

I grunted an affirmative and reached for my glass.

“I think what I miss most of all is the certainty,” he said. “Black and white, good and evil. When I felt like I was doing my part to save something. That’s always been an illusion, but a pleasant one. One I used to believe in.”

“I’ll drink to that,” I said, and did.

“But being put in charge, you start to see that there’s nothing but compromises. Everywhere you look. You muddle along, you try to do what’s right, or at the least, what’s least-wrong. And somewhere along the lines the job changes from protecting the nation to protecting the status quo. And maybe, if you let it keep slipping, to just protecting your own hide.”

“The spell was supposed to help,” I offer. “Make things cleaner. Back to good and bad.”

He snorted. “It’s all politics. Sure, it’s nice to be able to point to that and say ‘hey, changeling here, have at it boys’. But it’s one more illusion. And… the spell’s only as honest as the pony who casts it.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

He looked at me steadily for a long moment before turning his attention back to his scotch.

“I’m retiring. You’ve always been one of my best, Slate. You should know that.”

“Why? Why now? Another word coming from above?”

“I recommended you for my job. Don’t think my opinion holds much weight anymore though.”

“That wasn’t an answer to my question. You’re going to let this happen?”

He sighed. “If I were ten years younger, maybe I might have fought. But no. I’m done. I gave this job everything, you know? And it gave me back a drinking problem and a silver-plated watch.” His eyes met mine. “If you’re smart, you’d cash your chips now. Leave this mess behind and get out while you can.”

I set the glass down on the desk with a clink.

“Probably so. Too bad I’m not so smart.”

A ghost of a smile crossed his muzzle. “Too bad.”

Standard procedure is to hang around immediately following a collar, handle the forms and reports. Ponies don’t quite realize just how much of a detective’s job is paperwork. I’ve never minded it. When someone’s going to end up lighting up the sky at the end of the day, it’s best if there’s no questions about the how and why.

Today all I had were questions. I decided to take a walk.

It’s easy for a changeling to look the part, but mannerisms, speech patterns, all that was harder to nail. That’s why it was rare to have a true replacement job. We had to clean up some infiltrators in the weeks following the big invasion, but since then the vast majority tried to skate by as immigrants with conveniently out-of-the-picture family connections.

The years since I had last spoke with Paisley meant little. I knew her, and I knew the mare I had seen was the same as she had ever been. That meant one of two things. Either she had pulled a long con with the deepest cover I’d ever heard of, or the spell had come up wrong.

The first was patently impossible. The second was a punch to the gut.

The Celestial Sisters themselves came up with the spell, so they say. I believed it. It was a complicated tangle of thaumaturgy and divination, with optional sorcerous subroutines packed in. All tied up in a knot like extra credit at the pretzel academy. It took me a month to learn how to cast it. Can’t say I understood its inner workings. Can’t say anyone did.

But its accuracy was unquestioned. Unimpeachable. You got green and there was changeling blood running under that pony hide. As long as the pony behind it was on the level, casting straight. And I always did.

If it could be wrong… How many ponies had I personally locked in an astral prison?

Pounding the streets didn’t bring me any closer to an answer. All I saw were faces. After a while, all I saw was one face in particular.

Eventually I could see the sun setting, and I headed home. I couldn’t face the night sky. Not tonight.

I lived in an second-story apartment in Lower Westside. It was a dump. I didn’t mind. It was cheap, and around the corner from a dive bar even cheaper.

I didn’t feel like drinking either. Paisley was onto something, and my words with the Chief only confirmed it. I could feel it, something crackling around the edges of my perception. There was a storm coming, and I wouldn’t be caught swimming in whiskey when the lightning rolled in.

I found my front door unlocked. Not the way I had left it.

Not unheard of. I’d had break-ins before. I dealt with them by not having anything to steal in the first place. But today? On top of everything else?

My horn lit a spell, a short-range paralysis with a kick that I could keep cycling until I needed it. I opened the door slowly, pausing just short of the angle where the hinges squealed. I squeezed in, closing and locking it behind me.

The place was dark. Quiet. My hat stayed down to hide the glow of my horn.

I took a long walk down the short hall, keeping my hoofsteps soft on the wood floor. I heard it then. Soft, regular breathing.

I waited in the quiet. My ears turned, tracking the sound to its source.

Then I moved. I reared back before slamming my hooves, sending a spark to turn on every light in the place and keeping my horn aimed at the intruder.

Rising Star reacted with a full-body spasm, going from an even sleep to wide-awake as he hit the floor next to my couch.

“The hell are you doing here?” I growled.

All I got was a groan. I kept the spell cycling as he sat up, rubbing his head.

“Hey bro.”

I considered frying him anyways. But the paperwork would be atrocious. With a grimace, I let the spell wind down and dissipate.

“Where’ve you been?” He fumbled with his hooves along the floor, coming up with a pair of dark shades to put back on his face. “Don’t tell me you were celebrating without me!”

“Oh?”

“I brought you a little somethin’-somethin’.” He lifted up some cider, aluminum cans bound together by plastic rings.

“Didn’t know they sold them in four-packs now.”

“I did a little pre-party partying. You know.” His horn lit up and he tore another can off, floating it in my general direction.

“Not thirsty.”

He shrugged and the can opened with a hiss of fizz, coming to a rest in the air next to him. “You gotta lighten up, my man. You should be happy.”

I kept him in the corner of my eye and trotted around to take a quick glance into my bedroom. Empty. “Why’s that?” I called back.

“Landing the head of PHAIR? That’s big. The higher-ups have been wanting them out of the way for ages.”

I turned back to him sharply. “Which higher-ups?”

He took a sip of the cider before answering. “You know. Higher-ups.”

“The Chief?”

His smile was a constant. I couldn’t see his eyes past the shades.

“What about you?” I said. “What about Blueblood?”

“Consider this dual-purpose. Killing two bugs with one brew.”

“You never did tell me the story. What gave you the idea to go for the Prince, of all ponies?”

“Came to me in a dream. What can I say? I’ve got good instincts.”

“Uh-huh.”

He lapsed into silence. Not modesty, just disinterest. But uncharacteristic – Rising Star had always been his own biggest fan. I watched him, trying to figure out his play.

Then it came, a creeping realization I would have dismissed out of hoof yesterday.

“Put the cider down, Star.”

His head tilted to the side, horn still lit. Cider still floating in his aura. Magic still in use. “Dude, you don’t even have any coasters.”

I reached out, felt it. Touched the barest edge of the leylines swirling underhoof, still coalescing but almost there. That’s what this all was.

A setup. The bastard was running the detection spell on me.

His grin twitched the slightest amount. He knew I knew and didn’t care. He would be covered, safeguards and protective wards. He was the kind of guy that goaded you into firing the first shot, so there’d be no questions when he unloaded in return. He’d turn right back at me any magic I could shake together.

He was a step ahead of me.

So I took two.

I put my head down and slammed into him with a shoulder, hard and fast. He was young and fit but I had played left tackle in college and still had fifty pounds on the kid. I laid him out blue-skies. That’s when I heard the wrenching tear.

That’s the thing with spells, complicated ones. They took attention. Lose that midway through something big and all the energy has to find an outlet somewhere.

Cords of magic whipped through the air as the leylines below suddenly lost cohesion. Uncontained elements started spiking, and a trail of fire lashed across the couch, enough for it to catch. It went up in flames as I heard shouts from out in the hall at the racket.

I spared a glance at Rising Star, flat on his back and gasping for breath, and delivered a kick to the ribs for good measure. I didn’t have a backdoor. And just as I was considering the front, it caved in, the door splintered off its hinges. A pegasus and unicorn guard pair fought each other to squeeze through.

My eyes caught the one window and I gritted my teeth and moved before my brain could inform me as to what a bad idea it was.

I leapt through, glass shattering as the street below rushed up to meet me.

...

That’s something they don’t tell you about in the movies. Jumping through a pane of glass hurts like hell. I don’t recommend it.

The cobblestones would have hurt a lot more if a fruit stand hadn’t got in the way. It broke my fall, and my fall broke the better part of its stock of melons. Still felt like every bone in my body had been given a good shake, at least until the effects of the glass caught up. A thousand cuts played a symphony of pain across my coat and the slippery red spilling out of the wrecked stand wasn’t all fruit juice.

My head spun but I forced myself upright. I could hear shouts above, and looked up to see smoke streaming out of my building. I didn’t have time to tally bruises.

I made it into the shadows of an alley just as a team of guards rounded the corner. Their commander took one look and started addressing the flaming elephant in the room. Good for him – this whole side of town was kindling ready to ignite if not dealt with. Good for me too. I disappeared before anyone saw me and thought to ask questions.

That alley led to another. And another.

My hooves knew their way around the city. Thankfully, because the streets in my eyes were beginning to swirl into indistinguishable shapes.

I was losing a lot of blood, I knew. I kept moving because the alternative was to stop for good.

Had I been in my right mind, I don’t know where I would have ended up. I had friends.

Scratch that.

I had associates. Most of whom I trusted. And a few I figured wouldn’t even stab me in the back until I had repaid a loan or two.

But where my hooves took me… Let’s just say, when you’re being trailed by timberwolves, they’re not gonna follow you into a hydra’s den. But all you’re doing is changing one set of problems for another, even toothier one.

I stopped in front of the door, an unmarked one in a back alley. I was considering whether I could make it somewhere different when everything started draining of color, like someone had turned up the contrast.

I lifted my hoof to rap on the door, but it didn’t seem to want to listen. As I fell forward into blackness, my head did a pretty good job of knocking on its own.

4: The Interested Parties

I woke up in an unfamiliar bed. The room was dim. No windows. At least I had to assume – too dark to see the walls. The only light came from a bare bulb above me, but I could see a chair at the edge of view.

And in that chair, she sat waiting. Watching.

Of course it would be her. No sense complaining about the getting the tiger’s attention when you’re the one who’s pulled its tail.

See, Tangled Weave was, hooves down, the most dangerous pony in Canterlot.

You wouldn’t know it by looking at her. She could have passed for someone’s grandmother. Gold-rimmed reading glasses, mane a faded grey, the kind of dresses that went out of style when I was still investigating the finer points of ‘the pig says oink’.

They say she always wore the dresses to hide her cutie mark. That no one had ever seen it and lived to talk. That it was a web. Or eight eyes. Or that blue mark that gave star spiders their moniker. Lots of arachnid imagery, basically.

That’s what they called her – “The Spider” – but only muttered as a curse among close friends, never where there might be ears that could get it back to her. She didn’t care for the comparison, and ponies in the habit of using it also had a tendency to suddenly go missing. Not anything she did directly. No blood on her hooves, nothing so crass. She’d simply whisper a few words in the right ear and the next day somepony would find they had a new special talent. Growing daisies in an unmarked field out of town. From below.

She probably encouraged the rumors. The aging mare came across as unthreatening in person, but I knew the score as well as anypony. Tangled Weave ran the underside of Canterlot. Gambling, smuggling, racketeering – if it was of questionable legality and unquestionable profitability, somewhere along the line she had her hoof in the pie.

But never so far in that it could be traced back to her, either. She kept exactly the right distance so when someone else took a fall she wouldn’t be caught in the splash. My counterparts over in organized crime probably had a file on her the size of a small library, waiting for her to slip up. But if I had to put bits down, I’d wager they’d still be waiting for a long time to come.

It meant she was a pony who knew things. And if she didn’t have the answers, she’d know how to get them. As long as I could afford the price or convince her that it was somehow in her own interests.

Oh. And there was one further matter that complicated things. She was Paisley Pastel’s mother.

Noting my return to the realm of the waking, she smiled at me, muzzle offering a hint of matronly concern. “Feeling better, Mr. Slate?”

The sharp pain had faded away to a muted stinging. I reached up to feel stitches across what had been a deep gash above my eye. “I’m not dead, at any rate.”

“No. No, you are not.” She stood, moving slowly, deliberately. “Yet, you are not quite alive, either.” Her voice was friendly, light, as she made her way to the bed. “I have this nephew, delightful boy, working on a physics degree, who told me of the most interesting experiment. There is this box, you see, and inside there is… an animal of some sort? Hm.”

“A cat?”

“Very good! You have heard of it, then. Yes, you are like this cat in the box. Perhaps we will find that you are alive and well. Perhaps you will have died, lonely and forgotten in a back-alley last night. And perhaps, we will open the box and you will simply cease to exist. Wouldn’t that be exciting?”

“Not so much for me.”

“Oh yes, that’s true.” She reached out with a hoof to smooth down the blanket at the edge of the bed. “You’ll simply have to keep that from happening then, hm?”

“That’s my intention. So what happens now?”

“You tell me your story, Mr. Slate. And you hope very strongly that it’s a good one.”

I nodded. I knew better than to try to be clever. “Yesterday afternoon, I walked into your daughter’s office and arrested her on the grounds of being a changeling.”

I caught the flinty sharpness in her eyes. Slight surprise, mostly appraising. “Your honesty is refreshing.”

“Don’t tell me this is news to you.”

“Hardly. I have eyes in the places I need them. But I am indeed interested as to why the papers tell a different story.”

That was news to me. She caught the look on my face and inclined her head slightly.

A figure stepped out of the shadows next to us and a copy of the Canterlot Courier dropped onto the bed. The figure moved back and was gone before I could get anything more than a vague outline.

I glanced at the headline. Changeling Conspiracy! Head of PHAIR Under Arrest! Underneath, Rising Star’s mug shared space with an old publicity shot of Paisley. I skimmed the text. He hadn’t just gotten the credit for my collar. No. They had named him the new Chief of DEqSec.

“So I’m cut out entirely.”

“They saved some room for you, page five. Rogue arsonist on the run. It’s… less flattering.”

“It was a setup. All of it.”

“What makes you say that?”

“The stitches over my eye, among other things.” I grimaced. “What else could it be?”

“It does certainly seems like somepony out there doesn’t like you.”

“I could think of a few. But if I knew the players, I wouldn’t have knocked on your door. Point me to the stallion in the other corner and I’ll come out swinging but right now I’m fighting blind.”

“Oh?”

“I need answers. There’s too many blanks to fill in.”

“You’re hardly in the position to be making requests,” she murmured.

“I didn’t come empty-hoofed.”

“I presume you’re referring to this?” It gleamed in Tangled Weave’s hoof. A small vial holding a bright green fluid, practically glowing in the dim light. It was Paisley’s final gift to me, slipped into my pocket while mind and mouth were otherwise occupied.

“Yeah. I’m not sure what it is, but figured it’d be of interest to you.”

“Mmm.” She held the vial up to examine in detail. “I admit a certain curiosity as to how this came into your possession, at least here in Canterlot. They call it Chrys.”

“A drug?”

“Of sorts. A cocktail of crystallized emotion, laced with certain tailored hormones. For changelings, it’s like injecting pure, unconditional love. Dangerous, but makes them faster, tougher, able to effortlessly shift forms… and more than a little crazy.”

“What does it do to ponies?”

She paused, eyes tracing over me as she contemplated her next words.

“Nothing. Or at least nothing good, maybe some nausea and pain from the body rejecting foreign matter. Only…”

The liquid was thick and shifted slowly as she rotated the vial in her hoof. It gleamed that same green, light coming from within. I gave her a moment but when no more words seemed forthcoming, prodded further. “Only?”

“Only word is that someone’s been working on a new formula. Something that incorporates enough changeling genetic material to render it effective for ponies. To make it something beyond just a high for a very limited audience. To make it a tool.”

Genetic material. A light flickered on in my head. “Useful,” I said.

She hoofed the vial over to me. “Less so than you’d think. Who knows if it really works? And for that much trouble, might as well hire a real changeling. I sure hope that’s not your big offer.”

I was quiet. More pieces of the puzzle had clicked into place, but for each question answered, three more took its place. Why was I involved here? And the bigger picture. Blueblood’s ugly mug floated to the fore. Something else was happening behind the scenes. I needed to know more, about what really mattered. But Paisley had given me the vial for a reason – she had given me the lead. I knew what door to knock on next.

“I need your help,” I said.

“Of course you do,” she said dryly. “But I’m not certain why I should bother. It has been a delight working through your personal crises, Mr. Slate, but what reason do I have not to just toss you back? Maybe the law will even spare me a favor for my trouble.”

“Something big is in the works. You’ve got eyes and ears. You know it’s true. Probably much better than I do.”

She peered over those glasses at me. “Perhaps.”

“Maybe when it all comes to a boil, it’s duck soup for you, as the griffons say. But then again, maybe not. Someone’s behind this. A pony doesn’t go to all the trouble of flipping the board if they know they’ll still be losing when the pieces are set back up.”

The smile had dropped from her face. But she was still listening. I pushed forward. “You’ve got a good thing here. Any kind of shake-up’s going to be bad for business. So say you wind me up and send me off. Worst case scenario, I get busted, light up the sky and things proceed as normal for you. But say I figure things out. Gum up the works for somepony else. Maybe that goes on the board in your column.” I took a breath and played my trump card. “And maybe I can find Pasley. Get her out of this.”

Interest flickered in her eyes. “You really think you can do all that?” she asked. “You’re a wanted stallion and you think you can fix this all on your own? Clear Paisley, stop whatever’s coming down the pike?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “But I figure I can break a few well-deserving teeth.”

She was quiet for a long time.

“You present an interesting proposition, Mr. Slate. You understand better than most just what position my daughter is in. She’s of enough import for there to be Royal interest. Even with the resources at hoof, I find myself unable to do much in relieving that situation favorably.”

“Then help me save her.”

“You really think you can?”

I gritted my teeth. “No. But I’m going to damn well do my best.”

“I shall hold you to that, then. But I will caution you: if you intend to drag me into your own downward spiral, you’ll find that a difficult task.”

“Of course.”

“So tell me. What is it that you need?”

“Information. There’s a pony I’d like to talk to.”

Tangled Weave provided me with a name, an address, and a firm push out the door. That was square with me. I didn’t want any more red in my ledger than absolutely necessary. And I didn’t concern myself with asking how to find her again.

She would find me, probably sooner than I’d like.

My jacket was singed ‘round the edges but I had paid well for something that’d hold up and it did just that. It was a shame to have to hock it to a bum two blocks over in exchange for a threadbare sweater and a derby that had seen better days. Both carried the smell of booze that had gone down rough and come back up rougher.

I would be a sap to be caught anywhere near my old place, much as I’d have liked to go back to see if my hat made it through the commotion intact. The derby would do. I still felt better with something covering my horn.

And most of all, I looked like a street stiff. Ponies in this town learn very early on never to make eye contact with a bum – look aside and step smartly on. I didn’t know how much heat was on me, but the fewer ponies giving me the curious eye the better.

That’s why I stuck to side alleys on the way to the address I had been given. I fell into a shambling gait, dropping the starched-and-straight cop stride, and kept to the shadows.

The trail led me to a Hightown intersection. Midday the streets were sparse. Most ponies were still punching the clock, overgrown ants in the hive of bland office buildings that stretched towards the sky. The only fixture on the street was a stallion hoofing out flyers for a pizza place three blocks over. I ambled over to him.

He gave me a once over and didn’t approve of what he saw. “Beat it, pal.”

“Pass me five bits and I’ll take over on that stack of papers,” I offered.

He gave that more consideration. “Who’s to say you don’t take the money and vanish as soon as I turn the corner?”

“Who’s to say you should care? You wouldn’t rather skip out for a drink?”

That got a snort out of him. “What the hell. If you make it for three. They don’t pay me enough for this.”

“They never do.”

Ponies learn to avoid looking at anypony who wants a hoofout, alright. But they tend to be equally proficient at blowing off someone giving a hoofout. And somepony who could go either way? I might as well have had an invisibility spell strapped on.

I only had to wait around half an hour before she strolled out of the the office building two doors down on my side of the street. She walked right past me without batting an eye.

Raven was the name, if my information was to be trusted. And Tangled didn’t make mistakes. She was indisputably the pony I wanted, the bespectacled secretary from the offices the other day and Paisley’s number two at PHAIR.

She had the muscled goon from downstairs with her. I decided to give them some space. Wasn’t sure that she’d be pleased to see me and I was in no mind to start a scene.

The flyers went in the nearest bin and I tailed them from a block back. It wasn’t hard. They were oblivious.

The unexpected part was I wasn’t the only pony interested. A pegasus skulked after them, coat a dusky crimson and uncovered cutie mark a stalk of ripening wheat. It was twice in as many days that I had seen the familiar face, but I still was in the dark on his motives.

Between staking out the offices and tailing their secretary, Red Harvest must have been on the clock for someone with some serious interest in PHAIR’s higher ups. I wondered if it was arrogant to worry that he had switched to shading them to rope me. I didn’t figure it worth finding out for sure.

He knew what he was doing, but I kept my distance, and he was too focused on his marks to pick up on me. I took the lesson to heart and kept one eye on him and one eye open in case I had picked up a follower of my own. Paranoia is a healthy attitude in this sort of business.

Our little parade wound its way through Hightown, heading further and further south until we reached some more familiar territory on the verge of Market District. When they stopped in front of a cafe I knew, Red went slack, pausing at a newsstand to peruse their wares. They had ended up at an unassuming place that I knew had a certain reputation, an establishment where the coffee was hot and the help knew when to stay away from a conversation. Raven was meeting someone. I pushed the lingering questions aside and took a post of my own loitering in the entrance to a shuttered store, eyes sharp.

Eventually an earth pony showed up. Green on green, a patch of grass on his skinny flank, lacking that normal earth pony robustness. Not a pony I had ever seen before, and I labeled him ‘Weedy’ in my head as I watched him give a stilted nod as a greeting to Raven. They moved inside, and Red made no move to follow, content to stake out the place from the front.

I didn’t have much of an option. I had to get in somehow, but I didn’t want to risk setting off Red. So I went back to an old trick, and stepped into an alley briefly to talk business with one of the ubiquitous streetponies. I told him I was playing a prank on an old buddy. I doubt he believed me, but his eyes lit up at the coin I flashed.

A few minutes later, Red found his attention abruptly taken by a dirty pony looking for a few bits. The situation went south in a hurry, with my accomplice pulling off an unbalanced screaming meltdown that seemed uncomfortably genuine. Red bodily dragged him out of the main street, not thrilled at the spectacle, and I had my opportunity to step lively to the cafe.

I knew it wouldn’t be long before the bum let something slip and Red would realize something was up, enough to make a better offer to spill the plan and my profile. That’d put me on his radar, if I wasn’t already, but it was worth it to get past him. If everything went as planned, I’d be out of there without him ever laying eye on me.

Upon hitting the inside, I found that I was in luck – the waitress hanging out at the front was an old friend. I could tell from the cautious look she threw my way that she had heard about my current disagreements with the law, but she was nothing if not a professional. She’d keep her mouth shut. I slipped her a few bits in a familiar transaction that meant I was there for business and wanted to be left alone. She spirited them away and I had never been there in the first place.

I could see my friends had grabbed a spot near the back. Raven was clever enough to take a seat that gave her a clear view of the entrance, but looked to be too wrapped up in her conversation to claim the benefit. I slipped into the adjoining booth, ears flicking.

They were working in low whispers, but with only the seat behind me in the way, I could make out the highlights. Particularly since the gabbing quickly began to get a little steamed.

“What do you want me to do? I told you. He’s gone rogue.”

“Get him in line, Ms. Raven.” That voice had to be Weedy, a halting, nasally whine that didn’t do him any favors. “We allowed your plan to proceed because it aligned with our interests. But you didn’t follow through with your end of the bargain. There’s a problem here that you need to fix.”

“I can’t fix this. The whole plan’s been shot.”

“Then find a new plan. Or are you incapable of doing so? Do I need to talk with… someone higher up?”

“No. No, of course not.”

“We are on a very strict timetable.”

“Don’t you try to bully me. I could bring all of this crashing down, you know? I know things! I could talk!”

A silence grew. My ears swiveled, straining to pick up a response..

It finally came in a whisper. “That would be unwise. We assumed you could be trusted.”

“I— I’m just saying. Tell her it’s fine. I’ll think of something. Tell her I need more time.”

“Very well.”

There was a soft noise as somepony stood up.

“That’s it?”

“Yes. Just a warning. Don’t disappoint us, Raven.”

I kept my head down and the derby shadowing my eyes as Weedy moved past me and towards the front. I didn’t look up until I heard the jingle of the door’s bell.

Raven and her muscular friend were still there. I could try and make a run at tailing their departing friend, but that’d be heading right into Red’s hooves. And this was probably the best opportunity I’d have at talking to the lady without any itching ears around..

I stood and trotted to their table. The heavy bristled immediately. Raven was preoccupied toying with her straw. “Someone here order a hayfries?” I said.

“No. Go away, we didn’t—” Her eyes flicked up to me and she did a doubletake. “Why are you here?”

“The sparkling conversation.” I motioned to the big guy. “Dust off, biceps. Me and the lady need to exchange words.”

He growled at me. “He’s not going anywhere,” Raven snapped.

I figured she needed a good reason to change her mind. My hoof dipped into a pocket and I flashed the vial of changeling juice at her.

From the look of shock that flashed across her muzzle, it struck a nerve. She put her poker face back on. “Weights, take a walk around the block. I’ll call you if whatever.”

He started to put up a fuss but from the look she stabbed him with, quickly thought better of it. He made sure to ‘accidentally’ slam his shoulder into me on the way out.

I slid into the seat opposite Raven.

“Where did you get that?” she hissed.

“Well, that’s what I wanted to talk about, actually. One Paisley Pastel.”

“What about her?”

“Yesterday. Paisley’s no changeling. The whole setup was fishier than Tuna Tuesday at the Beak & Talon. But you know that, don’t you? In fact, I bet you know exactly who was behind it all.”

“Oh?” A smirk crossed her face. “Oh. I see where this is going. You’re going to accuse me of setting her up. She takes the fall, and there I’m free to move in and take her place.”

“Nah, I had another name in mind.”

She rolled her eyes. “Then tell me, Detective. Who framed Paisley Pastel?”

I leaned back in my seat, smiling.

“She framed herself.”

6: The Clever Dupe

If you work as a detective for any length of time, you’ll eventually wind up running down a lead in hostile turf. The key is always confidence. Step high, make like you’re in the middle of important business, and for the love of Celestia, don’t stare at everything like a tourist right off the train. I’d been in worse situations. I’d certainly never had a cover quite so accommodating.

“Oh! Mr. Rising Star!” the girl at the desk in front chirped as I blew in.

I nudged the specs down a shade, laying it on thick. “What d’ya got for me, babe?”

“Oh, uh!” She blushed a fetching pink and twiddled her hooves. “You’re in a little early. I don’t have the papers you wanted me to pull yet.”

In early, indeed. It was mid-afternoon, but I knew Star’s habits. Would have been too risky to sport his face if I thought he’d already be hanging around.

“Having trouble with it?” I asked, impatiently glancing ahead.

“N-no. It’s just that no one’s needed anything that far back in the archives in a while, even if there’s not a whole lot that mentions Princess Celestia directly…”

That turned my head. “Celestia?”

She blinked. “Yes. You did say everything we have related to her, right? I didn’t screw that up, did I?”

“No,” I said. “Everything. Good.”

I figured I had a handle on Star’s modus operandi. He was a pawn, but even a pawn could occasionally take a bishop. Or whatever the hell Blueblood was.

But Celestia? He wouldn’t. Not even he could be that stupid.

I shook my head hard to clear it, but another face popped up, unbidden.

“Hey, do you know what cell belongs to that PHAIR broad we pulled in the other day?”

Making the play to get Paisley out would be tricky, but… even Tangled Weave aside, I owed her that much. With Rising Star’s authority, it might not be too difficult. I could claim to need her for questioning, sneak her out the back way, we’d be gone before—

“Oh. She was transferred to the palace early this morning.”

“What?” I said, and seeing the secretary flinch, I realized I had put more bang into it than needed. “That’s…” I took a moment to think, and forced a joke in my voice. “That’s not standard procedure.”

She smiled very tentatively. “B-but you said just yesterday… Um. ‘We don’t have enough room in the basement cells for all the changelings in Canterlot.’ We’re supposed to send them to the palace for expedited punishment.”

“Expedited.” I couldn’t hide the wince. “Right. I forgot. Big night out celebrating last night, you know what I mean? Ha ha.”

She giggled with relief. “You know I always tell you to take it easy.”

I took a step away, when her voice rang out again.

“Oh! And I almost forgot. You’ve got a visitor. I just sent him ahead to your new office.”

I shook my head, turning back with my mouth in a wry twist. “Thanks babe.”

“Is everything okay?” she asked, her eyes wide and dewy.

“Yeah. I just get the feeling it’s gonna be a long day.”

They worked fast – the name in the frosted glass had already been changed to Rising Star. I stood outside the office for a long moment, considering the text. My lips pulled back from my teeth for the benefit of the pencil pushers sitting around watching me. It took deliberate effort not to spit.

I pushed the door open and trotted right in. A lot had changed in a day. Not the furniture, no. All the outlines were the same, from the scarred markerboard on the wall to that sickly yellow fern in the corner that had learned to subsist more on cigarette ash than water. But without the chief, it felt different. And clean - I don’t think I had ever seen the surface of that desk before, and there it was with nothing more than an empty in/out tray and a beat-up intercom console.

Notably, though, the digs didn’t normally come with a blue unicorn behind the desk.

“I think you’re in my seat,” I said.

The unicorn sniffed. “Mister Rising Star,” he said, hitting each syllable like a confused woodpecker going at an iron lamppost.

“Yeah, that’s what it says on the door. And why I say it’s my seat.”

“Your humor is a delight as always,” he said, even as the frost in his voice put the lie to it. “We need to talk.”

“We are talking.”

He ignored the jab. “There is concern about your recent performances.”

“Concern so pressing that I got a promotion? I could use more of that kind of concern.”

“I think you are very aware of how that change in position came about.”

“Of course.” I flashed a grin. “But it’s not my fault I look so good.”

The unicorn’s eyes slid shut. He took a deep breath, and then planted both forehooves on the desk, leaning forward. “Mister Rising Star, I grow weary of this discussion. Our employers are concerned. This is a problem. For you.”

That got through. Employers? I got the feeling he wasn’t talking about the desk jockeys in Royal Administration that the department technically reported to. I used my magic to lift the shades off my face, setting them on the desk.

“So we need to talk,” I said, the smartass in my tone gone.

The unicorn leaned back in the chair. “Yes.”

I knew Star had to be small change, working for someone else. And the buck didn’t stop with the pony across the desk from me – nopony behind something this big would show their cards that easy. But one rung higher in the ladder was one rung closer to the top. I had a lead.

“If you don’t mind,” I said, my horn starting to glow, “I’d prefer to make sure we don’t have any other ears in this conversation.”

“By all means.”

I ran through the motions of throwing up an old soundproofing spell across the office. I even checked for bugs, and was unsurprised to feel the presence of a listening crystal somewhere in the vicinity of the desk. If I had to guess, that belonged to Star himself. I wrapped it in a bubble of its own, and then got down to my real purpose.

The good thing about a big room-wide charm is that it’s enough cover to hide a lot of smaller magic. Say, something like a ring of tracking magic, to be later switched on for my convenience.

I almost dropped the spell entirely when I realized the pony I was trying to plant a tracker on already wore one. With my signature, no less.

I smoothed my face over, and he didn’t seem to have caught the look of surprise that had wrinkled it. A spell like that fades on its own in about a week, by design. And I hadn’t exactly been shooting them left or right. The only pony I had tagged in the better part of a month was Weedy, earlier that day. Weedy, who had been working with Raven.

Nothing to do with changelings, she said. Pull the other one, it’s got holes in.

“Alright,” I said. “What exactly is the problem?”

“You were put into this position with the understanding that you could follow instructions. Your instructions did not include the arrest of the leader of PHAIR.”

“What did that have to do with me?”

“Do not take me for a fool, Mister Rising Star. We have sufficient evidence that you were working in conjunction with an outside group.”

So Star himself had been PHAIR’s contact. I couldn’t help but feel they deserved his knife in their back.

“So what if I take some action on the side? We’re still in this together.”

“We need a pony who can do as he is told. You are far from irreplaceable.”

I was quiet for a long moment, trying to read the situation. The unicorn was a blank slate, but even if he had been emoting like opening night on an off-Bridleway production I wouldn’t have been able to trust any of it. Changelings were always good at faking.

“If you wanted to replace me, you would have already done so,” I said. “But it would look bad. Fishy. Instead you’re here with a warning.”

He didn’t move, didn’t reveal anything.

I met his gaze steadily. “Fine, consider the message received.”

His hooves met as he leaned forward across the desk, peering over them. “Very good. You are… uncharacteristically cooperative today.”

“Maybe you just caught me in a good mood.”

“Hmm,” he murmured, but the song didn’t carry any note of curiosity. “I recommend you endeavour to remain in that frame of mind. A pony who cannot follow orders is of little use.”

“Then what are my orders?”

“Nothing specific for now.” He stood, drawing himself up to his full height. “Get your house in order, Mister Rising Star. I know you can feel the winds of change. The storm is not far behind.”

He was leaving. I hadn’t been found out, but I had little to show for it. I grasped at a straw. “Just what does that make you in this metaphor?”

“Storms do not arise on their own. Somepegasus has to shape and direct them.” A smile flittered across his lips, hiding something beneath its facade. “Just remember. Royalty are rarely patient with the ponies who fail them. I would hesitate to push your luck a second time.”

And I had little patience for bug queens with delusions of grandeur. I kept that thought to myself, remaining quiet and trying to look contemplative as the disguised changeling left.

He had given me plenty of information but no proof. I glanced around the small office. Here was hoping the real Rising Star had some tricks hidden up his sleeve.

Fifteen minutes of searching later had left me with nothing other than a splitting headache. Star had his stuff moved in, cabinets already full with paperwork from cases old and new, but it was all just the standard squawking: incident reports, old warrant authorizations, the works.

I moved methodically, checking each in turn and then wasting no time in bouncing to the next. I was despairing of finding anything when I tried the very last drawer in the desk, the bottom one where the Chief used to keep a fifth of scotch for the bad days.

It was locked.

More than that, it was magically reinforced. I could feel the edges of some kind of spell tucked behind the metal keyhole. There was no telling what it would do. An alarm would spoil my exit but be manageable. Some kind of offensive retaliation I could shield up and shrug off. But if it was a particularly nasty trick, say burning everything kept in the drawer to a crisp? That sounded just like Star’s style, and I couldn’t risk the loss of a prime lead.

I was weighing the merits, considering the risk of forcing it when the decision got taken out of my hooves. I heard the handle of the door turn.

I was up and out from behind the desk in a flash. I could see the silhouette through the frosted glass, and the faint muffled voice shouting jibes at some unseen pony confirmed it.

Star was here. The real Rising Star.

It was only luck on my part that he hadn’t come in directly – some lackey had distracted him with his hoof on the door. That was all the luck I was going to get. I had no place to hide in the small office, no other exit except the door he was blocking.

I took a deep breath. Green flames.

He walked into the doorway, chuckling to himself, but the noise died in his throat as he saw me. He was wearing his shades again, and I couldn’t see his eyes, only a brief clenching of his jaw before it relaxed into a familiar smirk.

“What a pleasant surprise,” he said.

“Mister Rising Star,” I replied, doing my best to mimic the enunciation of the changeling who had been waiting for me half an hour prior.

We slowly circled the desk, keeping our eyes on one another. He sat down in his chair, still watching me.

I had ceded the high ground, taken a position of weakness in not claiming the desk for myself. But now he was no longer between me and the door if things went sour.

“We need to talk,” I said.

“You’re right, Tides,” he said lightly. “We never have the chance to chat. It’s always business, business, business.”

“That is unfortunately what we need to talk regarding.”

“Oh, and here I was, looking forward to finally getting to know the real you.” He sighed breathily for dramatic emphasis.

I needed a plan. It was dangerous to push him – I’d be walking blind through a minefield. But this was my only chance. “You were put into this position with the understanding that you could follow orders,” I said.

“And that’s what I’m doing.”

“Who ordered you to arrest the head of PHAIR?”

He paused for a moment, but the smile didn’t leave his muzzle. “I was doing you a favor. It aligns with your goals.”

An opening. “Care to explain?” I asked, keeping the question so dry as to be a statement.

“Ponies like PHAIR. Or at least tolerate them, for the good they do. Something big profile like this makes them look like the victim. It makes things messy.”

“Mmm,” I murmured. I had to run his words through my mind twice to catch his meaning. Was that their goal? His excuse wasn’t even to help hide the operation or improve their credibility. It was just about causing chaos.

“I’m not blind,” he said. “Time’s drawing short.”

“That it is,” I said. “But we need ponies who can follow orders. It seems you consider yourself far less replaceable than you actually are.”

His expression froze and I thought I had scored a hit. But then he broke out into laughter.

“Ha! You kill me, you know? Me, replaceable? I’m one-of-a-kind!”

“Then it is another kind of pony that we need,” I said, voice steady. I let the words bring their own menace, and he picked up on the implications just fine.

His smile grew hard, showed a few more teeth. “I think you will find getting rid of me to cause more problems than it solves.”

“Is that a threat?”

“It’s an observation.” He leaned back in his chair, hoof reaching down and to the right. I heard the click of a drawer opening and felt my pulse quicken.

A folder slid across the surface of the desk. Thin, but full. Thirty, forty pages? My eyes moved back up to meet Star’s. I didn’t grab for the folder. Not yet.

“Go ahead, take a look, but I think you’ve seen it all before,” he said. “Every one of your orders, detailed, logged conversations, the original agreements in writing for my services. Even a little bit of extra-credit I dug up on my own. All there. Wouldn’t it be a shame if that were to fall into the hooves of some up-and-coming journalist?”

“You’d go down too,” I said.

“As the leaker? I’d be a hero, working undercover the whole time to save Equestria. No one cares about the little details. This is what they call a win-win for me, bro.”

This was what I needed. Everything on a silver platter. I just had to get it away from him somehow.

My voice dropped to a low whisper. “But what if you were to… disappear?”

He shook his head. “Do you think I was born yesterday? This isn’t my only copy of the evidence. I’ve got plenty of plans in place. If I vanish off the face of Equestria, everything arrives on the doorstep of the Canterlot Post-Gazette tomorrow.”

“You think that can protect you?” I said. “Queens are rarely impressed by idle threats, Mister Rising Star.”

I only caught a flash of something, a twitch of an eyebrow, a momentary blankness on his face that interrupted the constant smirk.

“That may be true,” he said, the words coming out a little slower than previous. “But I think I like my chances.”

I leaned forward, my hoof reaching for the folder when it lit up in a field of magic and slid an inch backwards.

Star leaned forward, depressing a button on the intercom console on the desk. “Yes sir?” a voice crackled over the static.

“Peachy, babe, can you ask Starry Sky and Rabbit Hutch to stop by the office?”

“Sure thing!” she replied

Star looked up at me, eyes still hidden behind his shades. “Why are you in such a hurry, Tides? I hate all of this cloak and dagger bullshit. Let’s talk, you and me! Tell me, how’s the wife?”

My shoulders tensed. My headache was getting worse but I could feel something shift in the conversation, a chasm opening underhoof. I hesitated only for a moment, and then covered for it with a raised eyebrow. “I’m not married.”

“Oh, that’s right.” He grinned. “How could I have forgotten?”

“I don’t have time for games,” I said.

“You kidding? We have all the time in the world. C’mon, humor an old friend?”

What was he trying? To trip me up? It was transparent. “We are hardly that.”

“How cruel! But we’ve worked so well together for so long. Don’t you remember the old days? Instead every time I try to connect, it’s ‘Mister Rising Star’ this and ‘we are disappointed’ that.” His head inclined slightly. “You don’t see me going around calling you Mister Low Tides. And do you know why?”

My eyes narrowed. “Because we are business associates. Not old friends. I tire of this.”

His smile grew, the cat who had gotten the cream.

“Nah. Because that’s not your name. Or should I say his name?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said, but it had no bite. I felt the jaws of the trap closing around me.

“Which raises the question.” He leaned forward across the desk, and his shades slipped down his muzzle slightly. I saw the piercing eyes looking over them and couldn’t look away. “Just who are you?”

We faced off in silence for a moment that didn’t seem like it’d end. Until a knock sounded on the door behind me, seemingly in sync with the pounding coursing through my head.

Star leaned back, throwing his hooves behind his head.

“So this is how it’s gonna be?” I said.

He grinned, that feline malice doubled with a captive mouse to play with. “Yup.”

“Then allow me.”

Sometimes the cornered rat bites back.

As I turned to the door, I focused and the green flames flickered as I shifted back into my previous disguise as Star himself. I opened the door and nodded to the two burly detectives outside. “Sup. Looks like we’ve got a changeling impersonating me.” My head jerked to indicate the real Rising Star sitting behind the desk. “Get ‘em, boys.”

They shared a single glance and moved forward, making for the desk. Hardly a moment had passed before Star started shouting denials, but it was his mistake in calling in backup better at following orders than creative thinking.

With a flare of magic, the folder on the desk slid forward and through the air into the firm grip of my teeth. I didn’t stick around to see the fallout, assuming I had bought myself half a minute lead, tops.

Heads were already popping up as I passed through the office. “Changeling!” I grunted around the file in my jaw, not even slowing down as I made for the stairwell. “All available officers to my office to contain it.” They turned away from me and towards the yelling, and I hoped the pileup would buy me even more time.

No one was watching as I slipped into front stairwell and shifted again, settling on a nondescript unicorn stallion with a pair of hoofcuffs for a cutie mark. The stairs were empty, and I started on my way down, getting to the next landing before hesitating.

I didn’t have much time, but I had to check. See it for myself. Make sure it wasn’t one more false lead. The folder lit up in my magic and floated in front of me. I cracked it open and didn’t need more than the first page to convince me it was real.

It just wasn’t what I had expected.

I’d worked with classified information before. Wasn’t even particularly uncommon in the line of duty for a security officer. But this was the first time I had seen something labeled top of top-secret. Sealed by order of H.R.H. Princess Luna, right there in print. Marked with her hoofprint.

Paisley had said from the beginning that this went to the very top. I always hated it when she was right.

7: The Helping Hoof

The rest of the folder only confirmed more of the same. There were copies of dossiers on several ponies tied to the Day Guard who Star had ‘taken care of’, long transcripts of conversations, bank records that detailed payments with some extra sleuthing that traced the source back to Night Guard discretionary funds.

A wave of vertigo hit me, and I stumbled, concentrating on keeping the papers firmly grasped in my magic but almost falling down the next flight of stairs in the process. I leaned against the cool wall as my head felt like it was going to split open.

It changed everything and it changed nothing. I closed the file and set it on my back before gritting my teeth and pressing on.

At ground level, I opened the door to the lobby and shut it again. A whole squad of Royal Guards filled the entrance, blocking off the exit there. I don’t know how they had gotten there so fast, but I didn’t have the time to waste making guesses.

I weighed my options. Trying to bluff my way out the front, maybe in a Guard disguise. But if they were here for a changeling – and why else would they be? – that didn’t have a snowball’s chance in Tartarus. Going back up would just bring me muzzle to muzzle with Star again. I could theoretically pass by and take to the roof, shifting into a pegasus form… except I didn’t know how the hell to fly, and with the percussion section in my head going to town, I was having trouble even walking straight. That left one direction. Down.

DEqSec wasn’t where most criminals ended up. We never claimed to keep the peace, handle the day-to-day like the Guards. But we kept the city secure too, and that meant bringing in all manner of suspected spies or illegals – ponies, changelings, and otherwise – who needed to be kept locked up until they could be processed.

Hence the cells in the basement.

It took me a couple of tries before I was able to shift into the guise of Starry Sky, one of the big detectives Star had called in to subdue me. My handle on the shifting was getting worse, feeling at the same time some sort of slick slipperiness and deep soreness, like I was sticking my hoof into a fresh cut. I could only guess that the stuff was wearing off. I would have to make it count.

“Hey,” I grunted as I strode into the holding area. There was a desk down here for the officer stuck on duty watching everything, a boring but not particularly strenuous task.

Today that was Bear Claw, a good guy but far past his prime. He still showed a hint of the muscle in his legs that had made him a terror in his day, but his gut spoke to softer times.

“What’s the word?” he asked. “The new boss shuffling things around again?”

“Nah. Just following up a lead. Need to have a few words with…” I let the sentence trail off and was gratified to see him pick up the lead.

“That changeling from earlier this week?”

Good. It would have been much harder had the cells been empty. “Yeah.”

“Grab the keys, sign in, you know the drill.”

I bent down to grab the pen in my mouth and scrawl something illegible on the clipboard he pushed towards me. With the assurance of plenty of time spent down here, I turned to the wall where a heavy keyring hung on a hook.

My ears flickered when I heard him gasp.

I turned in a flash but his eyes were already wide with alarm, mouth open as he drew in breath to yell in full force. I didn’t have much choice. I jerked forward and one hoof wrapped around the back of his head to slam it down into the desk. He went quiet with a gurgle.

I owed Bear Claw so many donuts when this blew over. If this blew over.

A quick look back showed what he had seen: a splotch on my flank showed black exoskeleton. My transformations were getting even sketchier. I offered a silent thanks to whatever deity might have been listening that I hadn’t tried to bluff my way out the front.

It wasn’t worth wasting any further time. I tried to lift the keys with my magic, but my hornglow flashed a sickening green before sputtering out, triggering a whole new wave of vertigo. I settled for my teeth instead, and stumbled into the hallway flanked by the cells.

Halfway down I stopped. There was a pony in the cell to my right, laying curled up into a tight ball on the thin mattress, her tail wrapped protectively against herself. She looked thin and gaunt, her red coat patchy and pale.

My head spun. Did I know this pony? I felt like I did, and the name Ruby Quartz bubbled up from somewhere in my subconscious to confirm. Something seemed wrong – why had they locked her up? When had I last seen her? It felt like an eternity to me. From the looks of things, she would have agreed.

Something hit me square in the stomach, something apart from the pulsing in my head and the groaning soreness of my bruises. It wasn’t pain, but something worse. Guilt?

The key was in the lock before I could figure out quite why. At the sound of the metal clicking, she looked up at me, eyes wide.

“W-what are you…?” she asked, her voice hoarse. “I’ve told you, I don’t…”

I kicked the door and it swung into the cell. She jumped as the metal bars slammed into the wall with a clanging crash.

“I’m leaving,” I said.

“But—”

“Go, stay, I don’t care.” I don’t know if I would have done the same if I had been thinking straight. I could barely think at all anymore. But I had survived these streets a long time by relying on my gut, even when everything else said otherwise.

I kept moving forward, past another set of cells, before I glanced back over my shoulder to see her peeking out into the hallway. I concentrated on the ground in front of me. One hoof down, then another. When I looked all the way down the hall in front of me, it seemed to swim and twist. Better to look at the floor.

I almost ran into the back wall that way.

I heard the voice from behind me, still hoarse but showing some iron beneath the soft facade. “There’s no exit here.”

I turned to the right. Cell #15. It took me a minute to find the right key for it.

We didn’t put ponies into Cell #15. It’s not like we needed to. We hadn’t had that many changelings all together here in one place since the aftermath of the Royal Wedding incident. Those were the bad times. That was when we kept six or seven to a five-foot square box, and they were all slavering fangs and thrashing limbs, going mad with the loss of their queen.

That was when a pair had dug down and down and down, ripping their fangs to shreds to get past the hard rock. There was a reason the bed was out of place in Cell #15, sitting in the center of the room. There had been a small drain there once. And now there was a pony-sized hole, down to a drainage pipe and the city’s expansive sewer systems.

We didn’t have the budget to fix it. We just never used that cell. Until now.

I kicked out to send the bed toppling over, revealing the gaping hole in the stone floor. It was only barely big enough to squeeze through, and there was no telling how far a drop there would be to what was below. Or whether that below ended in stone, water, or something else more unpleasant still.

“This will get us out,” I said.

Ruby Quartz looked at me with an expression I couldn’t read. “You first,” she said.

I nodded, that motion causing the room to spin again, and squeezed my eyes shut, swallowing hard as I tried to regain my bearings. The nausea passed and I leaned forward, peering into the darkness. I couldn’t see anything. I paused, considering whether this was really a good idea in the condition I was in.

And then I felt Ruby expertly hit me in the back of the head with one hoof as she shoved me forward with the other.

I tumbled into the pitch-black.

“Here, bite down,” the voice said.

Out of instinct, I obeyed, my teeth cutting into something that gave under the pressure. Sour flooded my muzzle and I choked, gagging. The acidic sharpness cut through the fog in my head and my hooves jerked forward out of instinct. When they slammed painfully against the ropes binding them, I realized my situation.

I was on my back, both forelegs tied to the headboard of a ratty bed. The room was tiny. Drab. At my side, Ruby Quartz had quickly backed away from me, a lemon falling from her grasp to wobble its way across the floor. With the return to consciousness, the memory of just where I had seen her before came swimming back to me.

“You trying to kill me?” I said, my voice coming out in a strangled rasp.

She shook her head. Kept her eyes wary as she looked down at me. “I’m trying to help.”

I pulled hard against the rope that kept my forehooves in place. As a rule, not many ponies know how to tie someone up securely – too easy to screw up the knots, put slack in, use something makeshift that’d snap under solid pressure. Quartz was the unlucky exception.

“The citric acid will help you feel better. I’ve never seen somepony—” She hesitated, eyes skittering away. “Someling with that bad a case of love poisoning.”

“I’m not a changeling,” I said.

Silence bloomed, marred only by the muffled yelling of a couple of ponies having a domestic dispute on the other side of a thin wall.

“No, really,” I elucidated.

“I appreciate your dedication,” she said, “but as somepony who’s tried to fit in for a long time now, I have to warn you... Turning-into-another-pony is a pretty big tell.”

“I took a drug, something called Chrys.” Her eyebrows shot up at the name. “You’ve heard of it, then.”

She stared hard at the my restraints before answering. “That explains the love poison, alright. An overdose of that would burn you out fast.”

“I guess. It was some experimental blend meant to work on ponies. I don’t know much about bug biology.” I remembered my situation. “Changeling biology.”

“I heard you the first time,” she said, voice cold.

“Hey, I’m not looking for trouble,” I said. “I’m not going to turn you in again or cause problems. Just let me go and—” I tried a simple spell, something to reach out and feel at the knots on the ropes. A prelude to actually getting out that would still look innocuous. I almost blacked out at the feedback.

“Your magic isn’t going to work. Like I said, you burned out hard, and that means anything connected with shaped forms will take a while to get back to normal.”

I must have had the juice still working its way through my system, or else the effects had been internalized in the form of severe magic exhaustion. I grunted in response.

“Don’t worry, it’ll be back to normal in a couple of hours. I think.” She turned and paced the very short distance to a counter at the other side of the small room. “Which gives us enough time to figure out what we’re going to do.”

I pulled my hooves forward hard as soon as she had her back to me. The rope cut into the flesh, but there was no give. Figures, the bed would be old but plenty sturdily made.

“I go my way,” I said. “You go yours. We never see each other again. Everypony wins.”

When she faced me again, she held a familiar folder. She had my evidence. Her eyes narrowed, gauging my reaction.

“You’ve been out a long time. It took me a while to get out of the sewers and haul you back here – you’re welcome, by the way – but I still had the chance to take a look.”

“A little light reading?” I said. “Or do you know the outlines already?”

She stared back at me, and I once again thought I saw something in that face, some kind of weariness beyond her years. “This is bad,” she said, without any trace of humor. “Real bad. What were you going to do with this?”

I didn’t see a reason to lie. “Get it to some ponies who could make a difference.”

“You can do that? This can be stopped?”

“Had to at least try.” My lips pulled back against my teeth. “Not much chance of that now, huh?”

The bickering couple had settled down, leaving an uncomfortable silence to stretch between the two of us.

“Detective Slate,” she said. “I’ve lived in Equestria my whole life. I grew up alongside ponies. You— You might not believe me, but I moved to Canterlot because I thought I could make a difference somehow. For ponies and changelings both. This is my country we’re talking about. This is my home.”

“I see. And that’s why I’m tied to a bed.”

“I don’t trust you.” She shook her head. “How do I know you’re not on their side? Trying to get rid of the evidence?”

“What other choice do you have? No one’s going to believe you. It’ll just look like some kind of cooked-up changeling scheme.”

She frowned at me harder. “That knife cuts both ways, Detective.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Let’s just say that I also had time to look at a paper. You’re not winning any awards for Canterlot’s favorite pony right now.”

“Maybe so, but—”

A loud series of knocks sounded from the room’s single door.

We both glanced over, then back to each other.

“This… all this is your old apartment, isn’t it?” I asked, voice pitched low.

A flash of panic washed over her, but she clenched her jaw. “I didn’t know where else to go!”

“Well the good news is that it if were the guards, I doubt they’d be polite enough to knock.” She nodded jerkily. “The bad news is, it could very well be someone worse. I don’t have a lot of friends at the moment, and I’d suspect neither do you.”

To her credit, she didn’t ask any stupid questions or waste any time. All she offered was a low “Keep quiet!” as she made her way to the door to turn the deadbolt.

The door immediately pushed forward until it thudded against the length of the chain locks. I couldn’t see outside from my angle. But that meant they couldn’t see me either.

I knew the voice though.

“Pardon me, ma’am. Looking for a friend.”

There was no attempt at charm. The unspoken threat behind the gravelly monotone wasn’t hard to spot. If Red Harvest hadn’t been looking for me specifically earlier, he certainly was now. And I still had no idea who was covering his paychecks.

“Just me here, sorry.” Ruby came across as tired, not showing any of the tenseness she had to be feeling. Convenient dividends of a life of secrecy. “You must have the wrong address.” She made to close the door but it didn’t budge.

“I’m pretty certain this is right.” Red’s voice, if anything, sounded resigned. Weary. “How about I just take a quick look, and then I’ll be out of your tail?”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that,” she said, more firm.

“Then I’m awfully sorry about this, ma’am.”

“About wh—”

I heard the loud pop just as Ruby’s whole body jerked. She fell back away from the door, her muscles spasming, one hoof flying out to grasp wildly at the countertop. It only succeeded in knocking everything to the floor, and with a crash Ruby landed in a twitching heap next to an overturned pan and the broken remnants of some plates.

The bastard was a pegasus, but I knew his M.O. well enough. Red Harvest fancied unicorn-made spellcrystals, meant to restrain, subdue, neutralize. In certain situations, maybe even permanently.

He kicked the door, hoof slamming against the wood so hard that I could see the whole frame shudder. The chain locks keeping it from opening wouldn’t hold, not for long.

I gingerly reached for my magic, but felt a cold cloud of thorns where I’d normally direct spells through my horn. I was defenseless.

Grunting at my aching muscles, I inched back, pulling myself up and as far back against the headboard of the bed as I could. It was all I could manage, but it was a chance. If he gave me an opportunity, came a little too close, I could try to make him regret it.

With a crash, the door burst open, busting out one of the hinges in the process. Red Harvest’s eyes were hard as he slowly walked inside.

“Long time no see, Slate.”

I let a grimace creep across my face. “The pleasure is all yours.”

8: The Complication

Red Harvest stepped into the apartment, head swiveling until he caught sight Ruby Quartz, who laid still sprawled in a heap on the floor, her hind leg still occasionally twitching. Some kind of acrid, sour smell wrinkled my nose. He gazed down at her and raised one hoof with purpose.

“No,” I said. “She’s not involved. Leave it be.”

He turned towards me, but his hoof dropped back down. “Fine.” He took another look at my hooves securely tied to the bedposts and shook his head ruefully. “Didn’t think you’d be into this kind of thing, Slate.”

“Ha ha. Extenuating circumstances.”

“Whatever helps you sleep at night.” His feathers ruffled slightly and I saw the glint of something beneath them. “But we’ve got more important things to discuss.” A thin smile spread across his muzzle “I suppose this is the part where I ask you to cooperate so this goes easier for both of us.”

“Right, the part where I tell you to go to hell. I’ve always liked that part.”

“Don’t be heated. This is just business.” He trotted closer, but halted barely out of reach. “I’ve got a client who’d like very dearly to speak with you.”

“Look Red, just let me walk this time, and I’ll be good for whatever you need. This is too big. Believe it or not, the future of Equestria’s at stake.”

“Oh, I believe it,” he said. “I just don’t care.”

I ran my tongue across my teeth. “I see. So that’s how it is?”

"Just business,” he repeated, taking one step further as a crystal slid out from his feathers, riding across the leading edge of an unfurling wing with that unsettling dexterity that pegasi possessed.

It wasn’t a question of seeing a good chance as much as it was feeling that I wouldn’t have better. I lashed out, throwing as much of my body forward as I could as I kicked awkwardly at his midsection. It was close. If he hadn’t leaned back at the last moment, I would have gotten a piece of him. Instead, my body jerked against the bindings, sending a fresh wave of pain lancing through my abused back as it voiced loud complaint at the motion.

“Nicely done,” he said. “Almost worked.”

I ground my teeth together as the flashing pain subsided. “Worth a try.” My eyes didn’t leave the crystal as it curved to the tip of the wing, in position to be flicked in my direction. That would be game over. I didn’t know what it’d do, but it’d be nasty. “Actually…”

He paused, eyes narrowed. “Hm?”

“Maybe it worked out well enough after all.”

He snorted. “You never change, Slate. I would call you the perennial optimist, but that’s selling you too high.”

“Guy’s gotta aim for something.”

“You’re just stalling for time, like always.”

I smiled. “Yes. Yes, I am.”

Ruby Quartz swung the pan and landed a home run right on Red’s skull. The sound was less a gong and more a sickening thwack, but Red felt it just fine. He fell like a puppet with its strings cut.

She stood over him, chest heaving as she gulped for breath. I noticed a tinge of green in her face.

Enough years on the DEqSec beat and you picked up on a few bits of useful trivia. Like how changeling anatomy differed from a pony’s. You don’t use electricity against a bug, for one. They’ll go down, alright, but shake it off just as fast.

“Good job, kid,” I said.

She gingerly prodded at Red, making sure he was down for the count. “We need to get out of here.”

“Then you’ll need to untie me.” She nodded sharply and moved out of view to my side to work on the knots. My eyes flickered over to the folder on the table. “Now do you trust me?” I asked.

“Not really,” she said without hesitation.

“At least we’re on the same page, then.”

My right hoof came free and then my left. I rubbed at the rawness in my coat where the rope had been.

Red Harvest’s arrival had underscored the dangers of our situation. The guards wouldn’t be too far behind. “We split up,” I said.

“No way.”

I rolled over and off the bed, landing on my hooves. I had to stifle a groan and gingerly stretched out my complaining muscles.

“They’ll be looking for us. Better to keep apart. Pencil? Paper?”

She nodded to the counter, and I trotted over. My mouthwriting wasn’t the best, but I scrawled an address on the back of a grocery receipt.

“Here,” I said. “Do you know where this is?”

She glanced down and then back up, a frown still creasing her face. “Yes.”

“We regroup there. It’s a friend of mine, just tell him I sent you and that I’m calling in a favor. It’ll be safe.”

“And then we’ll figure out what to do?”

“Yeah.” I glanced over to the folder. “I’ll take the evidence for now.”

“Okay.”

I was surprised she didn’t fight me on it. But you don’t buck a horse’s gift in the mouth. Or something like that.

“Then let’s go.”

“Wait,” she said. I stopped at the door to look back at her. One of her hooves rubbed her other foreleg as she bit her lip. Her mouth opened and closed. “You’ll be there?”

“Thirty minutes. An hour if I run into trouble.”

She exhaled slowly. “Okay. Good luck.”

I felt a little bad about having to lie to her.

Twenty minutes later I stood outside of the old PHAIR headquarters in the market district. I could have made the trip in ten but I had come too far to risk accidentally rounding a corner into a guard patrol. I took the back streets, kept a low profile.

As soon as I saw the grocer’s, I knew Raven was there. Her muscle stood in the doorway, his beady eyes scanning the crowds more in boredom than vigilance. The passing ponies afforded him plenty of space.

I wasn’t in the mood to trust anyone. Not even Raven, honestly, but necessity’s the mother of strange bedfellows. If it was all the same, I preferred to leave her tough out of the conversation.

I took a side-alley a few stores down and followed it until it hit an intersection with another smaller service road. No foot traffic there, no glass storefronts, just unpainted doors and garbage bins. PHAIR had to be a pretty big operation, so I assumed they had the majority of the second floor of their building. And one of the windows was open a crack.

It only took a stack of two garbage bins to climb that high. Unsteady, but serviceable. I squeezed through the window and into the offices.

They were cleared out, completely. Not a stick of furniture. Even the wallpaper had been ripped out in huge chunks. When the Royal Guards investigated a scene, they took to it with the enthusiasm of a foal and the finesse of a drunken minotaur.

I heard voices, and kept my hoofsteps light as I slowly crept towards a doorway.

“—don’t have anything, what exactly do you expect me to do?”

That was Raven, sounding annoyed. Which was to say sounding normal, from what I knew of her.

“There’s another way we bring this all to light.”

The second voice I immediately knew I had heard before. It threw up all kinds of alarm bells in my head, but I couldn’t quite put my hoof on why.

“Oh?”

“Create a big enough mess that the whole department has to be turned upside down.”

I couldn’t source it for the life of me. It was a griffon talon on the chalkboard of every instinct I possessed. They weren’t in the next room. I kept moving, staying silent as I proceeded onwards, the voices growing louder.

“And how do you propose we do that?”

“Rogue detective goes mad, rampages throughout the city. What horror, what tragedy! How could this happen? A full investigation is demanded, and in the process, certain irregularities are discovered.”

A heavy pause. I was close. They had to be just ahead, and I was a few feet from the door.

“What exactly are you saying?”

I leaned forward, peeking through the door as the two ponies came into view.

“That there’s one more thing I need from you. Thanks in advance for your cooperation.”

It was Raven. And me.

That’s why I knew the voice, even if I had never heard it not filtered through my own head.

The realization came too late. I saw the blade float through the air in a magic aura that matched my own, only to plunge forward into Raven’s chest with lethal precision.

She didn’t scream or shout or cry as her head tilted down to see the red rose blooming around a steel stem. Her mouth just moved, lips framing an unheard “Oh.” There was a thump as her knees hit the floor, and then a louder thump from her falling to her side.

The knife pulled back with a sickening wet sound and the doppleganger casually floated it over to wipe the blood off on Raven’s light coat.

“Hold it!” I yelled. I called upon my magic and the fog was still there in my head, but permeable. I could do— I had to do something.

My double turned, and the slight smile on his face only grew as he saw me.

“This is a pleasant surprise.”

“Get away from her!”

From the red stain pooling around her, she was bleeding out fast. Her eyelashes fluttered and then went still with a chilling suddenness.

“I think it’s a little late for Raven.” He trotted over to a window, reaching down to unlock and open it.

I fired a blast at him. I didn’t have the presence of mind to know what it was, suppressive or downright lethal. It didn’t matter. A glimmering shield flashed around him and he grinned back at me.

“I’ll leave you to handle the rest,” he said. “Thanks for all the help.”

Green flames flashed around him and then he was a pegasus, grey, nondescript. I fired again and it crackled across his shield. He had to have some kind of lasting enchant, some kind of good shielding. I could have broken through if I was fresh, but at the moment managing attack spells felt like trying to tie a pair of bootlaces with my tail.

He was through the window, and I galloped across the room to Raven’s body.

One look at her and I knew he was right. She was already gone, far too still, not breathing at all. I moved to the window.

I could see him taking wing, keeping low and fast over the rooftops, already almost out of view. The anger burning inside was something cold and remote, as I analyzed the situation.

I knew he was a changeling. And if I believed Raven herself, there weren’t too many in the city. Ruby Quartz, of course, but she had been locked up for most of this. Five others? Unless the imminent plans meant there were more moving in now. But I had met one other changeling in the past few days. Had met him twice. And I had left him a present on his right foreleg.

It was stupid. I could have used it to track him down, to play it smart, do it right. But Raven lay dying on the floor and I had gone blood-simple. I wanted to make him pay. No. To make him hurt.

With all of the power I could muster, I flooded that circuit with an overload of raw magic. I felt it as the tracking ring burst around his foreleg, and heard the crack over the noise of the market. The mid-air explosion knocked him out of his flight path and I saw him tailspin into the top of a building.

I couldn’t afford to hope I had really taken him down, but it was a crash he would have a hard time walking away from. At least on all four legs. See, changelings were tough, but enough concentrated force? A detonation like that? I knew from past experience just what it took to crack through exoskeleton like a twig, leaving that limb limp, a useless wet noodle.

A hard smile crossed my face. I noted the location. I could make it there, try to track him down. It wouldn’t be easy but he would be moving slow, and I had been hunting changelings for years. For the first time in I-don’t-know-how-long, I felt good about it.

Then two tons of bricks slammed into my side. I was thrown across the room, flying into the next wall with enough force to leave a dent. My ears rang and I had to shake my head to get the room to stop spinning. When it did I saw Raven’s bodyguard bending over her body.

“You killed her!” he screamed out, rage mixing with pain in his voice.

A flash of movement directed my attention from the elephant-sized pony in the room. Over his shoulder, I could see straight out to another window on the back side of the building. Red Harvest hung in the air, wings beating to keep him aloft. His eyes were wide with surprise as they met mine, then his mouth jerked open in a grimace.

I realized the ringing in my ears hadn’t stopped. Then it clicked. It wasn’t just being thrown into a wall. The siren was one member of a unicorn guard detachment running a klaxon spell as they rushed to the scene of a crime. Not a common sound, not in this part of the town.

The specifics of my situation crystallized in my mind. The jaws of the trap closing around me.

An expletive rose to mind. I decided the circumstances deserved punching it up a notch.

“Fuck,” I muttered, as the huge stallion charged across the room with murder in his eyes.

9: The Worst Breaks

The goon came steaming at me like the 9:45 to Dodge Junction and I figured discretion was the better part of not getting my head caved in. I threw myself out of the way, my hooves scrabbling across the floor as I only barely made it in time. The big guy came within inches of flattening me, but crashed into the wall himself.

Scratch that. Through the wall. Whether my early impact had weakened it or not, he smashed right through in a cloud of plaster.

I tried to make scarce, stumbling as I ran for the next room, frantically looking for the stairs down. But at that moment, I’d take any distance I could get. I snuck a look over my shoulder, and caught a glimpse of a hoof reach back through the new hole, followed by a pair of burning eyes.

I winced at another roar of anger from the goon. I had nowhere near enough of a lead. Given the past few days, I wasn’t exactly feeling spry, and he had the size and temper to easily take me down.

So I stopped in the middle of the doorway instead, standing on my hindlegs as I faced him. I had to press both forehooves against the sides of the door to maintain the awkward position.

“Well?” I said.

He charged again, same freight train, this time on a downward slope. I waited until the last moment, until he was practically screaming in my face. And then I moved. Backwards, fast, a fall rather than a dodge.

He had jumped high at the last moment, trying to tackle me at the center of my mass. When my back hit the floor, he went too high. I kicked up with my hind legs hard, and felt them make contact with his ribs, heard his breath cut off with a whoosh.

I had to clench my jaw as my spine screamed protest, but he tumbled across the floor, rolling in a heap and he clutching his hooves to his chest.

I got up, barely bothering to aim as I shot a few beams of magic at him. I was still off balance from putting so much in to overloading the tracker and the remaining changeling fuzz in my head meant I had no idea how much zip I was putting on the zaps, but it still should have been enough to lock up his nervous system. To keep him down, hard.

Instead, the magic washed over him uselessly. He was either packing some kind of shielding charm or just too damn mad for be stopped. By the time I wrote the magic off as no good, he was already pulling himself back to his hooves.

It was well past time to blow. I ducked back out of sight on the other side of the doorway and kept on for the stairwell. It was only when I drew close that I heard the clatter of hoofsteps on their way up.

The guards? They had gotten here fast. I gritted my teeth and paused there, mentally cursing rocks and hard places both. Out of a lack of a better idea, I pressed myself against the wall to the side of the door, trying to rack my mind for another way out.

The big guy limped into view, one foreleg still pressed against his barrel. When he saw me, it fell to the floor, stamping once, twice, as he prepared to charge again.

I swallowed. He wasn’t going to miss a third time.

“Freeze!” a voice yelled from the door to my side. “Hooves on the floor, don’t move!”

The big guy didn’t listen. His lips curled back against his teeth as he rushed forward, and I forced my eyes shut as I froze in place.

I could see the searing light, even with eyes closed and head turned away, and whatever spell the royals were packing apparently was enough to overload the trick that kept the big guy going. His whole body locked up in twitching fits, momentum causing him to continue forward even as his legs gave out and he slid across the floor.

I kept pressed against the wall as the royals rumbled in, still-smoking horns trained on the downed goon. They didn’t see anything as I slipped down the staircase, treading as soft as I could.

The market at the bottom floor was deserted, a sickly smell in the air from all the fruit rotting in the bins. Apparently it had either been a total PHAIR front or the owner had decided to split town after the raid. I stepped over a few browning apples that had spilled across the floor and skulked to the door.

A white unicorn in light armor stood there, stoic attention focused outwards. I padded up behind him and had my foreleg snaked around his neck before he even noticed me. With a jerk, I hauled him backwards into the shop, taking care to position myself where he couldn’t get a solid swing or kick on me.

They teach you a lot in the guard about fighting. Unfortunately for him, they’re less concerned about critical thinking. Had he decided to light up his horn with an alarm, he would have had his friends upstairs breathing down my neck. Instead, he struggled in vain to try and take me out until I choked him out into unconsciousness.

I laid his body down on the floor, calmly stepping up to poke my head outside. Nopony had noticed our little interaction. Dark clouds were gathering in the sky, presumably for a scheduled rainstorm, and the crowd of shoppers had fittingly thinned out.

Made it a little harder to stay incognito, but I was just happy to be sprung from that particular trap. I nonchalantly trotted out, moving quick but not too quick. Purposeful-like.

On Market Street I went just far enough to get past the obvious routes, and then ducked into an alley, back into obscurity. I reached a hoof to pat at my jacket, taking comfort in the shape of the folder within. I still had the evidence. I was good.

I just had to decide where to go from here. Coming here, I thought I could see a light at the end of the tunnel. It turned out to be a train headed my way. But I could deal. I could work something out. After all, I had just managed to get out of one sticky situation already.

When I rounded the corner, Red Harvest was waiting for me. He didn’t look happy.

I stopped in place, a grimace flashing across my muzzle. “I knew I had forgotten something.”

His wings flickered and he hit me with two crystals in quick succession, every nerve in my body flaring to life and jolting with electricity at once. I hit the dirt, writhing in agony as I watched his hooves approach. One raised, and crashed down and I saw stars and then nothing but blackness.

I was really getting sick of waking up in unfamiliar places.

I kept my eyes shut, trying to clear the fog in my head and ignore the lancing pain in my back. I was tied to some kind of pillar, forced upright with both forelegs crammed behind my back in a position that wasn’t doing my spine any favors. And given that Red didn’t have any reason to be my pal, it added up to me knee deep in fruit salad, all of it pear-shaped.

The rumbling in my ears resolved to a voice. Red was talking with someone, keeping his voice low, and I slanted my ears to catch the drift.

“—not safe. Yes, I’m sure.”

He was answered by a stream of garbled chirping, like a breezie moonlighting as a door-to-door encyclopedia salesman. I knew the sound. He had to be talking to somepony over an encrypted runecrystal. Only somepony touching the receiver gem would be able hear the words straight.

I risked cracking my eyes and confirmed it. He stood with his back to me, right front hoof planted on a glowing gem. Next to the crystal laid my folder, all the evidence I had to tie any of this together. I stifled a grimace, and figured it was worth risking hornglow while I didn’t have his attention.

“Leave it to me. I’ll get the information, one way or another.”

Whether tentatively or forcefully, I couldn’t light my horn at all. My magic was gone. I could feel a buzzing fuzz, a last remnant of the changeling juice rattling around in my head, but trying to reach anything further led to a wall. The bastard had put a nullring on my horn.

That would be a real problem. From the position he had trussed me up in, I couldn’t get any leverage to break or wiggle out of the ropes. Even in my attempts to feel out the bonds, I could barely keep from grunting at the pain any movement caused.

“No promises. Look, we can still contain this, but we have to act fast and be willing to make necessary sacrifices.”

I glanced around, trying to figure a way out. From the looks of things, I was in an empty warehouse, all the windows boarded over. I would be away from the main streets, then. I could have yelled, but in neighborhoods like this, when ponies heard shouts they knew from experience to turn and head the opposite way.

I noticed one more pair of objects on the table, and the sight sent a chill down my spine. Sitting on top of a hoofkerchief lay a set of small wingblades, black steel. Not the kind you fought with, at least not against someone who was expecting a rumble. The kind that used more dexterity and skill, for... finer work. I knew an old featherduster who had a pair like that for whittling. Could work over ice, wood, even bone, if he could get his hands on it. I figured carving a nice little chunk out of a pony would be easy in comparison.

“Best for you to lay low. You brought me in to be your eyes and hooves, didn’t you? I’ll contact you when it’s done.”

There was one last hiccup of presumable acknowledgment and I hastily slid my eyes shut again as he turned. It was torture of a different sort trying to remain still and keep my breathing regular. I heard his hoofsteps approach slowly.

His hoof slammed into my muzzle, hard, and I hissed a breath at the slap.

“Rise and shine, Slate,” he drawled out.

I clenched my teeth, staring both Red Harvests down until the images resolved into one. “I don’t remember requesting a wake-up call.”

He ignored the banter. Not a good sign. “Where’s the evidence?”

“I’m sorry?”

“The evidence. Of Luna’s involvement. Where is it?”

I blinked, showing some confusion that didn’t even need to be staged. He turned to the folder, flicking one wing out to throw it across the room, papers flying everywhere.

As they rained down around me like particularly accusatory snow, I realized. They were all blank. My evidence was gone – had been gone, the whole time – at least since some point since I had last glanced through. Somepony had—

Ruby. I cursed myself for not questioning further why she had let me waltz off with the only papers that mattered.

“Must have misplaced it,” I said.

He slugged me in the barrel and I choked back a curse. “I suggest you think very hard about where,” he growled.

“Why?” I spat on the floor. “So you can destroy it? I’m not going along with this, Red. I’m no traitor.”

“No,” he said. “You’re a murderer.”

“I didn’t—” He hit me again, and while I was still gasping for breath, jammed a wadded-up rag in my mouth. “Mmmph!”

“You know, I’m glad,” he said. “I was worried you’d give in, make this easy. But you never disappoint, Slate.” He walked in a slow circle, my eyes following him warily as he came in and out of sight. “See, Raven? She was in over her head, made some bad decisions, owed the wrong people some favors. But she was a friend of ours.”

I shook my head violently. He ignored it.

“So we’re going to have a little private party, you and I, in remembrance of a dead friend. We’ll chat about your precious evidence and I’ll persuade you to remember just where you stashed it. I’ll even give you a little memento to remember Raven by.” My eyes slid to the wingblades, and he noticed, his smile widening.

I thrashed against the ropes, but they held. Adrenaline had dulled the pain, but I wasn’t going to be able to break out with strength alone. A dark cloud roiled in my head, but nopony, no unicorn alive, can overload a nullring in direct horn contact.

“Nothing too big,” he said. “I’ve got instructions to not leave any permanent damage. But maybe I slip, maybe a wing moves a little too far and leaves you something. A reminder on days like this, when the weather’s being changed. An scar that’ll never quite heal on top of an ache that carries down to the bone. Accidents happen, after all.”

Red turned back to the table, whistling as he took his time strolling over. His wings dipped down, feathers brushing over the wingblades, and I racked my mind for some solution – any solution. If it wasn’t for the nullring, the damn nullring, I could figure something out. Burn through the bindings, hit him with a spell, something. Instead, I might as well have had no horn at all.

No horn at all.

I blinked, an idea coming. If I was still feeling the aftereffects of the changeling juice, it meant I was potentially still working through the regular effects. It was crazy, but plans A through W had all failed, and you can’t be picky when it comes to X.

I screwed my eyes shut, concentrating, trying to reach out to that strange set of mental muscles that I hoped fervently were still there, trying to gather up all that fuzzy cloud and cram it into one diamond of focus.

I could still hear Red’s whistling, a cheerful chirping that made my blood run cold. I didn’t have much time. I wouldn’t have a chance to try anything else. I had to—

Green flames licked across my forehead, once, twice in quick succession as my horn vanished for a fraction of a second before popping back into existence once again. The nullring fell to the ground, bouncing off the floor with a ping that echoed through the warehouse.

Red turned to me, his eyes widening. “Aw, shi—”

I caught him right between the eyes, serving up the full breakfast. A beam of hot light juiced up to toast through his shields, knocking him flat off his hooves while the neural overload made scrambled eggs out of his motor control system. He landed in a crumpled pile, twitching and jerking erratically.

I gasped for breath, taking a moment to collect myself before levitating one of the wingblades over to slice through my bindings. My hooves hit the ground and I let out a groan at the normal posture, taking the time to try and stretch the ache out of my back.

Yeah. It was nice to have magic back.

The runecrystal was out of juice when I took a look. It wasn’t too different than the kind Paisley and I used to use for private business, meant to naturally build up a charge from the surrounding environment and then burn it all off in a short communication. Unfortunately it also came enchanted trickily enough that I couldn’t trace the signal back only by looking at the residuals. It’d be another couple of hours before it’d be ready again, but I slipped it into a pocket for then.

I checked on Red. He had gone down harder than an earth pony in Cloudsdale, but was still breathing shallowly. I gave him a once-over, carefully picking out the crystals he had stashed in his wings. I kept a few of the choice ones, and threw the rest to spark and spatter uselessly against a wall.

He didn’t have anything else, no clues tying him back to Luna or whoever he was talking to on the crystal. And my own evidence was gone, in the hands of a changeling. All I could do was hope that my lead on her location was solid.

But first, it was time to run one more errand.

“Next week is too late,” I growled. “I need this message delivered, now, get me?”

The colt behind the counter just stared at me blankly. His face had fought a long war against puberty, and from the looks of the scars, lost badly.

“Dragon express,” I said.

That gave him a start. “I— I can’t. You’d have to go to the main postal center, downtown.”

A frown cut across my face. I had a reason to pick this postal office, besides its proximity. This was one of the smaller outlying stops, not much more than a collection of postboxes and a clerk to handle deliveries. Somewhere I could get a message through the system with a minimum of questions.

“You’ve got a bottle of crystallized dragonfire behind the counter, don’t you?”

“Yes, but… but that’s for emergencies.”

Got him. I slammed my badge against the counter. “This is an emergency, kid. Recognize this? This is DEqSec—” His blank look didn’t budge “—Royal Guard business. Get it?”

“Like… with the Princesses?”

I gritted my teeth. “Yeah. Hence who I’m trying to contact.”

Not Celestia, of course. I didn’t have the proof in hoof anymore, and everyone knew you couldn’t get a message through to Celestia without having it navigate a maze of advisors and secretaries, any one of which could be a Lunar plant. And I sure as tartarus didn’t intend to send a thank-you note to Luna. No, I figured I was running out of second chances, and it was time to play one last wild card, in case the situation turned dark.

Well... darker.

“But Ponyville doesn’t even have a registered Dragon Express destination,” the colt whined.

If I had him down to arguing the specifics, he would crumble soon enough. “Direct line: Ponyville Castle – Twilight Sparkle comma Princess Care of Spike comma The Dragon.”

As with all of my knowledge of the upper sorts, Paisley had been the key. We had met this Twilight Sparkle at a Gala years ago, back before the mare had earned her wings. I thought her mousy and uncertain, but even then you could tell she was going places, though she didn’t seem to recognize it herself. Paisley had kept in touch – a cordial thing over letters, never so crass as to press for favors for PHAIR as far as I knew. But having a Princess as an acquaintance opened a lot of doors.

Not for me – I hadn’t spoken a word more than our introduction. But I had remembered the details, and it was time to pull out the stops and let this wagon run downhill, even if I didn’t know where it’d crash or who’d be left in the wreckage.

“This is important,” I said. “Screw this up and you could singlehoofedly cause the downfall of Equestria.” It was easier than expected to make the claim sound believable, because I half believed it myself. The only question is if it’d just be too little, too late.

The kid’s eyes were the size of moons. “Sure, okay. Yes sir! I— I’ll…” He trailed off and I followed his gaze over my shoulder and behind me.

Through the plate glass window of the postal office, I saw a carriage pull up. Normally, a ride that sophisticated would be emblazoned with the owner’s cutie mark, but this one was all in black, from the wheels, to the doors, to the barding on the freakishly large ponies pulling it. Its door swung open, and I couldn’t see anything within. The pullers just stared straight ahead, waiting.

“Are you going to handle the message?” I said.

He nodded rapidly, eyes flickering from the carriage to me and back.

I ran my tongue over my teeth, shaking my head lightly to clear it. “Then I expect that’s for me.” My magic felt sharp, clearer than it had been in a good while.

I trotted out into the street, as a few drops of early rain started to spit against the sidewalk. I considered for a moment running, dodging down a side alley where the carriage would be too big to follow. But I had a feeling I knew who was waiting inside.

My hooves clicked against the wood as I climbed the short pair of steps and moved into the carriage.

It was high time for another conversation.

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.

11: The Very Top

We left a little after sunrise – or at least what should have been sunrise. Celestia could have taken the day off, for all I knew; thick clouds hid the sky, still blanketing everything in a shroud of grey. It wasn’t the best omen as we started on the long walk to the ritzier parts of town along the mountain cliffs, where mansions claimed a monopoly on the good views of Equestria.

I kept an eye on Ruby as we cut through the fog, moving like a pair of ships striking out for the ocean but aware of the rocks lurking under the waves. I didn’t know quite what to make of her. She had proven herself once already, but questions still gnawed at the back of my mind. Why was she helping me? What did she have to gain in all this?

“Why do you still look like that?” I said out loud.

She came to a halt, turning to give me a sharp look. “Like what?”

“You’re a changeling,” I said, watching her eyes narrow as I said the word. “And there’s probably a warrant out for your arrest. You could easily look like anypony you want, so why do you still look like…” I frowned. “Well.”

“Like myself?” she said. She started trotting again, and I had to pick up the pace to keep up.

We went a full block in silence. I was about to mutter an apology when she spoke up again.

“There’s a word changelings have, in… well, it’s not even a language in the same way Equestrian is. More of a series of buzzes and clicks. I can’t even pronounce any of it myself when I look like this. But the idea behind it translates as something like… ‘gone native’.”

“Mmm,” I said. She paid no attention to me.

“It’s what a pureblood hive-dweller calls someling who gets a little too close to their food. When they stop thinking of themselves as a changeling in a pony disguise and start thinking of themselves as a pony in a changeling body. After a while you get to feeling like all the ponies who you live among are the ones who understand you, the ones who love you, not a bunch of squabbling insects back at the hive.”

“And this happened to you?”

“Happened to my parents. I told you, didn’t I? I grew up in Equestria, in a small town up in the mountains. Pa runs the general store. There’s been talk of him being next in line for mayor. Everypony in the county loves the guy.”

“So plenty of food, then,” I said.

“And what’s wrong with that?” she spat, turning to glare at me with burning eyes. “What’s your problem? All we want – All I want is to be loved and happy, just like everypony else in this city. Just because there’s a biological urge tied to it, does that make it inherently evil?”

I raised a hoof. “I’m not saying that.”

“Sure sounds like you’re thinking it.”

I frowned, silent for a moment. “Maybe so.”

“What?” she said, the weariness having replaced indignance in her voice. “What do I have to do to earn a little bit of faith?”

“I’ve had a rough week,” I said, causing her to snort out a half-laugh. “Bear with me. I’ve got a lot to wrap my head around still.”

“Mmm.”

We didn’t say much more as we used the fog to slink through the nice parts of town and slip into the backyard of some rich unicorn’s mansion. The place was done up glitzier than a wannabe social climber at a Grand Galloping Gala. I figured the owner could afford to share his cliffside view with a couple of common folk.

Ponies aren’t exactly made for climbing, and it took a push from Ruby to get me to commit to the plunge down, rope wrapped firmly around my hoof. But the rope held and I rappelled down to the cave entrance not far below. I called up again, and the rope dropped, tumbling down the mountainside. Ruby flew down a minute later. We wouldn’t be returning that way.

The caves themselves were formidable in reputation, a maze of twisty little passages all alike. The chambers were packed with pretty crystals inside, but they were worthless despite their beauty, the wild growth making them entirely too unstable for magic work. I knew of a couple of ponies in the past that had made attempts at mining them for ornamental purposes, but it never lasted long. This place had a bad reputation. Not every pony who wandered in necessarily made it back out.

I didn’t know that I really believed all the things some superstitious ponies said, but it’s also true that we heard sounds as we made their way through. Sounds that could have been water dripping. Sounds that could have been claws tapping against crystal. We didn’t discuss them, just kept quiet and marched onwards through those twisting passages, always taking the branches that angled slightly up.

I was just about to question whether Ruby had gotten us lost when she pulled up short at a passage leading into plain grey stone. She stared into the darkness. “We’re here.”

“You ready?”

“As much as I’m going to be,” she said, ears laid flat as she trotted forward to disappear into the gloom.

I followed, listening for her hoofsteps ahead. I left my horn dark, and after a moment of adjusting, could make out the dim shape of Ruby ahead disappearing around a curve. After that bend, we came to a wall, broken by regularly spaced slivers of light at different heights.

“Here?”

She reached one hoof towards the wall and pulled out part of it. I belatedly realized it was just a floor-to-ceiling set of shelves, tightly packed with cans. We were on the other side of one of the palace’s many storage rooms.

A few minutes of shifting tomato soup later, we regrouped in the dim light of the pantry.

“Okay, we’re in the administration wing,” Ruby said, her voice pitched low. “We’ll cut across through some back corridors to reach the main palace. But from there on, it’s riskier, and I don’t know anything about the layout of the upper floors.”

“Then we’ll figure that out when we get there.”

The sudden creak of a door cut our discussion short, and I dropped low, pulling Ruby along with me. One hoof pressed down on my on my hat as I started up a spell.

“Who’s there?” a voice called out, as a shaft of light swept across the room.

“Ruby Quartz,” Ruby said, and I felt her hoof knock aside my grasp. She rose up, ignoring the look I shot her.

The pony peering in the door was an pudgy earth pony wearing one of those archetypical chef’s hats. He peered through his round-rimmed glasses and I gritted my teeth, cycling the spell towards completion. Then a broad smile broke across his muzzle. “Ruby! What in Celestia’s name are you doing in here?”

“It’s a long story. But I need some help, Eclair.”

He glanced at me with a flash of suspicion, but sat down his light and motioned for us to head up the short stairs into the kitchen. “Of course.”

“Another changeling?” I murmured, walking alongside Ruby as we headed up.

“A friend,” she said, shooting me a look.

Turns out Ruby had a lot of friends in the palace, at least among the staff. After some quick explanations that left out the more alarming details of our mission, Eclair and several others of the kitchen crew started spitballing ideas to help us get to Celestia. Most of them were foalish stuff, the kind of Con Mane spy-flick nonsense that would never fly in the real world. But the staff wound up being very helpful in detailing the guards in place.

The Chief had been right about the security being tight. I shot down a few clumsy ideas about smuggling us in through the bottom of food carts – any security detail worth its salt would have a unicorn guard scrying for ponies trying to sneak through, and we didn’t have time to figure out any counter-shielding. We’d figure it out ourselves, observe the situation, see if we could just sweet-talk our way past.

The cooks were all for helping with that, too, but Ruby talked them down. No sense in having anypony else take the fall alongside us when things went sour. We stuck with some basic help, Ruby borrowing one of her old aprons and hats for disguise, and one of the chefs providing me with a misplaced clerk’s badge I clipped to my coat. Neither would hold up to scrutiny, but something was better than nothing.

We took the long way through the back corridors, occasionally passing various hoofservants who studiously ignored us. And then we were there, at the entrance to the main building of the palace. We halted at a convenient corner, and I peeked around, getting an eye on the guard post.

I felt a hoof on my shoulder and glanced down to see Ruby’s head below mine, also looking. There were three guards there, a unicorns and two pegasi. As we watched, a servant trotted up, and they immediately snapped into action, one pegasus carefully peering at the badge while the unicorn ran a series of quick magic field tests.

I grimaced. “Okay, so I doubt we’ll be able to bluff our way through. We’ll need something bigger, some kind of distraction that pulls them all away from the door. But we don’t have a lot to work with.”

Ruby drew a deep breath. “You have the documents, right?”

I patted my jacket. “Yep.”

“Do you trust me?”

I paused, taking in the serious expression on her face.

“This is important. Do you trust me?”

I opened my mouth to answer, when another voice boomed from behind us. “Excuse me. What are you two doing? I think you need to show me some identification.”

We whirled around to see a earth pony stallion in a guard uniform, built like a brick wall and, by his expression, with the sparkling personality to match. He took a thudding step forward.

“Do you?” Ruby whispered.

“Yeah,” I said.

In a flash of green flame she vanished, only to be replaced by a beast in black chitin. The changeling let out a hiss that’d strip paint and pounced on me in a flurry of jagged hooves and wicked fangs. I let out a shout of alarm on instinct as the thing bit down into my shoulder.

“Back, back you!” the soldier shouted, bullrushing forward to tackle the changeling. As the bug tumbled, taking a piece of my jacket away in its mouth, I realized the bite had been all show, tearing through the thick cloth without so much as drawing blood underneath.

“Get to safety!” the soldier yelled as he tussled with Ruby. She knocked him back, roaring in a snarling buzz of two clashing tones, setting my teeth on edge. I got the hint, and scrambled away down the hall.

“Changeling!” I cried out. The other guards at the checkpoint had already taken a few steps forward, but at my word they took off, galloping to assist their comrade. I dashed for the door, blowing past the distracted unicorn.

After I made the next corner, I slowed down, catching my breath. I was in.

And it looked like I owed Ruby yet another one.

In any other situation, I would have played it cool. That’s the downside of a nice secure perimeter – get past the guards on the outside and ponies assume that you belong on the inside. The rest is a matter of swagger, acting like you’re far too busy to stop and answer any questions.

But that was a bit harder to pull off with the shoulder of my jacket in shreds. Two long hallways later, I ran into another guard. His eyebrows shot up when he got a good look at me.

“Changeling,” I gasped out, not having to fake the adrenaline pounding through my veins. “Back at the guard station.” I floated the folder out of my jacket. “Trying to get this. I need to deliver it to Princess Celestia, where is she?”

The guard’s head jerked back between me and the way I had come before he came to a decision. “Throne room. This hallway all the way down, then left.”

He took off galloping, and I prayed that Ruby had figured something out and I wasn’t just sending more trouble her way. But I had to keep moving. I headed the way the guard had shown, my hooves clattering on the marble flooring.

The throne room was pretty obvious. The doors were solid gold, each by itself probably worth more than the entire city block I lived on. A red carpet ran right down the middle, with stained glass windows on either side that I ignored as I stumbled in, nearly knocking over a farmer standing in the long line of petitioners up to the throne. “Sorry!” I yelled out. “Emergency. Have to talk to Celestia, matter of national security.”

Then I looked up and saw her and everything froze.

You’re not prepared, you know? You see pictures, but in person it was something else. I didn’t even notice my knees hit the ground. It’s nothing about the individual pieces, the ethereal mane or the graceful horn or the way she towers over the common pony. There’s just a kind of presence, something that reaches down deep inside of you and grabs ahold and says “Hey. Listen up, kid.”

I don’t know how long that lasted. I only tore my eyes away when the guards closed in, shouting. They, at least, had done their homework, and recognized Canterlot’s newly most wanted criminal. Hooves came at me from all sides, pinning me down, pulling me back. The line of ponies waiting to talk to Celestia scattered as they pressed up against the walls, yelling and shouting in confusion.

I snarled. “Wait! You don’t understand. I’ve got to talk to the Princess, I’ve got—”

“Guards,” she said softly, and even without bothering to raise her voice it cut through the confusion like a teacher calling her class to order. “Please. I believe this stallion would like to have a word with me.”

One of the more medal-bedecked grunts opened his mouth for a response but one stern look from the Princess shut him down. I found myself being hustled up the red carpet, just as roughly as I had been previously dragged back. A pair of earth pony guards stood on either side of me, making it clear I wouldn’t be going anywhere they didn’t want me to.

“What’s your name, my little pony?” Princess Celestia said. Her voice was soft, friendly. And apparently completely unconcerned about the possibility of me being a threat. I didn’t disagree with her assessment.

I swallowed, staring down at her hooves. “Straight Slate,” I replied. “Ma’am.”

“Ah. Detective Slate. There has been much talk of you as of late.”

“It’s not true,” I said. “But it’s not important either. Look, I’ve got— You need to—” I clenched my teeth, and drew a breath in through them. “Princess Luna is plotting against you.”

That drew some gasps from the room. The guards at my side put a little extra pressure into their holds on me and I let out a grunt. I looked up to see Celestia looking down at me, her eyes unreadable.

“That is quite a serious accusation,” she said, having lost the warmth in her tone.

“You think I don’t know?” I said. “I have proof. I—” I grimaced, pushing against the guard to my left, reaching into my jacket. He tensed to hold my hoof back, but when Celestia nodded, he let me pull out the documents. “Here. It’s all here. Princess Luna has been secretly using operatives in the Department of Equestrian Security to target ponies, falsely frame them as being changelings, and then send them to the stars. And not just any ponies. Important ones. All of them connected to the protection and maintenance of Equestria. I think… I think she’s planning a coup.”

A golden glow covered the folder and it floated effortlessly over to Celestia. The silence in the room was as loud as any thunderstorm, only broken by the rustle of papers as she opened the folder and flipped through the pages within.

“I see,” she said, after the longest minute of my life.

“Look, it’s all there. You have to believe me.”

She paused, pursing her lips. “I do, Detective Slate. I do.”

Murmurs broke out all around us, the ponies who had all gathered to ask Celestia for some favor or complain about some petty problem suddenly being witness to something of far more importance. The guards didn’t know quite what to do, confusion written plainly on their faces as they stared up towards their leader.

I let out a breath, sagging in the grip of the earth ponies still holding me.

“Stonecastle,” Celestia said, glancing over to her side. “Please inform my sister that I would like to speak with her.”

I looked up to the pony she had spoken to, a pony I hadn’t noticed. He was a pegasus, light grey in coat and wearing a small pair of spectacles, and he stopped staring at me to take flight out of the throne room in a hurry. But the glimpse I had caught of him sent a twist in my stomach.

“Detective Straight Slate, you have performed a great service to Equestria this day,” Princess Celestia said.

I had never seen the pegasus before. I couldn’t even have picked him out of a crowd. But his foreleg was bandaged and splinted. He had broken it, and from the look of the bandages, recently. I didn’t bother guessing what the chances were that it could have been a coincidence, what the odds were of a pony administrator having taken a tumble down an awkward stair somewhere. Maybe it was pure chance. Maybe the changeling I had left with a magic-induced reminder of my displeasure had already skipped town.

But in my line of work, coincidences don’t happen.

The tiniest possibility crept into my mind, a fragile crystallization of paranoia. They called it a false flag operation, when an army changes uniforms and insignias to disguise their true leaders. It’s a griffon thing – they’d been busy cooking up new ways of making war even back when we ponies were still grazing pasture to pasture. It was a nasty sort of business, where disguised operatives would even attack their own people if necessary.

It’s all about the optics. Making sure you’re the one attacked, and thus the one wronged. Creating an impeachable justification to go to war. Manufacturing a perfectly good excuse to remove a troublesome rival from power.

“A great service to Equestria indeed,” Princess Celestia continued. “And that is why what I’m about to say is so difficult.”

My head jerked back up. “What?”

“Detective Slate,” Celestia said firmly. “You must agree that the source of an accusation of this magnitude must be carefully considered.”

“I’m sorry?”

“You are familiar with changelings, are you not? What do you know of ‘sleepers’?”

“Sleepers…” I shook my head. “Changelings that don’t even realize it? That’s nothing more than movie glitz. The Marechurian Candidate, the unwitting changeling-as-pony programmed only to reveal themselves when they’re triggered somehow. It’s all nonsense.”

“No, detective. It is not.” A frown crossed Celestia’s face and I could feel the weight of centuries behind it. “Tell me: have you ever been magically confirmed as a pony?”

I blinked. It took too long for me to grasp her meaning, and when the realization hit it felt like the wind had been knocked out of me. Celestia simply stood there, towering over me as she awaited my response.

“What are you implying?” I said through gritted teeth.

“I asked you the question first.”

“I…” My lips twisted. “No. I joined DEqSec before the test even existed. Normally we check all new hires, but I was grandfathered in. But I’ve lived in Equestria all my life. You can’t honestly think that I’m a changeling.”

“Of course not,” Princess Celestia said. “But we must make sure. We must do everything clearly and publically. There is too much at stake.”

“You can’t be serious.”

She turned to the side, looking away from me. “I will arrange for you to be held in one of the waiting chambers until an officer from your department can—”

“No,” I said, voice shaking. I screwed my eyes shut, forcing myself to resist the impulse to just go along with her smooth words. “Cast the spell yourself. Right now, in front of all these ponies.”

“What exactly are you saying, Detective?”

“I’m saying you’re right. This needs to be clear and public. What better way?”

Silence stretched out. I opened my eyes again to see her gazing down at me impassively. “Very well.”

She raised one hoof slightly, and the guards stepped away from me. I was left standing, legs shaking, alone on the red carpet. Ponies – guards, petitioners, court servants – watched us wordlessly, their eyes wide.

I have to admit I considered fleeing. Or attacking. But with Princess Celestia in front of me…? As soon as her horn came aglow, the thundering currents of raw magic underhoof twisting to her will, I realized it was all futile.

All I could feel was the magic she was shaping. She was making no pretense of subtlety, roughly grabbing strands of mana and weaving them into the tapestry of the spell in a manner that every unicorn in the room – heck, in this entire wing of the palace – could see. It was obvious. It was overwhelming.

I stopped trying to think of an escape route. That was wasting time. Nothing made sense to me anymore. I was standing on the precipice, staring into the long fall down, and I couldn’t help but feel I was about to be pushed. What does a pony do in that situation? What can a pony do?

Celestia breathed out. The final element of the spell slid into place and a green glow bloomed all around me.

All a pony can do is pull somepony else down with him.

A green aura lit up around Celestia too. I raised a hoof to doff my hat, displaying my hornglow to the room.

Celestia took a half-step back, shock written across her face.

It worked far better than I thought it would have. Any foal out of magic kindergarden can cast a quick green mist spell, and maybe that was my point: to show that anypony can fake a positive. But I wouldn’t have expected Celestia’s magic signature to be so overwhelming that nopony could even tell what I had cast, exactly. And I certainly didn’t expect Luna to take that moment to burst into the room.

“Sister!” she shouted at a deafening volume. “What is the meaning of—” Her mouth fell open. My eyes were drawn to the chains dragging from her forelegs, the guards in the hall behind her hastily running to catch up. Somepony had attempted to hoofcuff her, only to find that you might as well try to put a puppy muzzle on a manticore.

Yeah. It all worked far better than expected. One final kiss-off, out of spite.

But what I never considered possible, not in a million years, not in my wildest dreams, was for Princess Celestia to light up in green flames, staggering back as her disguise failed and her snow-white coat reverted to a black, chitinous shell.

12: The White Queen

I didn’t know how to react. Judging from the dropped jaws in the audience, I wasn’t the only one.

The changeling queen shivered in place, her eyes darting around, and then her jagged horn lit up to shoot a blast at the ceiling right above us. That knocked everyone out of being stunned. I heard screams as I threw myself to the floor, only managing by luck to avoid the falling masonry.

“Stop!” Luna cried out as the changeling took flight, fleeing through the throne room’s new skylight. In a flash the younger princess took wing to follow.

I warily pulled myself up. Rain was pouring in from above, and all I could see were dark clouds overhead. A light flashed somewhere out in that swirl, but I couldn’t tell if it was lightning or the distant flicker of battle magic.

All hell had broken loose, alright. What seemed to be a whole company of Royal Guards arrived to stampede around in every which direction, as if somepony had knocked over an anthill. I don’t think they themselves knew whether they were attacking or guarding or fleeing, but they certainly weren’t enforcing any kind of order. Several of the petitioners there to see Princess Celestia were huddled against a wall, crying and trying to hide behind the drapes. Others had already booked it. The whole story would be halfway to Griffony by dawn.

“You!” someone shouted from behind me. I turned to see a big earth pony, and my memory hazily filled in his face as the guard who Ruby had distracted. From the looks of it, he had managed to browbeat a shell-shocked contingent of soldiers into some semblance of order. “You were with that changeling. You’re under arrest!”

I bent down to pick up my hat, putting it on over my rain-slick mane but not attempting to move from within the downpour. I glanced over to see all the documents that I had worked so hard for, given up so much to obtain. They lay scattered across a puddle, the ink slowly melting away as the paper turned to mush.

“Yeah,” I said. “Okay.”

We only got as far as a few hallways over before they decided to lock me in a guest bedroom for the time being. Given the ponies still yelling and running in all directions, they didn’t think the floor was secure enough – and I didn’t blame them.

I probably could have jimmied the window to climb out that way. From there I presumably would have needed to shimmy across a half-hoof-width ledge, over a sheer drop the height of the entire mountain, through a driving rain, all to make it to the next bedroom over. And then hope I could get in through that window and out through the door.

Instead I took the opportunity to sit on the bed. For once I had plenty of time to think, and I needed all of it.

A half hour later, the door slammed open again and a unicorn stallion in partial guard armor was hustled in. “Loyalist scum!” he yelled at his captors. “The reign of the sun is over! Do you really pledge your service to a changeling queen?”

“Nope,” the guard grunted. “We serve Equestria.”

The door slammed shut behind them, and the stallion didn’t waste any time in rushing over to bang his hooves against it as he kept shouting.

“You will regret this, all of you! You will be first against the wall when the revolution prevails! Sic semper lunaris!”

“Thus always to Luna?” I said.

He whirled, noticing me for the first time. “What?”

“That’s what you said.”

“No I didn’t. I—” He blinked. “It doesn’t matter! My compatriots will be here shortly to free me. We will prevail, and Princess Luna will depose the pretender and usher in a new dawn to Equestria.”

“Dawn?”

“Fine, night. A new night.” He glared at me. “They’ve locked you up too. That means you must be one of us, right?”

I gave a wry smile. “I’m not sure who ‘us’ is. You’re part of a Lunar conspiracy? At this point I’m surprised there was a coup planned at all. But then again, it looks too fake without some ponies set up to take the fall.”

“What are you talking about? Of course it’s real. There’s… there’s hundreds of us.” He had started to trot in circles, eyeing the window.

“I see. And how many have you personally spoken with?”

He stared at me, anger flashing across his face. “You’re just trying to get me to name names. You’re a plant, aren’t you?”

“If so,” I said, “I’m pretty bad at my job.”

“Well I’m not talking.”

“Was there more than one, the one who convinced you to join the revolution? Was it even somepony you personally knew, or a guard from some other division, someone you never bothered checking up on to see if they really existed, at least under that name?”

“Not talking!” He couldn’t keep the panic out of his voice, but he had said enough.

I shook my head, ignoring him as his pacing picked up in speed. I kept turning the whole situation over and over in my head, like one of wooden puzzleboxes that you had to know just where to squeeze before they’d pop open. My fellow prisoner had only confirmed what I already assumed – the revolution being a farce wasn’t a surprise. But something still didn’t add up in the details, in the motivations and actions. Unless…

The door banged open again. “You!” a guard called. “Out!”

The amateur revolutionary looked up hopefully, but the hoof was pointing in my direction. I languidly stood, stretching. “What for?”

“Captain’s moving you to a more secure location. Now move it, before I have to make you.”

I trotted out, finding the same big earth pony guard who had captured me tapping his hoof in impatience. “Come on,” he said brusquely. Two other waiting guards took a step forward as well, and he halted them with an upraised hoof. “Stay here. We need to keep this level locked down.”

“But the prisoner—”

“You think I can’t handle a single prisoner?” His eyes were cold as he looked me up and down, ending with a smirk. “Trust me, I’ll deal with it.”

The guards shared an uneasy glance but didn’t argue. I could hear the remaining prisoner already complaining about something through the door again.

“Stay alert,” he said, then shoved me forward. “As for you... Walk.”

He kept me in front, barking out orders to keep me in line and moving. Any attempt I made to delay or veer off to the side was cut off a harsh word and a rough hoof against my flank. He marched me away from the guards and down a maze of hallways, taking one branch then another until my head spun.

We wound up in a dusty corner, where even the magical lanterns that lit the palace were guttered. He kicked open a door, and I saw a back stairwell, one used by servants and even then apparently not often. “Go in.”

I shook my head. “I think I know how this goes. If you wanted to just march me to the dungeons, you could have picked a shorter way, and brought some other guards for backup. I don’t plan on accidentally falling down any staircases tonight. You can give me the shovel, but I’ve got too much self-respect to dig my own grave.”

“You’re smart, Detective.” I didn’t like the look of the grin he gave me. “Some would say too smart for your own good.”

“Tell me, then, before we end this. What’s your angle? A true protector of Equestria type, here to take out some revenge? Or are you in this up to your neck too, and trying to tie up loose ends?”

“What makes you think those are the only two options?”

“Call it a hunch.”

The guard took a heavy step forwards, towering over me. “You should be more trusting, Detective Slate.”

“Because that’s worked so well for me.”

“You know…” The guard flashed green flames, and I found myself face-to-face with Ruby Quartz. “I’d say on the whole, it kind of has.”

I let out something halfway between a laugh and a sigh. “Looks like I really do owe you one, huh?”

“Sure seems like it. Now let’s get the heck out of here.” She moved towards the stairwell. “This should take us all the way down to the gardens. Things are settling down, so it shouldn’t be too hard to sneak out.”

“No.”

Ruby froze, a hoof in the air. “What?”

“I’ve had some time to think, and I’m close to figuring this out – all of this. I’ve been a step behind the whole game but I can see the end of the road now. I’ve just got one more question remaining. And I’m not leaving until I get some answers.”

“Are you crazy?”

I shook my head, giving a wry smile. It took a while to explain everything, leaving nothing out. All my suspicions, all the hunches that seemed individually underbaked and overthought but which added up to a convincing conclusion.

“You’re sure about this?” she said, when I was finally done.

“As sure as I can be.” I waved a hoof. “Go, without me. I’ll see you again on the outside.”

A faint smile crossed her face. She leaned in close for a brief nuzzle and then pulled back red-cheeked. “You better. You still owe me.” With that, she darted down the stairs.

I waited until I couldn’t hear her hoofsteps any longer. Then I went up.

Celestia’s chambers weren’t too hard to find. I just kept going upwards, as high as I could.

She was waiting within.

She had gotten control of her disguise again, but the ethereal mane and tail hung limp, pooling on the marble floor where she rested. Her coat seemed greyer, sweat-slicked, despite the cool air coming from the open doors of the chamber’s balcony. I could still see nothing but clouds out there, hiding the night sky entirely.

When she saw me, a complicated mixture of emotions crossed her face. An anger fierce enough to physically push me back, a sorrow that sent a dagger through my heart, then the effortless calm I had seen before, tinged only slightly with resignation.

“Detective Slate.” Her words came steady, quiet. “This is a surprise. I was expecting somepony else, though I couldn’t say why.”

I swallowed the surge of feelings that her presence stirred up in me, even in her weakened state. “Princess,” I said in greeting. “I could say the same. Wasn’t expecting to find you here.”

“You and everypony else. That is, in part, the point.”

“Lucky for me, then. I’ve still got some questions. And who better to answer?”

“Ah.” She showed a wan smile. “Then I suppose this is when you demand to know what I did with the real Princess Celestia. When you expect me to monologue about my evil plan, that sort of thing.”

“Not quite.”

“Then tell me. What do you want to know?”

I rolled the thought around on my tongue before spitting it straight. “When was it that you went native?”

Her eyes widened slightly. I would have missed it if I wasn’t watching.

“Was it five years ago? A decade? It had to be before Luna came back. See, at first I thought that discovering you were a changeling made everything else add up. Luna’s arrival would have put you in danger, with an unexpected sister to have to fool. So you concoct an elaborate scheme, eliminate a few ponies by framing them as changelings, plant the seeds of a Lunar rebellion. But only a surface-level one. You always meant for that plan to be found out, to have someone blow the whistle. In the resulting panic, a few inept conspirators take a fall, and you pin everything on the Lady Moon herself. There’s your reason to get rid of her. To send her back to the moon.”

“I would never—” Celestia spoke up.

“I know. All that makes sense, except for one thing… Why turn and frame me, then?”

I paused, but Celestia kept quiet, her eyes narrowed.

“You said it yourself. An accusation against a Princess is big. Any room for doubts just leaves a door open to trouble, and yet you went out of your way to paint me as a changeling. You don’t muddy the waters, if you’re about to land the big fish. So why do it, if having a clear reason to remove Luna was your goal?”

“Because that wasn’t my goal.”

“Because you were trying to protect her instead. You had nothing to do with any of this, did you?”

A chill wind blew in from the balcony. I barely felt it, solely focused on the mare in front of me.

Celestia took a deep breath. “Four hundred years.”

I blinked. “I’m sorry?”

“You asked me when I went native. It’s been about four hundred years, give or take. Back when I was a young student of the real Princess Celestia. Long before she even appointed me as an advisor.”

Her gaze swept over to the balcony, at the storm clouds past the railing. But I could tell she was looking somewhere far beyond.

“I’m sure you’re aware of the Great Griffon War?”

I frowned. “The outlines, sure.”

“Alicorns are long-lived, you see, but far from unkillable. It was the eve of the war’s most decisive battle when a griffon assassin struck, managing to get into the Princess’s own bedchambers to mortally wound her. You could hear the shouts of pre-emptive victory echoing across the valley from the griffon hordes as the news spread that night. That was when the Princess, still dying, asked—no, demanded—that I take her place.”

I was silent, feeling the conviction of her words somewhere in my bones.

“When I led the army into battle the next morning, tears still streaming from my eyes, the griffons broke and fled before me, terrified by the spectre of the immortal sun.”

“That… that was centuries ago,” I said.

“I know.” She shook her head, smiling. “I still miss her, even now. I’d like to think I’ve done the best I could in that time.”

“But then, why the laws? The harsh treatment of changelings? Why would you, of all ponies, demand that kind of punishment?”

“Because it is me, of all ponies.” She let out a deep sigh. “Four hundred years is a long time for an alicorn. It’s an eternity to a changeling queen. I have only lasted as long as I have due to the entire nation of ponies freely giving their love to me each and every day. But even that power has its limits. How many times in the past few years have I fallen to threats that I should have easily bested? Nightmare Moon, Discord, Tirek… and Chrysalis.”

“The changeling queen that invaded at the wedding.”

“Yes. Chrysalis brought with her an entire hive of followers, their minds burnt to ashes and their bodies purposefully starved into an endless hunger. It was horrifying. It was far too late for any of them. Each and every drone was a threat to my little ponies of Equestria and I had to make the tough decision, act decisively and without compromise.”

“But then afterwards. You could have relaxed the laws. Changed things. You have that power.”

“Yes, and risk any number of questions myself. In my position I simply couldn’t risk a rumor starting about having been replaced by a changeling. It might start as ridiculous, nothing more than a rallying cry for fringe malcontents, but soon enough every pony in the nation would start to wonder why I wouldn’t just undergo a public test and prove myself.”

“So you chose to send innocent changelings to the stars.”

“Detective Slate, the world is not a simple place. All I can do is what I think best for Equestria as a whole.” A haunted expression crossed her face. “Though apparently, my course of action has only prolonged the inevitable.”

I shook my head. “This looks bad but it’s not the end. Do you really think Luna wouldn’t understand if you explained everything? This can be papered over: changeling queen driven out of the country, real Celestia rescued, you come back into the picture.”

“No.” Her head dipped down towards the floor. “I’m afraid it’s too late for that. You saw what happened when a room of my ponies momentarily lost their confidence in me, how I couldn’t even maintain the guise I’ve worn for centuries. I’m too weak now, and growing weaker by the minute as doubt and fear radiates outwards from the palace. Even if everypony were to miraculously accept me as I am, I think it is far too late.”

“What are you saying?”

She looked up at me with an incalculable sadness. “I’m dying.”

“No,” I said, feeling as if somepony had punched me in the throat.

“Yes.” She gave a dry chuckle. “And to think, when you arrived, I expected that was your reason for finding me. To kill me yourself.”

“No,” a voice called out from behind me. “That’s why I’m here.”

I turned to see Rising Star leaning against the doorway. “Hello, Slate,” he said.

“Turn around and walk away, Star,” I growled out.

“Afraid I can’t do that. I’ve got a job to do, and even if it’s apparently a foregone conclusion, I’d rather just go ahead and make sure. Better safe than sorry, as they say.”

I took a step forward. “If you plan on touching her, you’ll have to go through me first.”

“Good news,” Star said, grinning. “Turns out that’s part of the job, too.”

“And what exactly makes you think you can beat me?”

“Us,” Celestia said. I heard a rustle behind me and glanced back to see her painstakingly pulling herself to her hooves.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Star said. “Probably this.” His hoof reached up to the collar of his black shirt, touching a black clasp inset with a ruby. “Alicorn Amulet. A friend helped me retrieve it from the magical artifact vault.”

“No,” Celestia whispered. “Nopony should have access. Nopony that would help you. Unless— Stonecastle?”

“He sends his regards, Princess. And a special message for you, Detective Slate, though I don’t think it’s appropriate to repeat those kind of words with a Princess present. Suffice it to say that he’s going to have a permanent limp, and he seems to think you’re the one responsible.”

“You can both go to Tartarus, as far as I’m concerned.”

“Aw, Slate, don’t be that way.” I couldn’t see anything past his shades, only that stupid grin below. “I thought me and you were bros.”

I hit him with the biggest spell I could work up, a laser that made a screeching sound as if someone had thrown the handbrake on the Friendship Express at full throttle. The beam of light left an afterimage floating in my eyes, but when the halo cleared, Rising Star hadn’t even moved.

I tried again, and again, putting on a light show as I threw bad spell after good in an attempt to get anything to stick. His amulet just flashed, the gem glowing softly as it effortlessly neutralized my magic.

“That all you got?” Star asked.

I gritted my teeth and charged him. He waited until I was steps away and then casually reared up and back-hoofed me with such augmented force that I cartwheeled across the room to slam into a dresser.

“Stop!” I heard Celestia shout, and I heard the discharge of more magic, followed by her crying out in pain. I tried to twist my head to see, but the room was still spinning.

“Wait your turn, Princess. I wanna deal with the Detective first. He and I have got some personal issues to work out.”

I shook my head, trying to think of another spell but my horn was already burning with overexertion, and the details kept slipping out of my dazed mind. Star loomed into view, and I forced myself to sit up against the cracked wood of the dresser behind me.

“You think you’re so smart, Slate,” he whispered. “You think you’re hot stuff. Well, who’s laughing now?”

I squeezed my eyes shut, and then opened them again, trying to get them to focus right as I stared at some point over Rising Star’s left shoulder.

“It’s not…” I paused, coughing and feeling wet blood fleck my hoof. “It’s not about who’s laughing now. It’s about who gets the last laugh.”

“Oh yeah?” Star sneered. “And what, you think that’s gonna be you?”

“No,” I said. My brow furrowed in confusion as the blur behind Star finally sharpened and I realized what I was looking at. “Probably her.”

I heard the faintest of sounds as Princess Twilight Sparkle’s hooves touched down on the balcony. Then a wave of force slammed into Rising Star, tossing him like a ragdoll first into one wall, then reversing and sending him flying into the other.

He got shakily to his knees. His shades had cracked in half at the bridge and he spat as he threw them to the ground. “You think you can stop me? I have the Alicorn Amulet.”

Twilight Sparkle looked like she had leapt out of one of those stained glass windows, perfectly still, head high, wings upraised. Then one of her eyebrows quirked upwards. “I think you may be taking that name a bit too literally, if you think it can stand up to a full-fledged alicorn’s magic. Particularly one who is very upset right now.”

Star answered with an attack, shooting a ray of light out of his own horn as the amulet lit up. It splashed harmlessly against the magenta bubble of her shield.

“Now it’s my turn,” Twilight said.

She tilted her head gracefully, and a spiraling blast of rainbow magic surged out, something elemental that I couldn’t even begin to understand, but could still see clearly even through closed eyelids. It slammed straight into a shield of black that Star had erected, knocking him a hoofstep back as it impacted.

“You… can’t stop me! Not with this!” he cried out, as the rainbow kept pouring forward. Twilight smiled, and the beam doubled in size.

The gem on the amulet had begun glowing with the approximate brightness of the sun. “The Alicorn Amulet is all-powerful!” Star yelled. “I— Ow!” The entire neckpiece had turned from dull red to bright white, the edges outlined in blue, the color of metal superheated in a forge. Star pawed at the clasp, and let out a yowl of pain as soon as his hoof touched the surface. He reached up, tearing at his collar, trying to get the jewelry off.

With a rip, the shirt gave way, and the amulet clattered to the ground.

The rainbow faded away, leaving Twilight standing opposite of Rising Star. He stared, open-mouthed at the alicorn, then at the amulet where it was smoking against the floor.

Rising Star took off running.

Twilight’s wings beat once, drawing her up into the air as grim determination set her mouth into a line, but a single word caused her to stop short. “Twilight,” Celestia said.

I stood up myself, ears still ringing, and watched as Twilight floated down to Celestia’s side. The older alicorn lay curled up on the floor, looking even more drawn than before. Tears flowed from her eyes. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t want things to end this way. I wanted to tell you.”

Twilight cast one more glance towards the door, then turned her attention to Celestia entirely, drawing her into a hug. “I know,” she said, so quietly that I could barely hear. “I’ve known for a long time. And can’t you feel it? I still love you, Princess.”

Celestia rasped out a laugh. “Even now you call me by my title?”

I turned away from their embrace, suddenly feeling like I was an intruder in something very private. They needed words, and not ones meant for my ears. I slowly walked to the door, limping slightly as all the injuries from the past few days seemed to catch up to me at once.

“Wait,” Twilight called out. I looked back to see her and Celestia watching me. “Where are you going?”

“I’ve got one last bit of unfinished business,” I said. “It’s time for this story to come to an end.”

13: The Last Laugh

The rain had stopped by the time I made it to the train station, but the fog had grown even thicker. Presumably the sunrise would clear it up in about an hour. That is, if we had a sunrise – with Celestia as she was, I couldn’t help but feel the whole natural order of Canterlot, if not the heavens themselves, had been turned upside-down.

For now, a single light on the platform fought a losing battle against the encroaching mist. Tangled Weave waited alone underneath, wearing a plain black dress cut for travelling.

She smiled at my arrival, just as if I was an old friend that she had been expecting to see her off. “Detective Slate! To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Why’d you do it?” I said, my voice rough to my own ears.

“Getting straight to the point, I see. But really: must you ask?”

I shook my head. “I want to hear you say the words.”

“Very well.” A smile flitted across her muzzle. “Power, of course. It’s always about power, in the end. The Night Guard was unfortunately persistent in their investigation of my business ventures, and I saw an opportunity to resolve that problem.”

“And how did you know about Celestia?”

She chuckled. “I didn’t. That was an unexpected bonus. The point was never to bring Luna down, specifically, but to create some political turmoil at the upper levels. Just enough of a dust-up to cover my tracks in the eyes of the law. This? This works splendidly for my purposes.”

“And yet changelings are the ones who are called parasites,” I spat.

“I’ll choose to take that as a compliment.” An eyebrow raised. “After all, I couldn’t have done it alone. I suppose I should thank you for your part in the whole play. You were just the element of chaos I needed to keep everything humming along.”

“You know that had I known I would never have—”

“I know what you did do. Isn’t that what matters?”

I shook my head, but didn’t have an answer other than the turn of my stomach.

She smiled with a kind of possessive pride. “Really, I couldn’t be more pleased.”

“And to think, you almost got away with it all, too.”

“My dear,” she said, “I have gotten away with it. I shall be in Griffonstone by lunchtime, enjoying tea and perhaps some of those lovely scones they’re so proud of. Obviously the situation is a little too tense for my presence here in Canterlot, but that doesn’t mean I can’t continue with my business from afar. It will be a pleasant vacation.”

“You really think I’ll allow you to leave?”

Her head tilted to the side. “Do you really think you can stop me?”

With the sound of metal on metal, the train pulled into the station behind her, all of its windows curiously dark.

I took a step forward. “Yes, I do.”

She smiled at me, batting her eyelashes. Then her lips pursed in a whistle. Out of the fog, Rising Star came forward, pushing a pony along with him. It was Paisley, and his magic held a knife to her throat.

“You should know by now, Detective. I always have a plan.”

“She’s your daughter,” I whispered. “You wouldn’t.”

She shrugged. “Sentimentality is just another excuse for weakness.”

I ground my teeth, looking to Rising Star. He wasn’t grinning this time.

“Let her go, Star,” I said.

“Don’t think so. Maybe it’s time for you to turn around and walk away.”

I took a slow step towards him, watching warily. “How stupid can you be? Tangled Weave’s playing you. She was playing you the whole time – she intended for you to take the fall when the changeling scheme came to light.”

Star’s smirk was grimmer than normal. “You think you’re telling me anything I don’t already know?”

“Really, Detective,” Tangled chided. “Is that your move now, to try and turn us against one another?”

“She’s just using you, and as soon as you’re a liability she’ll feed you to the sharks.”

“Of course,” Star said. “And that makes this one relationship I completely understand. I can work with that.”

I grimaced. Paisley was drawing shallow breaths, her eyes wide. She clutched one foreleg tightly against herself, her neck drawn back as far as possible from the blade of the knife. “Please,” she whimpered.

I raised one hoof, then lowered it. My teeth clenched as I looked from Rising Star to Tangled Weave and back again. I thought about what my chances were. I thought about what was more important: saving the life of the pony I once loved, or having justice finally prevail. But what kind of justice came at the expense of an innocent life?

I reached up to pull my hat down over my horn as a grimace split my lips. I could see Star’s eyes narrow and the knife twitch in his magic. “You...”

A chime abruptly sounded, cutting through the tension.

I blinked. Star and Tangled shared a confused glance. The chime sounded again, and I realized it was coming from my jacket pocket.

“I think that’s for me,” I said. “Mind if I take the call?”

After the briefest moment of silence, Tangled Weave burst into laughter, waving a hoof. “By all means,” she said, catching her breath.

I reached into my pocket and pulled out the crystal. As soon as my hoof touched it, I heard the voice clearly.

“Let them go,” Paisley Pastel said in my ear.

I looked up, eyes widening at the Paisley that Star held. My brain finally catching up with the way she was clutching that specific foreleg, her face creased with pain. Then I saw Ruby Quartz stepping out of the fog behind Rising Star, and a lot happened very quickly.

“No!” I shouted, as I lunged forward, the crystal falling to the ground. Star spun, throwing the changeling he held at me, while Ruby leapt at him from behind. The changeling stumbled across the platform and I bowled him over, knocking him to the side. But it had slowed me down enough. When I looked up, Star had won the brief tussle with Ruby and swung her around in a twisted approximation of a ballroom dance, only with his horn now pressed to her throat.

“Not one step further, Slate,” he said.

Tangled Weave hadn’t even moved, choosing instead to watch with her lips pursed. “Oh my. Well, I suppose this works just as well. You do keep things interesting, Detective. Star, be a dear and take care of the rest, please?” She reached down to pick up a suitcase in her mouth and daintily stepped forward and onto the train.

I was left with Star, still holding Ruby hostage. The changeling laid in an unmoving heap on the platform.

“Let her go, Star.”

He snarled at me. “Not a chance. In fact, I think we could use some insurance. Maybe she should come to Griffonstone too.”

“She doesn’t have anything to do with this. Let her go.” The word tasted bitter in my mouth but I tried it anyways: “Please.”

“And why should I?”

Silence stretched out. Because I owe her one, I thought, before dismissing it instantly in favor of the truth. Because she’s a pony. Because she’s a friend.

“Because I admit it: You’ve won.”

His eyes narrowed. “Excuse me?”

“You’ve beaten me. I give up. I’ll let you get on that train and go – as I see it, you and Tangled Weave deserve one another. But be the bigger pony. Let the girl go.”

“Yeah. And how many times have you sucker-punched me? How do I know this isn’t another trick?”

I sat down there on the floor of the train platform, taking off my hat and holding it in my hooves. “You’ve got my word.”

“What little that means,” he spat out. But a grin crossed his face. “You’re serious about this.”

“Deadly.”

He awkwardly dragged Ruby with him as he backed towards the train. After a few steps, his hoof hitting the metal stair heading up into the passenger car and he paused there, eyes darting back and forth as he watched me carefully, weighing his decision. We stood in silence each waiting for the other to make a move. Until the train jerked slightly, preparing to depart.

“It’s been a pleasure, Slate,” he said. He pushed Ruby forward and she landed in a tangle of limbs on the wooden platform. I jumped forward to her, as Rising Star vanished inside the train. With one squeal of its whistle, it pulled forward, picking up speed as it left the station.

My attention was on Ruby. “Are you okay?” I said, trying to help her up. “Did he hurt you?”

“Sorry,” she muttered, red-faced. “I— I thought I could help again and—”

“No,” a voice called out from the fog. Paisley Pastel stepped out, with Red Harvest at her side. “It worked out fine.”

Red moved to where the changeling lay on the platform, checking it over for signs of life or weaponry. Not necessarily in that order.

Paisley glided across the platform to us, eyes flicking across Ruby and me. “I need to have a few words with Slate.”

Ruby’s eyes were wide and uncertain, but she nodded. “Of course.”

“Mmm. Alone, if you don’t mind? We’ve got some guards and medical technicians in a perimeter around the station, if you are hurt and need it looked at.”

Ruby bit her lip. “R-right. Sorry.” She slowly backed away, still looking at us.

Paisley stared at her until she faded into the fog. “Cute,” she muttered in my direction. “I didn’t think you went for that type, Slate.”

“It’s not like that.”

She shrugged. “Maybe it should be. You could use somepony to keep you in line, and Celestia knows I don’t have the time.”

I let out a breath. “Maybe you’ll have more time pretty soon. Maybe PHAIR’s mostly out of a job now, depending on who’s left to be in charge.”

“Are you kidding?” she said, eyebrow raising. “I’m only going to have more to do. Untangling this mess and smoothing over racial relations is going to take years of effort, at best.”

“That’s you, alright,” I said. “Always onto the next problem.”

“Better than dwelling on the last one.”

I shrugged. “Then what, you were working with Luna the whole time?”

“Yes. We discovered the clues pointing towards someone planning a conspiracy in her name, but couldn’t pin down who, exactly. That’s when I got the idea to have myself arrested as a changeling. It would allow me to see the inside, follow the trail of who was responsible, as well as providing a means to shut down the whole changeling-framing system permanently.”

“But Rising Star threw a wrench into that.”

“By refusing to have me tested. Which was lucky on our part, as that’s what Mother wanted all along. Instead, Luna and Red arranged to get me out again, but that was when we found out about the plants in the Royal Guard. At the time we didn’t know how deep the scheme ran, and had to immediately divert all our attention to rooting out any conspirators. Turns out there wasn’t too much to find. We were very close to having the whole situation taken care of quietly and cleanly.”

“If it wasn’t for me.”

She glanced at me. “Pretty much, yes.”

I grimaced. “So the whole time, none of what I did mattered. This was all out of my hooves.”

“It was never ever close to your reach to begin with. Shouldn’t you be used to that by now?”

I didn’t have an answer.

Paisley stepped forward, staring down the tracks. I followed her gaze towards where the train had vanished, where it was even now speeding off into the distance.

“A fast pegasus could probably make it to the border, have them shut down the crossing before the train gets there,” I offered.

“I told you, didn’t I? To let them go. There will be nothing stopping them from crossing the border in another couple of hours.” She frowned, before turning to me. “Does that make me a bad pony?”

I thought it over in silence. “She’s still your mother,” I said. “I can understand wanting to protect her.”

A faint smile crossed her lips as her eyes slid shut. “I don’t think you understand. Princess Luna was waiting on that train. In Griffony, the laws are rather different than ours, particularly as it comes to repaying blood debts.”

“What are you saying?”

“Celestia passed away this morning. Luna was very unhappy you know, losing a sister. Even if it wasn’t quite the sister she thought, she loved Celestia very much.”

I stared out into the mist, noticing that ever so faintly, it had begun to brighten. The sun was rising after all, somewhere there beyond the fog, but it wasn’t clear how long it would take to strip away the last remnants of the storms. Before Canterlot would see the light again clearly from its source, before the warmth would chasing away the lingering shadows.

At least most of them. Some shadows would always remain. And some prices could only be paid far away from the light of day.

“Now, I’ll ask again,” Paisley said, shaking me from my reverie. “Am I a bad pony?”

I rolled it around in my head.

“You’re your mother’s daughter.”

She seemed satisfied by that answer.

5: The Crooked Truth

“Allow me to explain,” I said. “And feel free to jump in when I’m wrong.”

Raven’s face had gone two shades whiter than before. She desperately hung onto frozen blankness as her head creaked down in a nod.

“You don’t agree with Canterlot’s policy on changelings. You think it’s unjust and unfair, and want everyone else to see it as the same. But the legislation route isn’t going so swell. Turns out most ponies aren’t comfortable with shapeshifting love-eaters.”

“That’s an inaccurate and insulting stereotype perpetrated—”

“Spare me the speech, sister. I’ve heard it all before. No, you needed a new plan. A way to discredit the whole system. Hit it at its source. The spell.”

She stared at me, but didn’t say anything else. I continued.

“If the spell is wrong, that calls everything into question. In the middle of the scandal, maybe you can push a little harder, gain a little sympathy. Why do we need to criminalize changelings at all? What’s the harm, particularly if we can’t even tell who’s really a pony or not?”

“You’re just making wild accusations,” she said, frost in her voice.

“Not quite.” I spun the vial in my hoof. “See, it’s interesting that you’d have this. Sure, say it’s perfected. Having somepony able to swap skins is convenient. But why go to all the trouble of coming up with a drug? You’re one of the few shops in this city that could easily persuade a real changeling do your dirty work.”

“I assure you, all of our operations are fully legitimate.”

I ignored her. “No. You didn’t need this to get away with something. You needed it to get caught. That’s what’s so clever. This stuff messes with a pony’s genetic structure. Temporarily. And the spell works based off the presence of changeling DNA, biological triggers, that kind of thing. Paisley rigged the test so she’d lose.”

“And what would that accomplish?”

“She’d be caught as a changeling. Unquestionably. But once the juice had run its course, a second test would say the opposite. And what better way to publicly discredit the spell than to have a big arrest make the headlines, only to be followed by an equally high-profile retraction? That’s why she arranged for me to do the deed. So the initial test couldn’t be questioned.”

“You were never intended to be the one to arrest her.”

“In fact—” My ears caught up with my head and my monologue derailed. “What?”

“Paisley didn’t want to bring you in on it. Too honest, she said. Too sharp. We had a pony on the inside, setting the whole thing up. They should have handled it. But we got doublecrossed somewhere along the line.”

I hadn’t expected her to spill so easily, but I wasn’t going to argue “Who was your contact?”

She stared me down. “I don’t think that’s relevant. All you need to know is as good as the payoff was, apparently it didn’t stick. Now they’ve got Ms. Pastel under lock and key and are refusing a second test.”

Of course. “You wouldn’t like the result if they bothered to run it. That’s the thing with a pony with a price tag on their moral compass. There’ll always be someone out there willing to pay higher.”

“Maybe so. Ms. Pastel saw it coming, but it was too late at that point to change course.”

“So she passed me a hail mary in liquid format. In the hopes I’d follow through, work something out.” I paused, thinking. “So then, the recent busts: Silver Script, Jet Set, Blueblood. Paisley called them out as phony. Were those your doing as well?”

“No.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“Honest. But they were the final push to get us to move. I don’t know what she told you, but things are getting bad. We’re running out of time here. Who knew if we wouldn’t be targeted for real next?”

“How do I know you’re not lying? How do I know this isn’t all a smokescreen for a real invasion, rehearsal night for another royal wedding?”

She barked out a bitter laugh. “You still think it’s changelings behind this? Really?”

“I don’t see why not.”

“Let me ask you a question. In this city, all of Canterlot, how many changelings do you think there are hiding as ponies?”

I ran the math in my head. “Five hundred? A thousand? Most ponies would guess high but I think looking at it more reasonably—”

“Six.”

Her grin was tinged with sadness. But she spoke like the bitter pill was on her own tongue.

“PHAIR makes it their business to know about changelings in the city,” she said. “Even the ones that’d prefer otherwise. And go figure, it turns out that having the government openly hunting down your entire species puts a damper on the immigration prospects.”

“You’re covering for them,” I shot off, but the words didn’t have teeth.

“Most of them are here for family reasons. Not changeling family either. I know you don’t believe me, but a changeling can give love just as much as they receive it. And when your job and wife and kids demand you stay in a city that hates you, sometimes you have to take that risk.”

“Then what about the arrests? This last month alone we’ve had more ponies brought in than ever before.”

“More ponies, you say.”

“That’s an awfully strong accusation.”

“How many have you personally arrested?”

“One. Mare working as a cook in Government Administration.”

Her lip curled up in disgust. “Well, I guess my math was wrong after all. Down to five, now. Ms. Pastel did say you were good at your job.” She sighed. “We occasionally get those too. Young idealists who want to make a statement, accept the challenge, demand to live alongside ponies.”

My eyes skated to the side. For once, even having my collar confirmed didn’t make me feel much better. “You claim the rest are all faked?”

“Don’t you get it? This is why it has to stop. This isn’t a way to protect Equestria. The original invasion was an act of war, but you’ve demonized a whole species because of it. And now it’s moved far beyond that. The changelings don’t matter anymore. It’s control, plain and simple. A way to quietly undermine the guard, to cleanly consolidate power.”

“By who?”

“I don't know.”

“You've got this much figured out. I bet you can hazard a guess.”

“I don’t have any proof.” Her eyes darted to the side. “It's a dangerous thing, making wild accusations.”

“Then what is this, other than jawing about maybes?”

She looked contemplative for a moment, before leaning forward with a gleam in her eye. “You’ve heard about the new Chief they just appointed?” she said.

Rising Star. My lips curled back. “I know him, yes.”

“He’s in this up to his horn.”

“Maybe. If I’m buying what you’re selling.”

“You think he’s clean?”

“No,” I admitted. “And I’ve got my own reasons not to be his biggest fan.”

“If he’s a player in something big, something where he’s in any way disposable…”

I saw the end of that path. “Then he’ll be keeping insurance in case they try to land it all on him.”

“Precisely. We need the smoking horn. And he’s just the pony to give it to us.” She paused. “But it’s a long shot. How do we know he really has something incriminating? Where would he be keeping it?”

“DEqSec,” I said.

She slumped down, holding her head in her hooves. “We can’t trust anyone on the inside. And what kind of pony would be crazy enough to try and break in?”

I stood up. The vial slipped back into the safety of my pocket.

“A pony with nothing to lose,” I said.

She gave me a long, considering look. “Okay. I still have some connections in this town. If you can get me the info, some sort of solid proof as to who’s behind all this, I can get it to somepony high up enough to make a difference.”

“And how high is that?”

“Get me the proof,” she repeated. “Bring it back to the PHAIR offices. The Royals have cleared off by now, and the place is empty. I’ll be waiting.”

I nodded.

“Oh, and… good luck.” She shook her head. “You’re going to need it.”

With Red still presumably covering the front, I decided to duck out the back. Safest play.

Turns out I wasn’t the only one who had that idea. The big guy was lurking out in the shadows of the alleyway, and he didn’t look thrilled to see me.

“Leaving so soon?” he rumbled.

“Yeah. The adults are finished talking. Run along, now.”

His lip curled back. “Yeah? You think you’re a funny guy?”

“I’d love to hang around and tell knock-knock jokes, but I’ve got places to be. Maybe next time.”

I didn’t give him a second glance. I was already running through my plan for DEqSec as I brushed by.

“I think you forgot something.”

“Huh?” I said.

When I turned, I saw the hoof, and then I saw stars.

“That’s for Ms. Pastel,” I heard over the ringing in my ears. “And this is personal-like.” Another hoof crashed into my ribs and my legs gave out, leaving me in a heap in the alley.

I could taste copper. Must have bit my tongue. By the time the scenery had stopped spinning, the goon was already stepping away.

I couldn’t help myself. I spat red to clear my mouth.

“I still hit you harder.”

He looked back at me, but blew it off with a chuckle, heading back into the cafe.

I grunted as I struggled to my feet and began making my way out of the alley.

“Hey! Are you alright?” a voice called out.

I grunted an affirmative despite my the limp spaghetti of my legs. I swayed to one side, but felt a foreleg across my back and a hoof at my shoulder, steadying me.

It was then I realized two very important things.

First, the pony that was lending a hoof was that green earth pony from before. Raven’s ‘friend’, Weedy.

And second, he had just planted a tracker on me.

I’m not casting shade on his technique. It was a clean sleight, very professional. But translocational magic has always given me an itchy feeling. It’s a convenient allergy for a detective.

“I’m fine,” I said. “Couldn’t be better. Top of my—”

A cascade of sparks burst out of my horn with a series of rattling pops. Then a burst of smoke, acrid and smelling of burnt clove. My good samaritan coughed, waving away the cloud with a hoof.

“You sure?” he said, peering at my horn carefully. “Must have taken a pretty good blow to the head. Need me to call a doctor? Or the police?”

“Just fine,” I said through gritted teeth. I gave him a rough push and continued on.

My pyrotechnics had done their work. See, what most ponies don’t know, even most unicorns, is that it takes a serious break of the horn to disrupt unicorn magic. And even then, it’s more apt to fizzle than pop. But any action movie of the past decade would tell you otherwise. And it makes for an awfully convenient fiction.

No, the light show had been to cover me leaving him a gift of my own. A ring of deactivated magic, very top of the upper right foreleg. Even harder to discover than a permanent unicorn-made crystal tracker, but not as consistent. I’d need to remotely activate it in order to pin him down, and if he had any safeguards or friend sporting horns, the sign of the magic suddenly lighting up might tip my hoof. But it was another card up my sleeve.

He had something on Raven, but he also knew enough to consider me worth tagging. He was in this and deep, but the more players stepping into the light, the less clear their motives became.

I didn’t have time to chase wild leads so I filed the knowledge away. One more puzzle piece, but a middle one. I needed to find a corner.

When I risked a glance back, he had vanished as well. I took the long way through a few busy blocks, head on a swivel for anypony tailing me. Nothing. Weedy must have trusted in his tag, which all the better for me.

It took me a few tries, still dressed as I was in the gutter’s finest, but I finally flagged down a taxi. Catching a ride was a little more anonymous. A little more time to think. And an opportunity to pick through my mane to find the tracker. It was a little burr of crystal, infused with magic to allow its position to be monitored. I wedged it in a crevice in the back seat. Somepony was going to have a swell time tracking a cab back and forth across all of Canterlot.

“There’s a stop I need to make,” I called out. “Something I need to pick up.”

Don’t get me wrong. I was clean. Always had been. At least when it came to the hard stuff – alcohol was a necessary coping mechanism in my trade. Hardly counted.

But I had spent enough time in the seedy parts of town. I’d seen the junkies, wound up tight on cheap jake and lying dazed in the streets, dead to this plane of reality. I knew where to go, the right corners with the right ponies, but had to pay well for what I needed.

All in all, it’s no mean feat coming up with a clean needle in this town, and it was a sad joke, what the pusher had tried to throw in for free. But I knew where that particular alley led. I let him down softly, a final thought striking me as I counted out the bits. After some fast-talking I convinced him to part with the shades he was sporting.

When I returned to the cab, the driver didn’t spare me a second glance. Wasn’t the first time he’d taken this particular trip, and as long as he was getting paid he didn’t seem to care about my choice of vices. I directed him onward.

I couldn’t risk any of my usual hangouts, where my face was known. I settled for a coffeeshop, just across the street from DEqSec proper – one of those bland corporate fronts that saw a hundred ponies a day and could barely remember a drink order for the five minutes it took to brew. I had more important things on my mind than caffeine.

The bathroom was small, clean, and lockable from the inside. I didn’t know what the junk would do to my magic, so once I had the cord around my foreleg, I used my teeth to hold the needle. Fluorescent green shone as I extracted the Chrys from its vial, and I took a deep breath to steady my nerves, focusing on the vein throbbing in my foreleg. Couldn’t afford to waste this, after all.

According to Tangled Weave, the worst it could do would be some temporary pain – if she wasn’t lying, if she wasn’t mistaken about the contents of the vial. I knew better than to trust her, but if she was trying to get rid of me, she had plenty of easier methods. I could deal with the risk.

It hurt more than I thought it would. Sort of a hot lead, burning through my bloodstream. I gritted my teeth against the pain, trying to concentrate, to see if anything else felt different. After a few uncomfortable moments of getting to feel my circulatory system, the sensation shifted into a fleeting, jittery euphoria. And then faded entirely, leaving me stone sober in the sterile bathroom. I stared at myself in the mirror. Nothing had changed.

Well, I wouldn’t know until I had given it a try. I tentatively felt for my magic first, and was relieved to find the standard-issue glow and lift was as smooth as always.

It took me quite a bit longer to figure out the rest. I was about to pop a blood vessel straining in a generalized concentration when I stumbled upon it. It was a trigger of something, a mental construction, like flexing muscles that I had never felt before. That was it, green flames washed over me.

And I looked the same as always.

It took me a moment before I realized that it’d do better to have a pony in mind. The second time wasn’t bad, but with some doughiness of face and fuzziness of build, a standin for a pony that hadn’t been formed quite right at the factory. A few more attempts sharpened it up.

I cycled through forms, getting the hang of it. Hoping that doing so wasn’t running down my time limit faster. Finally, I halted, right where I wanted.

Rising Star looked back at me in the mirror. That hair, midway between carelessly tousled and impeccably styled. That triple-star cutie mark displayed in back. I slipped my recently acquired shades on, and affected a smirk that completed the picture.

“Showtime,” I said, the voice sounding strange to my ears.