Not a Word

Chapters

Second Incursion
Floor Plan
Ticking Clock
Cornered
Leave None Behind

Second Incursion

The tips of the intruder spikes on top of the steel fence glinted pointily in the evening light. Warded Lock wasn’t sure how, exactly, something could do anything pointily, but there it was. You saw the shine and immediately cringed and thought, “Yep. That’s pointy.” They glinted so pointily that it was almost enough to make her reconsider her course of action. Almost.

She adjusted her hind legs’ position on the top of the lamppost and glanced around one last time. The street was still empty. Of course it would be; it was dinnertime on Snootington Lane. She stared back at the spikes, which almost seemed to be taunting her. Their tops were about level with her and twenty feet away. Twenty feet ought to be good enough to keep groundbound ponies from jumping over the fence from the tops of lampposts. But Lock had some tricks up her sleeve. Keeping her front legs spread for balance, she wiggled her rear hooves around to get as not-bad a position as she could, tensed, and leaped.

Lock’s “trick” wasn’t much, to be honest, but it was often overlooked. Everypony knew earth ponies were strong and could pull stuff and knock stuff down. But everypony seemed to forget that jumping also involved strength. If a pony could casually pull a house, what was stopping them from channeling that energy into a leap and jumping across streets or up to the fourth story of a building? Of course, most earth ponies didn’t need to jump and didn’t know the proper technique (not to mention it simply looked dorky), so that skill was usually overlooked. Except in ponies like Lock.

Lock pulled up her legs as she soared over the spikes, but she needn’t have bothered; she still had a good foot of clearance. She landed in the mansion’s grounds cleanly, rolled to quiet the sound of impact, and scurried into a bush.

Twenty-five feet from a standing position on two legs in terribly subpar conditions. Not counting the extra distance she’d gotten as she fell. Very nice, very nice indeed.

Lock bolted across the unnecessarily hooficured lawn in spurts, flitting from ruler-trimmed bush to ruler-trimmed bush across shadows, never staying out in the open any longer than she absolutely had to. Logically, it was unnecessary — the street was deserted and all the residents and servants ought to be occupied with dinner — but being careful never hurt anypony.

Soon, she was right up against the wall of the mansion. She craned her head; four stories. Ledges ran along the walls at each story, level with the bottom of each windowsill (when there actually were windows, at least). Lock picked floor number three, as jewelry was usually higher up, in bedrooms, and floor number four was too high for most rich ponies’ bedrooms. Hypothetically, it could’ve been floor number two, but this section of wall didn’t have any second-story windows.

Lock didn’t get the point of jewelry. Or hoarding money in general beyond the usual rainy day funds. Really, what was the point of money if it was just going to sparkle on the end of a chain, or sit in a vault, or be reduced to a number on a financial table? If the wealthy weren’t going to do anything with their wealth, then she would. She didn’t think she was a kleptomaniac; she just wanted to be like a modern Robbing Hoof, stealing from the rich to give to the poor. She had the first part down pat, at least. And if she considered herself poor-

Don’t lie to yourself. That last job brought in over thirty thousand bits. One robbery got you over a million. That’s even with you only receiving ten percent of the jewelry’s value, remember. And your job as a locksmith is doing just fine.

Stupid conscience, interrupting her reminiscing like that. It didn’t even have the decency to always be there and convince her to to get out of this life altogether. Then again, Lock wasn’t sure she knew how to do much else. And she wasn’t sure she wanted to, either, particularly with how much money she was making.

So. Floor number three. Lock crouched, wiggled her rump (she imagined that action made her look like a cat), and leaped. She cleared the second-story ledge easily, hooking her hooves around it as she passed and pulling hard to give herself a little extra oomph. She landed awkwardly on the third ledge; her hooves scrabbled a little on the stone as she wrestled for balance, but she soon had herself plastered as flatly as possible against the wall. With the ledge only four inches wide, she’d need it.

She slowly sidled down the ledge, heading for the nearest window. She reached it, tugged at it. Locked. This high up? Oh, well. She examined it as best she could from her position. Looked like a simple mortise lock, probably even a sash lock. Of course, that was all that was needed physically; there were undoubtedly spells on the lock to prevent magical tampering and some kind of flight interdiction enchantment to prevent pegasi from hovering smoothly enough to pick it. After all that, what kind of thief would try to manipulate the lock while standing on a four-inch-wide ledge? Lock rummaged through her bags and pulled out a knife. The blade was too thin for stabbing, and Lock didn’t like violence, anyway. Keeping as still as possible so she wouldn’t fall off, she wiggled the knife into the gap between the two halves of the window and pushed.

Sometimes, Lock wondered if there were such things as “secondary talents” that came with the regular special talents. Side-effects that proceeded logically from special talents without being covered by cutie marks. Her own cutie mark was a traditional image of a lock, as her special talent was understanding the mechanics of and building locks. However, while she was almost unparalleled at making locks, her instinctual knowledge of them meant she was also quite good at picking them. She could look at any lock, understand the insides almost instantly, and know the best way to pick it in another second. She’d once bragged to a friend that she could pick a tumbler lock with a feather.

Compared to that, a sash lock was so trivial she wasn’t even thinking. The blade hit the bolt, slowed, then jumped forward as it flicked the sash open. Lock smirked as she restowed her knife, then pushed the window open and rolled in. She gave herself five minutes before she left, no matter what she found.

A personal library, and one of those big, old-money, two-story ones at that, with movable ladders and everything. It even had oil lamps, for that last bit of pointless atmosphere. But valuables-wise, nothing but books and some golden busts. Joy. This wasn’t going to be a good job. T-minus four minutes, fifty-seven seconds.

Lock was on a reading area on the second floor (of the library, not the mansion). She ran to the railing, vaulted over, and landed more softly than a leaf. She looked around, taking in the rows of bookcases, the decorations, and the crackling fire that seemed obligatory. Well, the good thing about lackluster places to break in was that it didn’t take long to case the joint. T-minus four minutes, fifty-one seconds.

Lock had sort of a sixth sense for shiny things, almost. She had hunches about where valuable objects might be kept, and those hunches tended to be correct. It could’ve been her special talent, except that her special talent involved locks. Whatever the case, she was around the room very quickly, grabbing a golden candlestick here, a platinum medal there, a small chestnut box that may or may not have held something, and so forth, stuffing them into her bags. A disappointing haul, altogether, but she couldn’t have everything. Maybe she could’ve gone further in, but one of her rules was to stick to one room, and one room only. Back out the window and into the Canterlot night she was going. T-minus four minutes, twelve seconds.

She clambered up the bookcase in a way that’d make a monkey envious, went to the window, pushed it open… and stopped. T-minus four minutes, eight seconds.

She looked at the floor beneath her hooves. Supposedly, this open space was just a place for rich stuck-ups to pretend to read whatever stuffy tome they had chosen, but it wasn’t over anything. Bookcases extended down from the lower edges of the balcony all around and there hadn’t been any windows on the outside. There was a large hole of unused space underneath the floor. That possibly held stuff. Very valuable stuff. T-minus four minutes, six seconds.

Stereotypically, libraries held secret passages. Who was to say there wasn’t a secret room below? Her shiny sense was tingling. And she still had time, right? T-minus four minutes, two seconds.

Right. Back over the railing, and Lock was on the floor, examining the bookcases. T-minus three minutes, fifty-five seconds.

It took her a while of close examination, but she found it: a cluster of books suspiciously close together. She tugged on one; they all rotated on a pivot — click — and an adjacent bookcase moved an inch forward. Lock poked at one of the books on the door; they were real books, but a spell was keeping them in place now that the door was open. She delicately tugged at the door and was rewarded with the wonderful sound of no squeaks. She slipped inside. T-minus one minute, thirty-four seconds.

The room was nearly pitch-black inside. Lock pulled an unfocused light gem from her bag and rattled it to excite its internal magic. It flared to life, revealing… nothing more than a tiny, cramped corner of the library that’d been hidden away. At first, Lock was disappointed, but then she took a closer look at the books. They were old, with strange binding materials and grisly covers andtitles like Ars Tenebrae. Books on dark magic, secreted away from the authorities. Well, all the better that Lock was stealing from these ponies, then. Very Bad Things would happen to her if she got caught, but she wasn’t planning on getting caught. T-minus one minute, twenty-five seconds.

Her shiny sense was still digging into her skull. More than before, actually. It’d stopped poking her and started jabbing her. But when she held the gem aloft and looked around the tiny room, she couldn’t see anything. Just books, books, and books. And a dark passage extending from the corner. Lock’s shiny sense started screaming. T-minus one minute, nineteen seconds.

But she didn’t head for it. Besides going into another room, her time was running out. She needed to leave this place as soon as possible. Still… Lock pulled out the platinum medal and stared at it. This was, in all likelihood, the most expensive thing she’d take away tonight, and it was still rather pathetic. T-minus one minute, fourteen seconds.

Decisions, decisions. T-minus one minute, seven seconds.

Although… why not return? She knew where she’d found everything. She could put it back. These guys would never know they’d been burgled. She could come back tomorrow, and-

No. You’re pushing it. It’s against the rules. You’ve got enough. Leave it be.

Lock willed her conscience to shut up. Yes, she’d come back tomorrow. She needed a better haul, she told herself. This wasn’t enough, she said. She zipped back through the library, depositing every nicked object back exactly where she’d found it. T-minus forty-eight seconds.

She had forty-three seconds left when she was out the window, closing it behind her. A pity she couldn’t relock it. Hopefully, it’d go unnoticed.

Why do you think “never hit the same house twice” is one of your rules?

Lock dropped from the third story straight to the ground. A quick survey — there was nopony around — and Lock scrambled to a preselected tree on the lawn. Climb, jump, over the fence, easy. Lock strode off into the Canterlot night, shivering with anticipation. Tomorrow was gonna be good. Breaking one — just one — of her rules couldn’t hurt. Not for one night.

Lock’s route was unchanged from the day before. She entered the mansion exactly as she previously had, snatched up the decorations again, and opened the secret door. Easy peasy. T-minus four minutes, twenty-eight seconds.

She set off down the passage in the corner, a focused light gem shining a beam before her. It was narrow, but not claustrophobically so; she still had a good few inches on either side of her. Light gems dotted the ceiling, but weren’t lit up, and Lock assumed she’d missed their “on” switch. Far from being dusty and cobwebby, the passage felt well-traversed, if dark and narrow and possibly a little drafty. If she’d been a bit more alert, Lock probably would’ve been worried about a corridor to a secret library of black magic being commonly used, but her shiny sense was almost deafening. T-minus four minutes, sixteen seconds.

The passage ran straight for (Lock guessed) a few dozen yards before opening out into another room, some kind of small storeroom with another door on the other side. When she saw what was on the shelves, the word that immediately leaped into Lock’s mind was “paraphernalia”. Rituals required junk to function, and this place had a lot of junk. Crow feathers, certain types of wood, knives, pieces of clouds, eye of newt, flasks of blood, rainbows’ colors, the whole shebang. It was stacked to the ceiling, clustered tightly on shelves that ran all around the wall. If you named it, it was probably in here somewhere, legal or not. T-minus three minutes, fifty-nine seconds.

But what was there in particular abundance, because of their magical properties? Gems. Set in rings, necklaces, brooches, not set in anything, some even uncut. Her instincts had been one hundred percent right. She’d have to tell her fence, Gannet, to get it all checked for curses, which meant her fee would take a hit, but there was still easily more than ten times what she’d get from the items in the library. Lock skimmed the room, planning out her best route. T-minus three minutes, fifty-six seconds.

Her first target was an especially large ruby on a stand. A fire ruby, if she wasn’t mistaken. Five hundred thousand bits, right there, bare minimum. Lock tentatively touched it and waited; no alarms sounded. Lock tentatively lifted it off its cushion and waited; no alarms sounded. Lock nodded to herself and stuffed it in her bag. Every now and then, she ran into particularly valuable jewelry that had warning spells on it to alert somepony when it was touched or moved. Very rarely, but just often enough to make her cautious when she spotted something this expensive. T-minus three minutes, forty-one seconds.

She tested the next few jewels as well, but when no klaxons started blaring, she got less nervous. She was so thorough she might as well have gone over the place with a fine-tooth comb. She went over the room from top to bottom, nudging aside the ritual items on the shelves to poke behind them. And just in case, Lock went over everything twice. She had the time. T-minus two minutes, twenty-eight seconds.

By the time she was convinced she’d found everything worth finding, Lock was very satisfied. At least one, probably two million bits’ worth in jewels and jewelry. True, she’d end up with less than ten percent of that once she sold it to her fence, but that was normal. Definitely worth breaking a single rule. T-minus one minute, thirty-five seconds.

She was about to leave when she heard something from behind the door leading out. A sort of muffled, panicked scream, quiet enough that she almost missed it. It was enough to give her pause as her mind ran away from her. These guys had had a secret library of black magic; who’s to say they weren’t serious about it? And considering how much black magic seemed to involve equine sacrifice… T-minus one minute, thirty-three seconds.

Lock chewed her lip as she stared at the door. Another scream, quieter still. She had everything she came for. But leaving somepony stranded in here, if there was somepony, was just… wrong. But her five minutes were almost up, and it was against the ru-

If you still cared that much about your rules, you’d’ve taken yesterday’s weak loot and left it at that. One minute, thirty seconds, by the way.

Stupid stupid stupid conscience. It seemed to shift based on what she knew. Yesterday was different. Lock stepped to the door, ready to blow the joint, but still stopped and looked back at the door. Silence.

If you’re going to go, go. If you’re going to break your rules and look, look. Don’t waste time.

Deciding not to lie to herself anymore, Lock trotted to the door. There was a miniscule peephole there. Lock wasn’t surprised; if the room on the other side of the passage was a secret black magic library, then this room was probably a secret black magic repository, hidden from the outside by a secret door. And it wouldn’t do to walk in on snoopy guardsponies without checking to see that there was nopony outside the secret door. Lock peeped.

A plain room was on the other side, the walls decorated with plain hangings, but that wasn’t why she almost felt her heart stop. In the cold blue of several light gems, a thin unicorn was lying spreadeagled on a marble table, a nullifier ring over her horn and a collar around her neck. She wasn’t secured by any means Lock could see, but although she writhed, her legs barely moved.

Lock fell away from the door, her mind racing a mile a minute. Some ritual. The specifics didn’t matter; anything with equine sacrifice was bad news. Already, she was coming up with something resembling a plan. She’d leave, hide her loot, and alert the Royal Guard. They’d storm the place and rescue the pony. She’d have to answer a few awkward questions about what, exactly, she was doing in the house, but compared to kidnapping and attempted equine sacrifice, mere breaking and entering would get overlooked.

She’s on the makeshift altar already. By the time the Guard gets here, it might be too late.

It wouldn’t be.

What if it is?

Definitely. Probably.

What if it is?

Lock held back a groan. There was a reason she was a burglar and not a mugger (besides the money being better). After another look through the peephole to be sure there weren’t any other ponies in the room, Lock flicked open the lock on the door and entered. Hearing the noise, the unicorn snapped to look at the door, her eyes wide with fear. But once she failed to recognize Lock, her expression turned to confusion. She made a puzzled sort of grunt as Lock walked up.

“Listen,” Lock whispered, “I’m- I’m gonna try to get you out of here. Got it?” She didn’t sound very convincing, but what else was there to say?

The unicorn blinked, then nodded vigorously for several seconds.

First things first: get the unicorn moving again. Up close, Lock could see weird, scabbed shapes traced into the unicorn’s skin, on her coat, on her legs. Runes. That could keep her paralyzed. …Probably. Literally the only thing Lock knew about runes was that the shape mattered. Destroy the shape, destroy the rune’s effect. Lock drew her knife out and laid the point on the unicorn’s cheek. She whispered in the pony’s ear, “Sorry.”

Then, as shallowly as she could, she sliced through rune and skin alike.

She was halfway across when the unicorn’s mouth snapped open, and she yanked her knife away. The unicorn almost yelped — Lock could hear the beginnings of a scream — but clamped her mouth shut again. Biting into her lip hard enough to draw blood, the unicorn whimpered quietly.

Trembling, Lock found another rune on one of the unicorn’s legs. She delicately sliced through it the same way and the unicorn could move her leg freely. A few more seconds, and the unicorn was shaking on the table, but at least she was free enough to shake. “Hey,” whispered Lock, laying a hoof on her. “Are you okay?”

The unicorn blinked back tears and curled into a fetal position. “N-no,” she mumbled, hiding her head behind her front legs. “I’m not ok-kay. I- I-” She sucked in a shuddering breath. “I’ve been here for- I d-don’t know. D-days. They j-just put me on there a-an hour ago. It’s-” Whimpering, she pressed a hoof to the bleeding patch of skin on her cheek that had once been a rune. “I… I don’t…”

Lock seized on what little bedside manner she had. “Listen. I’m getting you out of here. Can, can you stand?”

“I don’t know,” mumbled the unicorn. “Lemme…” She flexed her legs, one at a time; both ponies cringed at the pops in the joints. She rolled off the table and landed, trembling, on all four hooves. Her knees were almost knocking together as she stood upright. But she was still standing upright. She took a few steps; contrary to Lock’s expectations, she didn’t collapse. “I think so, yeah,” she said, “but don’t ask me to run.”

And just like that, Lock’s initial plan — they both climb a tree and jump over the fence — was shot. She had a plan B, but it was so hopeless she’d barely considered it: steal the key to the front gate and stroll out. Where was she supposed to find the key in a house this big? She didn’t have much faith in her ability to pick the gate; a lot of locks of that type nowadays had enchantments that would literally eat fake keys and lockpicks if triggered. She didn’t have a plan C. There were no other options for plan C.

Although, technically… Maybe there was. Hide the unicorn, then go back to her “leave, hide plunder, alert guards” plan. But that was still iffy; it relied on the inhabitants of the house not coming back, finding the unicorn gone, and searching the house in the time being. Lock didn’t know the layout of the house, and she doubted the unicorn did, either, but owners probably knew every nook and cranny. Still, it was an option. Plan D, then, if plan B fell through and she thought of something better for plan C.

The unicorn flexed her legs, trying to get the blood flowing. They were still shaky, but slightly less so. “So what are you doing in here?”

What the heck. Lock had never been good at lying. “Burgling.”

The unicorn stared. “Burgling?” she said slowly. “You mean… stealing?”

“Yes,” snapped Lock. “Burgling, stealing, robbery, theft, purloining, wealth redistribution, heisting, pinching, appropriating, moonlight requisition, heaving, pillaging, whatever you want to call it, and if you’re gonna judge me on it, you can-”

You wouldn’t leave her here and you know it.

“-just shut up, okay? I’m rescuing you.”

Pinching her mouth shut, the unicorn nodded.

“Now put your head down.” Lock quickly worked the nullifier ring off the unicorn’s horn; it was one of the more common models that required a physical key rather than the right enchantment to open. Granted, the lock was a complex one, but it was still a physical lock. It put up about as much resistance before Lock’s picks as a thick sheet of parchment.

Tossing the ring aside, Lock thought: where to put the unicorn during her incursion? If she left her here, the inhabitants of the house would find her free immediately the second they got back and do something unspeakable to her. Lock poked her head back inside the ritual storage room for a second. “Now, listen: you take the passage in here to the end and stay there-” (The unicorn’s eyes widened and she started to protest.) “-stay there. I’m going to look for the key to the outer gate. That might be the only way out. If- When I find it, I’ll come back and get you.” Lock knew someplace that close to the ritual chamber was a bad hiding spot, but she had no idea of the other rooms nearby.

“W-why can’t I go with y-you?” The unicorn shivered. “Why d-do I have to wait here?”

“How sneaky are you?”

No response.

“That’s what I thought. Stay here. I promise I’ll be back.”

The door to the rest of the house was locked. After a few seconds’ examination, Lock guessed it was a lever tumbler lock. Time for a curtain pick. She strapped the pick around her hoof and held a torsion wrench between her teeth. Inserting both into the keyhole, she wiggled the wrench around until she could feel it resting in the groove of the latch. She twisted the wrench at the same time as she swept the pick over the levers, and the door opened like a dream.

After making one last “stay here” motion to the unicorn, Lock cautiously looked outside. Nopony to the right or to the left. They were supposed to be at dinner — it was why she always broke into houses at around this time — but there was always a chance that somepony could be wandering around.

Why do you think you’re supposed to limit yourself to one room?

The white-walled hallway stretched off to her left; to her right, it quickly took a sharp turn as it hit the boundary of the library. Lock had no idea where she was going, so she chose right. “Remember,” she whispered to the unicorn, “I’ll be back.” Without waiting for a response, she stepped into the hall and shut the door as quietly as she could.

Floor Plan

The few times she’d glanced outside whatever room she was robbing, Lock had always found mansion hallways to be weirdly sterile. They had lots of stuff, but in that “look at how much stuff I can buy!” space-filling way. That sword on the wall was an expensive sword that was shiny and old, not the sword with which the family’s great-grandmatriarch had fought and won her title. Those paintings were expensive paintings that had been purchased at an auction, not the paintings that were gifts from a moderately-skilled friend. This cabinet was an expensive cabinet that had once stood in Canterlot Castle, not the cabinet that had been the perfect hiding spot for hide-and-seek two decades ago. It was like the inhabitants were divorced from the rest of ponykind, living in their own little bubble. Maybe that was why Lock liked robbing them so much.

Whatever the case, the cleanness and neatness and fakeness of it all would’ve unnerved Lock even if she didn’t know of the black magic ritual being practiced. With that knowledge, all of the items that tried to look normal (if expensive) felt like the disguise of an unreformed changeling — a thin, brittle veneer of ordinariness over the skin of some twisting monstrosity.

So besides staying quiet, Lock tiptoed delicately across the checkered floor because she felt unclean, somehow, in touching it. The bronze busts of this or that ancient pony glared at her. One rather large portrait hung on the wall, and Lock found herself double-checking it to be sure its eyes weren’t following her.

Lock knew it only took a few seconds for her to reach the corner, but it felt like ages and her heart was pounding as if she’d just run a dozen marathons. She listened. Silence. She cautiously glanced around the corner, exposing as little of herself as she could. Nopony. The hall kept stretching onward, still with the same heartless decoration. Featureless doors split off the hall, but Lock wasn’t interested in them. None of them would have the keys. Right?

She padded down the hall, dread making her stick to the wall whenever she could. She moved slowly to buy herself some time as she thought: just where was she going? Where on earth would the keys be? She had no idea of the layout of the house, and from what she’d seen on the outside, it was big. She didn’t even have much of a head for direction to keep herself straight.

Think, think, think. If this were your house, where would you keep your keys? Someplace not too far from the front door. Where was the front door? It’d been on the right side of the house when she’d jumped in. So… Lock stopped and closed her eyes to try and orient herself. The library was to her right. She was heading… into the house, away from the outside, so she was facing the same way she’d been on the outside. So the front door was somewhere to her right. She took a right at the first intersection.

There were windows ahead of her at the end of the hall, reflecting back the inside of the house. Edge of the house; good. Lock listened as she kept sneaking down the hall. Dead silence. The silence should’ve been pleasing to her, but not only did she keep thinking somepony was coming up behind her (she twitched and looked; nothing), it magnified her own sounds a dozen times. The slightest clip of hoof on stone sounded like a gong.

Lock passed a door without thinking twice, then stepped back and pulled at the handle. Just because she thought the keys were at the front door didn’t mean they were. Each room deserved a quick glance, if nothing else. This first room was the library she’d come in. Shame. Lock went to the door on the other wall. Locked. As she searched for the keyhole, Lock pulled out her pi-

There wasn’t a keyhole. Lock blinked and looked again. Definitely no keyhole. But, wait, this was an old-money house of unicorn nobility. They had some extremely tribalist door designs meant to keep out earth ponies and pegasi, but let unicorns move freely.

The design probably came from stupidity, not malice. If it was deliberate, it’d be harder to circumvent.

Ignoring her conscience for once that night, Lock inserted her dagger into the crack between door and wall and moved it up. When it clinked against the bolt, Lock tapped it to be sure it was a swingbolt and not a deadbolt (it was), then gave her knife a little flick.

The design was simple: concealed within the door was a handle, accessible only by magic. A unicorn could turn the handle and open the bolt via telekinesis, but somepony without magic couldn’t touch it. But the design was so simple — nothing more than a latch that rotated into place — that the latch could be manually opened by pushing at it with something thin. Like a knife.

Beyond the door was a study, probably for the lord or lady of the house, with lots of dark, dramatic colors. Bookshelves lined the walls. A desk sat in the middle, and on the desk sat a small stone statuette with glowing eyes, a sickly green. It was technically of a pony, but the design made Lock think of a pony that’d been sculpted in putty and then stretched up and down. Maybe it was the extremely ovoid eyes, maybe it was something else entirely, but Lock’s bile rose just from looking at it. Dark magic, maybe? A focus item in whatever ritual this family was planning? Evidence, then, and stealing it would at least slow them. But something that valuable was almost definitely rigged, even leaving aside just toting around a dark magic artifact in her bag. She’d get it once she had the key.

Lock closed the door and set off down the hall again. Just what sort of family was this? They had focus items sitting around in studies, a sacrifice secured to a makeshift altar in a room that wasn’t even a hidden one… But Lock knew that there was old money, and there was old money. Families that had been in wealth for a long time, versus families that had been fabulously rich since before Equestria’s founding and only gotten more money since then. The latter was almost completely untouchable from reputation and connections alone, with obscene amounts of cash taking up the slack. They couldn’t do dark magic out in the open — it’d destroy their reputation and leave them exposed — but as long as they made a token effort to keep it secret, guards could be persuaded to look away.

With her mind occupied, Lock pulled at a particularly small door, just under five feet tall, without really paying attention to it. Locked. Her mind spat out something about a utility closet, and she walked on.After a few seconds, Lock wheeled around. Utility closet or not, what was a door that small doing locked? That meant something. Maybe- Maybe even a dumbwaiter. She pulled out a pick.

The picking itself took less time than the retrieval of the tools necessary; dumbwaiter locks were meant to keep the door closed when the dumbwaiter wasn’t on that floor, not provide security. For it was indeed a dumbwaiter — a small shaft, a little less than four feet square, stretched up and down into darkness. There wasn’t any cable in the middle, so Lock guessed the dumbwaiter was above her. She illuminated a light gem and dropped it down the shaft. Ten, twenty, thirty feet… A little over thirty feet; if this was the second floor, the shaft must’ve ended in a wine cellar.

After a moment’s hesitation, Lock wiggled her way into the shaft, braced her back against one smooth stone wall and her hooves on another, pulled the door shut, and slid down. She’d take a sneaky way to get around the house any day.

She stopped at the first-floor door, on the opposite wall as the second, and put her ear to it. Vague sounds muffled by the wood. Maybe some metallic clinking. Probably the kitchen. Not an exit for now. She slid down to the bottom floor, where the temperature dropped six or seven degrees. She plucked the still-glowing light gem from the ground and laid it in the corner of the doorframe. She didn’t even need her picks for this; the mechanism was exposed on the inside of the door. She pushed the bolt aside and nudged the door open an inch (no squeaking, thank goodness). She wiggled her ear through the crack, listened. Nothing. Taking the light gem in her mouth, she slid out the door and looked around.

Yep: a wine cellar. A pretty big one, too; the gem illuminated only the wall she’d just climbed out of, while the others were beyond its reach and shrouded in darkness. Barrels and shelves and casks of all kinds were laid around the cellar, creating a twisting maze. If nothing else, it’d be a great place to hide in. Still, not the kind of place she wanted to be bumbling around in the dark. She turned back to the dumbwaiter-

Hello. There were two panels on the wall, right next to the door. One was obviously for controlling the dumbwaiter, with several numbered buttons. The other one was a single button; the lights, maybe. Lock swivelled her ears around. No sound. Holding her breath, Lock poked it.

The spells quietly hummed to life immediately, drenching the entire cellar with light. Looking through the gaps in the shelves, Lock could see that it was even bigger than she’d imagined, at least a hundred feet square. Shelves and barrels went up almost to the ceiling, with maybe three feet of space above the top. She did a chin-up over the top of one of the barrels and looked around. Solid stone walls surrounded her, except in two places where they were broken up by stairs: one far to her right in the near corner and another in the far left corner. Lock bypassed the maze by crawling over the tops of the barrels and shelves, rolling through the slim gaps, and investigated the closer one. Locked from the inside. Probably a way to the outside, for wine to be delivered. She slid her knife through the gap between the doors and wiggled it. From the vibrations she got back, the doors were fairly thin. With her earth pony strength, breaking through them wouldn’t be too hard, if it came to that. Lock hoped it wouldn’t; breaking doors was noisy.

She wiggled her way over the shelves, cutting diagonally across the room to the other staircase. There was another light switch next to the door, so Lock turned the lights off, just in case. Silence greeted Lock when she listened, so she carefully nudged the door open (thanking her stars the rich ponies here were the kind who oiled their hinges) and looked around. The walls had attention-grabbing darkwood molding and the floor was lavishly carpeted, but the only other doors were at either end. Some kind of entry hall, maybe a side hall off of the main one. It was hard to tell, as Lock had no experience with mansions beyond the rooms she robbed. Lamps flickered on the walls with the healthy flame of plenty of oil.

Which way from here? To the entrance, but that was… to the right, since that was the direction the exit stairs had gone from the cellar. Lock trotted down the hall, muffling her steps on the carpet and put an ear to the door. Silence, but… a very roomy, cavelike sort of silence. Like the echo you get when draining a tall glass. Entrance hall? Lock cautiously opened the door.

Entrance hall. Big, grandiose, meaningless, overdesigned. Chandeliers hung from the ceiling, casting pillars into shadow. Lock was emerging on one side of a wide staircase going to the second-floor balcony and cringed at the hollow, echoing sound her hooves made on the floor. She took the room in in seconds and quickly made a beeline to the one thing that mattered: the big double doors that were obviously the front entrance, the ones Lock begged to herself had the gate keys hanging nearby.

There was a series of keyhooks next to the doors, many of them draped with keys of various kinds. But none of them were the kind of key she needed. Gate keys were big, steely, and basic. No-frills taken to an art form. These… Sweet princesses, these ponies were so taken with their wealth that even their keys had to look glamorous. Even beyond their showy gilding, none of the keys had the solid workmareship needed for a big gate lock.

Lock held back a sob and planted her head against the wall. Pointless. This whole trip had been pointless. She’d never-

So where would they keep the key? A family like this would be prone to showing off their wealth. So they’d make a little display of something as visible as the grounds gate getting unlocked for the day. So they wouldn’t keep the gate key here, it’d be with the servants; the family would show off that they could afford to pay servants for something as minor as that. Which meant the key was probably in the servants’ quarters, which were-

Lock quickly opened the front door and squinted into the gathering gloom. Yes, the front gate was closed, and so almost certainly locked. She’d look like a right ninny if she ran around the house looking for the key, only for the gate to be wide open.

Servants’ quarters. Lock had done some cursory research on these sorts of houses, back before she’d laid down her rules and expected to go further into whichever place she was robbing. Servants’ quarters were usually on the top floor or belowground. After all, there was no need for the hired help to be as comfortable as the ponies who really mattered, right? With the cellar, subterranean quarters were unlikely, so-

Clickrrrr-rrrr.

At the sound of a door being opened, Lock instinctively bolted, her hooves booming throughout the entrance hall. She vaguely pinpointed it as coming on the opposite side of the stairs as the side she’d come in, but didn’t spare a second to look. She scrambled into the hallway and across the rug, but she could still hear hoofsteps. She was being followed.

She didn’t bother looking behind her. It would’ve taken too much time. She jinked into the cellar, tripped, tumbled down the stairs. She bit her lip and blood trickled down her chin. The pain barely registered. She rolled out of view of the door and ducked behind a barrel. She held her breath and listened.

Clip clop, clip clop, clip clop. Silence. “Huh.” And the door was shut.

Lock kept listening. She thought she could hear footsteps leaving. Maybe. Dangit, why’d she leave the door open? It only would’ve taken a second to close. She was lucky. She was very, very lucky. She didn’t even know if the inhabitants of the house were still eating; there could be servants spread out all over the place.

The darkness pressed in on her. Lock curled up into a ball and bit her tail to keep herself from screaming. She could leave, like she’d told herself earlier. Leave, get the Guard, come back. It couldn’t take that long. Why was she doing this at all? She didn’t even know the unicorn. Every second she waited in here was another second for her to be found and sacrificed. She’d already been here far, far too long. Time was running out.

If you really cared that much about time, would you have looked into those screams?

Lock wasn’t sure she would have.

But she still spat out her tail and stood up.

So, next stop: servants’ quarters on the top floor. Going up the staircase in the entry hall was a no-go, what with the other pony lurking around just outside, but that was fine by Lock. She flipped on the lights, hopscotched over the barrels back to the dumbwaiter, flipped off the lights, and pulled herself back into the shaft. She stood up on her hind legs, braced her left legs on one wall and her right on the other, and began shimmying up the shaft. She didn’t ignite a light gem; the darkness was creepy, but she didn’t want to waste a limited resource.

When Lock passed by the first-floor entrance, she listened. Still sounds. Servants still making food or were they clearing up already? Lock didn’t have the faintest clue what the rich ate or how much. She’d heard vague tales of lavish dinners that took hours to prepare, which just seemed silly. Ninety percent of the time, a sandwich and an apple washed down with some water served her just fine, thank you. Shaking her head, Lock kept pushing up.

She passed by the second-floor entrance, aiming to exit as high as she could, but she was blocked by the dumbwaiter before she reached the third floor. Unfortunate, but she’d manage. Lock slid back down to the second floor and exited. The entrance hall was… left, and then left again. Staircases further up had to be nearby, right? But the memory of the other pony (whoever they were) still lingered and she was very hesitant when she nudged open the door. Thankfully, the entrance hall was cavernously empty and quiet.

Lock dropped to her stomach to minimize visibility and crawled down the balcony to the right, towards the outside wall. The entrance hall stayed quiet. So quiet, in fact, that Lock began imagining she could hear something. Ponies talking? Somepony walking? Something being pushed? The sounds her mind conjured weren’t anything coherent. She wiped down her forehead and kept crawling.

At the edge of the balcony, Lock pushed open the last door, and- Yes! A square shaft shot up and down through the building, bordered by a winding spiral of stairs. Lock slunk up the steps, staying right at the join between stair and wall. It meant staying off the stair tread rug that ran down the center of the steps, but she’d get less creaks that close to support. Hoof over hoof she went without incident, passing the third floor and arriving at the fourth, right at the top of the stairwell. Peek; nothing. Deep breath.

Her supposition that the top floor was for servants seemed to be correct; the halls were noticeably more drab than those on the lower floors and less spacious. A relieved Lock sneaked through the lack of pretension easily, even as her ears kept swiveling for noises in case one or two of the servants were still up here. Nothing yet. Now, the dumbwaiter had been… ten feet ahead and twenty to the… left, right? …Or was it the right? How many times had she circled the stairwell?

But the location of the dumbwaiter hardly mattered, right? It probably ended in a laundry room. No, Lock was looking for the servants’ quarters, and probably their wardrobe inside that. They’d want the keys close at hoof. Lock didn’t know what the door to the servants’ quarters would look like, though, so- eenie-meenie-miney… mo. Lock cautiously tugged the (unlocked) door open and peeked inside. A storage room, mostly empty except for a few household essentials, like bleach and lamp oil.

Lock followed the right-hoof wall. It was something her father had taught her about mazes when she was eight: keep your hoof on one wall and, eventually (he stressed that significantly), you’d find your way out. As long as she stuck to the wall, she’d eventually wind up back at the stairs again.

Staying glued to the wall, Lock nervously opened door after door on both sides of the hallway in silence. Nothing much; storage closets, two or three recreation and relaxation rooms, even a dining room. All completely devoid of life. The few small bedrooms she found were empty or had their furniture covered with those dust-sheet things and a few thin, dusty cobwebs; definitely not places where keys would be held. The roof groaned in the slight wind, but Lock couldn’t feel a draft. And even if she had, she would’ve been too caught up in her own thoughts to notice it.

Were the servants in on the family’s little side activities? They almost had to be. They had the run of the house, even more than the actual owners. Sure, the aristocrats could declare certain rooms off-limits, but exactly how would that be enforced? The servants had all the keys. And Lock didn’t think these were the types of ponies to clean up after themselves, anyway. No, somepony else would do all the nitty-gritty. Maybe the servants were brainwashed, somehow. She’d heard whispers of mind control spells, which would easily fall under the purview of dark magic. Or maybe they would benefit from the ritual, somehow, as long as they kept quiet. It didn’t take a lot for ponies to look the other way.

Maybe the servants didn’t have a choice. The empty bedrooms suddenly took on a whole different meaning.

Lock glanced down a hallway running into the house, then did a double-take when she saw a window, far closer than she would have expected. After a second’s hesitation, she trotted over. If her sense of direction was so bad that this was the outside wall, she wanted to re-orient herself.

When she opened the window, Lock was immediately assaulted by the cool evening breeze. She blinked through the chill and looked out, at another window right across from her. She looked down; a large shaft, maybe fifteen by fifteen feet, burrowed down all the stories in the house, a window on each wall on each floor, terminating in a garden well below her. However, the solid walls and lack of doors at the bottom suggested it was less a “garden” and more a “bundle of weeds growing wherever it could”. She looked up; less than ten feet above, the shaft was open to the sky. She’d heard of these; they were called “lightwells” or something, meant to help with ventilation. She filed the information away as she reclosed the window. At least her spatial awareness wasn’t terrible.

Back to the outside wall, around and around, with only her own hoofsteps for company. What did ponies even need with all this space? Three stories of “regular” space and another one just for servants, each with more square footage than her entire house. That wasn’t even getting into the cellar. Was it a compensation thing? That was all Lock could think of. She valued efficiency and couldn’t imagine how ponies could even use that many rooms. This is the sitting room… This is the other sitting room… This is the sitting room where everything’s gilded… This is the other other sitting room… This is the sit- No, this is the standing room… Honestly.

She was about halfway around the floor, if she remembered correctly. She’d passed by another stairwell in another corner of the house. Lock opened another door and- Yes! Some kind of bedroom; it didn’t have the probable opulence of the owner’s bedroom, but it was big and expansive for the rooms on this floor, arguably nicer than her own room back home. Head servant’s quarters? Lock guessed so, since a four-poster bed was pushed up against one of the walls and the usual dresser and tables and vanity were laid out around the room. As good a place to look for keys as any. She delicately closed the door behind her and padded across the floor, grateful for the small amount of carpeting. As she looked around, her happiness began slipping away — where would keys be kept in here? — but then her shiny sense started buzzing. They wouldn’t be out in the open. Any potential thieves (Like you? said her conscience) would spot them immediately. They’d be out of sight, in someplace or something, not too hard to get to in an emergency, somewhere you passed by every morning.

She moved towards a bedside table, but her shiny sense prickled her. Too obvious. That’d be the first place a thief would look. Jewelry box? She looked around. No jewelry box. She stared at the floor and tapped her forehead. Think, think, think…

A jolt from her shiny sense sent her to the wardrobe. There were two whole rows of clothes inside. Dang. Even her own closet wasn’t that big. Lock pushed aside the uniforms, the casual wear, the- There they were. Hanging right on a hook on the back wall was a keyring. Although the keys most likely opened the same doors, they were simpler than the ones she’d seen downstairs, less ornamental and more functional. Standing out from the rest by virtue of its size was undeniably the gate key: big, stocky, meant to stand up to the elements. Lock wiggled it off the ring — taking the whole ring would be suspicious the second the servants returned — and dropped it into her bag. She was grinning to herself as she closed the wardrobe back up. That wasn’t too hard, was it? Now she just had to-

She heard a creak as the doorknob was turned.

Ticking Clock

As the doorknob rattled, Lock dropped to the floor and rolled under the bed before she knew what she was doing. At two feet from frame to floor, there was just enough space for her. There were skirts around the bottom, but they were thin and didn’t reach the floor. Anypony who looked under the bed would see her immediately.

She was shaking and breathing loudly, not helped by the dust in the tight space. Lock clamped her mouth shut with a hoof, but that just made her breathe loudly through her nose. Breathe slow, breathe deep, she told herself. Breathe slow, breathe deep. She forced herself to take a long, deliberate breath through her nose. Quiet. Good. Breathe slow, breathe deep. Breathe sl-

Click. The door slid open.

Breathe slow breathe deep breathe slow breathe deep-

Somepony walked into the room. From the sleek, shiny feathering trailing their fetlocks, Lock guessed that they were a batpony. The texture of the fur didn’t look quite like that of one of the more common tribes. She strained her ears, but couldn’t hear any angry muttering.

The pony opened the wardrobe. Against her will, Lock’s breathing sped up. Metal clinked as the pony slid hangers around. It didn’t look like she was reaching to the second row back, though. After a moment, the pony tossed something on the bed. It shook the frame just enough to release a little dust from the bottom. The motes drifted lazily down and settled on Lock’s fur, on her muzzle, in her nostrils, in her eyes. Her breathing caught as a few specks of dust raced up her sinuses and she started blinking like mad in an attempt to clear her eyes. More movement. The dust was further stirred up from the wind as a pile of cloth fell to the floor. Was the pony changing clothes? Why? If dinner was done, maybe they were changing uniforms.

If dinner was done, how long was it before the sacrifice was due to happen?

Lock’s mind raced. Dinner wasn’t quite done, right? The owners of the house would spend some time chatting about whatever inane things rich ponies chatted about. This servant was just up here before dinner was done done to prepare. Couldn’t get the sacrifice’s blood on their nice uniform. Right? Lock prayed to whoever was listening that it was. More dust settled on her nose.

The pony reached down and grabbed the clothes on the floor. Lock managed to pick out a batpony’s fangs. More rustling in the wardrobe, then the batpony shut the doors. A single one of Lock’s nerves loosened; the batpony hadn’t noticed the missing gate key. Without further ado, the batpony left the room. Although she listened closely, Lock didn’t pick out the telltale rattle of a key being turned.

Lock breathed in and dust tickled her nose. She couldn’t help it; she pulled her hooves from her mouth and coughed. Which meant she inhaled more dust. Hacking, she crawled out from under the bed and shakily got to her feet. She didn’t even try to stop it and instead just hoped the batpony wouldn’t hear it. When the door didn’t open, Lock assumed it was safe to cough her lungs out.

She didn’t have much time. Dinner was almost over and ponies would be moving around the house soon. But she had the key. She just needed to get back to the library and get the unicorn out. Almost there.

Lock slowly opened the door and cautiously looked right. Nothing. She looked left. The batpony was several dozen yards away, heading down the hall at a slow, easy pace and, from the casual swishing of her tail, didn’t seem the least bit suspicious or tense. Lock ran over what she could remember of the floorplan in her head. She probably couldn’t reach the staircase before the batpony, not in these unfamiliar corridors. But maybe she could climb down the dumbwaiter shaft, at least to the third floor. It all depended on whether the top was open and what floor it was on. Okay. A plan, at least. Holding her breath, Lock crept into the hall and inched the door shut behind her. It didn’t squeak and the click it made as it closed was almost inaudible. Lock released her breath in relief.

As she did so, a bit of dust tickled her nose. Before she could hold it back, Lock sneezed.

Lock and the batpony both froze. Lock broke off first, running in the opposite direction down the hall, painfully aware of the sounds her hooves were making on the floor. She wasn’t sure whether the second set was her own echoes or the batpony following her. She scampered around a corner before she heard any response from the batpony. The hall was unfamiliar. The batpony would find her in seconds in the house. It was familiar territory to h-

In the house.

Where was the lightwell? To her- left. Lock scrambled that way. Yes! The window of the lightwell was just ahead of her. Lock bolted, opened the window, and climbed out onto the ledge. She closed the window as best she could — unfortunately, that was still a few inches open — and dropped off the ledge, hooking her hooves over it. There weren’t any ways out of that garden and nowhere to hide down there.

Earth pony strength was focused in legs, not hooves, and Lock’s fetlocks began to throb. She bit her lip to keep her focus. She listened. The clip-clop of the batpony’s hooves emanated from the open window, slowly getting louder. They stopped. A second later, the dull whulmp as the window was closed. Lock didn’t move, although her hooves started burning. She kept listening, but with the window closed, it was pointless. Was it safe? Had the batpony left? Had she noticed Lock climbing out the window in the first place? After about ten seconds, Lock wiggled a rear hoof into a crack and did a chin-up.

The batpony was walking away from the window, less than ten feet from it.

Lock quickly dropped out of sight again. So quickly her hooves slipped off the ledge. She fell. Her reflexes scrabbled at the wall whooshing past. She couldn’t get a grip on the third-story ledge; her hoof bounced off and hit her painfully on the muzzle. She barely managed to latch onto the second-story ledge; her front legs felt like they were going to get ripped from their sockets. Her rear hooves dangled in space, then she braced herself against the wall and hoisted herself up. Her foot slipped a little; one large stone popped out of its place. It fell. The grass did nothing to muffle its impact and the lightwell channeled the noise like a trumpet.

Lock froze, praying nopony would notice. She focused all her attention on listening. And high above her, she heard a window being opened.

Awkwardly standing on her rear hooves, Lock jammed herself into frame, trying to stay out of sight from above. She held her breath, but her heart was pounding so loudly, it had to be audible throughout the house. It was definitely drowning out any noise the batpony was making.

Hours ticked by, but Lock knew they were only seconds. Her lungs felt ready to burst from holding her breath. She knew the batpony couldn’t hear her, but what if what if what if. She glanced under her leg through the window. Nopony. Still struggling to keep herself in the frame, Lock delicately worked her tools out, jimmied the window open, and slid back inside.

She was found out, even if the batpony didn’t know where she was. The batpony had heard her and followed and knew somepony was in the house. Lock had maybe a minute, two if she was lucky, before the batpony alerted her masters of an intruder. Then it was only a matter of time before they went to the ritual chamber, found the unicorn missing, searched and actually found her, and then all of Lock’s work would be for nothing. And she didn’t even know where she was in relation to the library, so she had to find that before the family did. Why was she here, again?

Because you’re a decent pony who couldn’t let another die.

Son of a frigging…

Okay. Looking at the front door, the library was on the left side of the house, right? Lock thought about it a bit. Yeah, that was right. She’d gone halfway around the house at the top before she’d found the key. When she was running from the batpony, she’d turned a corner and the lightwell was on her left. So… she was on the right side- the correct side of the house. Finally, a stroke of luck. All she had to do was head outward.

Hopefully.

Lock tiptoed outward. Although she kept her ears up and swiveling, she couldn’t hear anything out of the ordinary. Not yet, anyway. Not even anypony coming down (or up) a staircase. She sighed in relief when she reached a long hallway, pulled open a door, and saw a window. She glanced left and… Wasn’t that one of the busts she’d seen first coming out of the ritual chamber? Yeah, it had that same austere look about it. Lock picked up her pace a little, approached it- Yes, she’d definitely seen this statue before. She recognized that corner. Although she took care to look before she leaped, quickly went left, then right, straight a little, and hallelujah the door she opened on her right was to the empty library!

Well, not quite empty. The unicorn was there, up at the window she’d come in from, and seemed to be telekinetically tossing stuff from a bag out of it. Lock climbed up the shelves — half-noisily, so she wouldn’t spook the unicorn — and approached her. The unicorn grunted and a… skull?… hurtled out the window. “Hey,” said the unicorn, sounding much improved.

“Hey.” Lock pointed at the bag. “What’s that?”

“It’s, uh-” The unicorn shifted her weight guiltily. “You were gone a while, and I figured, the ponies here need all this stuff in that room for… whatever, so if they don’t have it, they can’t use it, even if they’d come back and runebound me again, so I’ve, uh, been pitching it over the fence through the window.” She grinned nervously; her horn glowed and a fragment of pyrite soared to the other side of the street.

Lock blinked, then grinned. “Good thinking.” She nudged the unicorn aside and leaned out the window. It’d be an easy drop for her, but- “I’m assuming you’re not up to jumping out?” There weren’t even any second-story windows in the library. A pity.

“Uh, what?” The unicorn chuckled nervously. “No, I, I’m not jumping two stories down. Don’t you have a rope?” She looked hopefully at Lock’s bag.

“No.”

One of the unicorn’s ears went down and she tilted her head. “What kind of thief doesn’t have a rope?”

“The kind that doesn’t expect to rescue ponies.”

The unicorn snapped her mouth shut and nodded jerkily.

That was cruel.

Lock brushed the thought aside. “Listen, I know the way out from here. Kind of. And we need to move fast, because I think dinner’s done and ponies are moving through the house again.”

The unicorn’s pupils shrank and she nodded.

“Follow me.” Lock jumped down to the floor of the library. The unicorn climbed down a ladder — a bit shakily, but not slowly. Lock poked her muzzle out through the door. Left: nopony. Right: nopony. If she remembered correctly: right, around the corner, right again, and there ought to be a staircase down to the entry hall at the end of the next corridor. She gestured to the unicorn, and together they tiptoed down the hall.

But right before they turned the corner, Lock heard hoofsteps.

“Backupbackupbackup,” whispered Lock, backpedaling and shoving the unicorn as quietly as she could. The unicorn closed her mouth and stumbled back. The hoofsteps got closer.

Behind her, Lock heard a door open. “In here,” whispered the unicorn. Lock didn’t look twice and scrambled in after the unicorn, shutting the door as quickly as she could. She breathed a sigh of relief.

She turned to survey the room. A glitzy sitting room with overstuffed chairs and couches, two stories, the top floor nothing more than a balcony going all the way around the room. A spiral staircase connected the upper and lower levels about halfway across the room. Lock and the unicorn were on the second story.

And standing right in front of them, a feather duster in her mouth, was a shocked pegasus caught mid-cleaning.

Lock and the unicorn stared at the pegasus.

The pegasus stared at Lock and the unicorn.

Then the duster fell to the floor and she shrieked, “Someone’s freed the sacrifice! She’s out! Sh-”

Lock reacted instinctively, blindly lashing out with a hoof. It smashed into the pegasus’s muzzle. She took several steps back and blinked twice. Her eyes rolled back into her head and she collapsed.

Doing her best to keep her heart under control, Lock hissed at the unicorn, “Come on. We’ve got to go before-”

Unfamiliar voices echoed through the house. “Did you hear that?” “The sacrifice is escaping!” “North sitting room, now!”

“Come on.” Lock easily vaulted over the railing to the ground floor. She turned around to see the unicorn scrambling down the staircase. The second the unicorn was down, Lock took off across the room for another door. Was it her imagination, or could she hear hooves coming at them from outside?

Lock ran through the door and into a hallway, heard a yell, and kept running into the door on the opposite wall. A long dining room, big and flamboyant with one of those needlessly huge tables. Lock didn’t spare a second to look at it, but spied a door on the other side of the room. She made for it like a missile. The sound of a door slamming and some pained gasps told her the unicorn was still following her. No screams, so she wasn’t hurt. Probably.

“Where are we going?” gasped the unicorn in confusion.

“I don’t know! That way!” yelled Lock, and kept running.

She was about halfway across the room when she heard the door behind her shatter. She glanced over her shoulder. A big earth pony — a big one, half her size again — was bearing down on them. The fear gave Lock wings and she redoubled her speed towards the door. Luckily, it opened inward; Lock and the unicorn crashed through into a kitchen. The unicorn stumbled and fell against one of the island counters. Lock slammed the door shut and cast her eyes over the kitchen, looking for something to block it.

There, right next to the door: a big magically-powered icebox or fridge or whatever it was called. She could move it. Lock threw all her weight on it. No, she couldn’t move it. Another slam. Nothing. The thing was heavy. “Hey! Help me with this,” Lock grunted at the unicorn, who was still getting to her feet.

The unicorn blinked in incomprehension. “I- I don’t- What-” But then she got it. An aura surrounded the icebox and it suddenly became about a ton lighter. Lock easily slid it in front of the door. Not a second too soon; something slammed onto the other side of the door. The icebox rattled, but didn’t fall. A snarl. Wham. Wham. Wham. No effect.

Lock hung her head, gasping for air as blood screamed through her veins. “Okay,” she gasped. “I think- I know- where we are. The entry hall’s- not far- so if- we can-”

“They’re in the kitchen!” somepony yelled on the other side of the blocked door. “Get to the exit to the hall now!”

“Move!” Lock bellowed at the unicorn. She ran for the other door. She’d laid her hoof on the handle when she heard loud footsteps on the floor outside. Her mind went into overdrive. She took in the situation in a few instants. Handle: long, thin, turned. Hinges: outside, door opened outward. Not good. She whirled around, looking for- Knife block on the counter. She snatched up a knife in her teeth and plunged it into the wood below the handle, pushing it deeper with a hoof. The end was blunted, but that wasn’t going to stop an earth pony hopped up on adrenaline. Lock grabbed another knife. This one was better, much sharper and pointier.

Outside, the footsteps reached the door. The handle began turning, but it bumped into the knife. “What?” somepony said. As the handle jiggled again, Lock drove her new knife into the door above the handle. It couldn’t turn in either direction, now. Muffled curses as the handle kept rattling and the knives kept stopping it.

Whump. Another hit on the other side of the icebox. It might’ve been Lock’s imagination. But she thought she saw it move an inch.

Lock spun in place, looking desperately for a way out. The unicorn was still standing near the icebox, looking wide, small-pupiled eyes at nothing and hyperventilating. “-oh Celestia oh Celestia oh Celestia-” No help from her. Something kept digging at Lock’s unconscious, telling her she was missing something. Something impor-

The dumbwaiter. Wasn’t that supposed to be in here?

Bang bang bang. “You open up this door,” somepony shrieked from the other side of the knifed door, “or when we’re through with you, you’ll beg for death!”

Deep breath in. Deep breath out. Her heart was still racing, but Lock slowed down enough to eye the kitchen more closely. Then she spotted it: the dumbwaiter door. Down to the cellar and out through the exit she’d seen earlier. Easy. Which meant it wasn’t going to go that way, but it’d buy them a few minutes. Lock bypassed the niceties of lockpicking and simply destroyed the lock with a solid kick. Luckily, the door was thin and weak.

The unicorn was still in shock. “-oh Celestia oh Celestia oh-”

“Hey!” Lock smacked her across the chin, a bit harder than she intended. But the unicorn focused on her. “We’re going down the dumbwaiter shaft,” she whispered. She pointed at the open door. “Can you climb?”

“I-” The unicorn looked at the shaft. Her ears twitched. She nodded. “Yeah. I think so.”

Wham. The icebox rattled. It definitely budged.

“Follow me.” Lock rattled a light gem into ignition, tossed it into the shaft, and climbed in. She slid down a few feet, then waited for the unicorn to follow. Her movements were shaky and nervous, but once she’d braced herself, the unicorn didn’t fall. “It’s not that hard,” Lock whispered up. She dropped another few feet. “Just keep yo-”

Splinters, a crash. One of the doors had broken. The unicorn yelped and instinctively pulled her legs in.

And fell.

Before Lock knew what was happening, the full weight of the unicorn was on her. Her hooves slipped. Her head and body banged against the wall as she dropped down the shaft. She landed hard on the bottom, crushed between the unicorn and her bag. Where the unicorn’s body and hooves didn’t dig into her ribs, the loot in her bag did. Pain rolled up her legs, across her ribs, down her spine. She groaned.

“Oh- Oh Celestia!” gasped the unicorn. “I’m so sorouch!” She twitched, and a hoof whistled past Lock’s eye.

A colorful array of expletives jumped into Lock’s head. Why, why, why? Why had she had to react just then? If she’d just stayed calm, everything would be fine. Her stuff would still be intact, they’d be out of the shaft by now, probably halfway to the exit. Lock prepared to tell the unicorn exactly what she felt.

Be quiet. Making her feel worse is exactly what you don’t need right now.

Lock compromised by moaning, “Happens.” She blinked a few times, trying to get the stars out of her eyes. It didn’t really work. The light gem she’d dropped had been crushed beneath her and they were cloaked in darkness.

The unicorn rustled around, awkwardly trodding on Lock’s limbs. “Sorry!” she squeaked. “I’m- trying to-” She groaned in pain. “-get off you.”

Lock opened her mouth to respond.

Don’t.

Lock closed her mouth. She managed to pull in her legs and give the unicorn enough space to stand on solid ground, at least on two feet. Lock pushed herself up, and soon she was on two legs as well. Her head was still throbbing as she patted around the walls. She found the door to the wine cellar and opened it. Still dark. She and the unicorn did an awkward sort of dance to twist around each other, and soon Lock was outside the shaft and had clicked the lights on.

The unicorn climbed out of the dumbwaiter, her breathing finally slowing, and Lock wanted nothing more than to collapse on the floor, curl up into a ball, and sleep. She ached all over, her heart was racing faster than it had ever been, and she could almost feel herself shutting down.

“I think they went down the dumbwaiter! Somepony check the cellar!”

But that wasn’t really an option.

Lock peered inside the frame of the dumbwaiter door. Right next to the lock was a small gem, winking at her. She glanced at the door; a similar gem glistened on the bolt. She recognized them as a way of making sure the dumbwaiter couldn’t move if the door was open. Lock brought her hoof down, shattering the gem on the door. No one was riding the car down anytime soon.

She reached into her bag and cringed at the jewel dust in there. All of her light gems and the crystals from the ritual chamber had been shattered in the fall. She tentatively pulled out the largest chunk she could find. The tiny shard glowed fitfully; Lock tossed it aside in disgust. She rolled her twinging shoulder. She wasn’t going to do much climbing after that fall. She doubted she could even climb up the shelves in here for her shortcut.

The unicorn was panting, leaning against a shelf, and shakily mumbling a constant stream of obscenities. Lock laid a hoof on her shoulder. “Almost there,” she said.

“Uh-huh,” mumbled the unicorn. “Sure.”

“Really. Over in that corner-” Lock pointed. “-there’s an exit to the outside. We get there and run to the gate, screaming bloody murder.” Why the frig didn’t I unlock it first?

The unicorn’s breathing slowed and she ran a hoof through her mane. She took a deep breath and lifted her head. “Right,” she said, her voice steadier. “So-”

The door on the far side of the cellar banged open. “I know you’re in here!” somepony yelled.

“Down!” hissed Lock as she and the unicorn both hit the floor. “Follow me.” The two of them began crawling along the ground toward the outside exit.

“Look, you’re not getting out of here. Make it easy for yourselves and surrender.”

They came to a shelf that intersected with the wall. Lock reluctantly turned inward, towards the rest of the cellar. After a too-long aisle, a T-junction of shelves loomed before her. Lock tried to angle closer toward the exit, but another shelf prevented her from just doing a 180 around the one that had blocked them in the first place. Were these ponies just so crazy they even needed to make the wine deliverymares feel helpless and dependent on them?

“Last chance. Just shout if you want to give yourselves up.”

A four-way intersection. Lock decided to go straight. Her spirits were rising. This wasn’t so bad. Yet. And how fast could the pony search the cellar, anyway? It was just as much a maze for her as for the two of them.

“Fine. Have it your way.” Whump.

Lock twitched; why’d she have to tempt fate? “Hold on,” she whispered to the unicorn. She peered through a gap between barrels. The door to the hallway had been shut. A batpony — maybe even the same one she’d seen up above — was on the top of the steps, strapped into a repeating crossbow harness and fumbling with something on the wall.

Then every single light gem in the cellar winked out.

Cornered

The sudden darkness was so oppressive Lock reflexively recoiled from it. She’d never been in darkness this complete before; it felt like a physical blindfold on her eyes. She lifted up her hoof in front of her. Nothing. She waved it. The darkness didn’t change at all.

Her heart leaped into her throat and threatened to pound out her ears.

Somewhere ahead of her, Lock could hear the batpony walking down the stairs, but that didn’t matter at the moment. She began turning in place and reached out blindly, batting at the air. “Hey!” she hissed. “Where ar-”

She almost jumped out of her skin when the unicorn lightly hit her on the back. “I-I’m here.”

“Light,” whispered Lock. “We need light, now.” A small orb flared to life at the end of the unicorn’s horn, throwing long shadows around the room. It was barely enough to see the immediate area, but it was enough t-

Twang.

A crossbow bolt flew through the shelves between them, burrowing into a barrel and sticking. Lock yelped and glanced into the dark it had come from. She couldn’t see the batpony. But the batpony could see them.

Crk-crk-crk-crk-CHKT.

“No more light,” snapped Lock, and they were plunged back into the solid darkness. Struggling to find something, anything to do to feel secure, Lock flicked her tail in the unicorn’s face. “My tail,” she whispered. “Bite it or wrap it around your hoof or- I don’t care what, just find a way to stay close t-”

Chirp.

A strange, high-pitched sound reverberated throughout the cellar. It sounded like a songbird (indoors?), but the unicorn stiffened, like she was going into shock.

Chirp.

“We need to move,” whispered the unicorn. “Batpony. Echolocation.”

Chirp.

Frig. Okay, where was the door to outside? Along the wall, somewhere. Where? She didn’t know. The darkness had disoriented her. Whatever. Get to the wall, any wall. “Tail,” she snapped to the unicorn. “And stay quiet.” She felt a slight tug as the unicorn took a hold of the hairs somehow and she began slowly walking down the aisle. She kept her front hoof out, cluelessly patting at the space in front of her.

Chirp.

It was impossible to tell where the chirping was coming from. The sound bounced around the cellar until Lock could make out at least four different echos. She hoped the batpony wouldn’t be able to make out any shapes, but with the way her luck was running tonight? Not a chance. The sounds of the batpony’s footsteps were constant, steady, and assured.

Chirp. Chirp.

Lock’s hoof bumped against a corner between the floor and a wall, but it didn’t feel like stone. She patted the wall. Wood. Flat. The backside of a cupboard. Left or right? Eenie-meenie- right. Hugging the wood like it was her mother, Lock slowly moved to the right. The unicorn followed.

Chirp chirp.

The echolocative sounds reminded her of the drone of tinnitus: high-pitched, irritating, sourceless, and always there. If the batpony was moving around the cellar, Lock couldn’t hear her. She reached the corner of the cabinet, and the security of the wall turned away from her. Reluctantly, Lock kept moving forward and nervously swung her hooves through the empty blackness.

Chirpchirpchirp.

She took another few steps forward and hit another wall. Stone. Yes! “We’re at the wall,” she whispered to the unicorn, “so we ju-”

Twang.

A wet thud; the unicorn screamed. Lock’s tail jerked. The unicorn took off down the aisle past Lock, gasping in pain and fear. The light bloomed again and Lock could see a bolt sticking out of her shoulder. “Wait!” Lock whispered loudly. “Don’t!” But the unicorn wasn’t listening.

Crk-crk-crk-crk-CHKT.

She plunged blindly down the aisle, running for dear life. She jinked around a corner and then all Lock could see was a vague haze bobbing behind shelves. Groaning, Lock ran after her.

Chirp chirp.

Lock slid around the corner, but the unicorn had already turned another one, and Lock couldn’t see what was in front of her except where shelves and barrels blocked the light. She bit back a yell and smashed her head against a barrel. She ought to cut and run now, while she still had her limbs. It’d be easier, less stressful.

If you were going to do that, you would’ve done so already.

Lock stood up, brushed herself off, and huffed. “Hey!” she yelled into the darkness. With the maze of shelving, it wasn’t like she was making herself easier to find. “Kill the light! You’re o-”

Twang.

Somewhere in the cellar, the unicorn screamed again and the light went out. Lock was plunged into blackness again. She heard a distant clip-clopping of hooves, then a solid impact. Voices drifted across the room, barely audible if she strained. “Stay here,” said the batpony in a casual, sibilant voice, “and I won’t rip your throat out with my teeth. Got it?” Crk-crk-crk-crk-CHKT.

“Y-yes’m.”

“Good.” Crunch. The unicorn screamed. Chirp.

Lock gulped. Keepmovingkeepmovingkeepmoving-

Chirp.

Trailing her hoof along one of the shelves, Lock started walking as quickly as she dared in the dark. She didn’t know if she was going the right direction or even which way she was facing. She just knew she was heading away from the batpony. Maybe. She heard another set of hoofsteps, but the echoes of the cellar made it impossible to tell where they were coming from. Behind her? Right next to her? In a parallel aisle?

Chirp.

With every step she heard, Lock’s heartbeat increased. Soon, she was sweating. She instinctively glanced over her shoulder to try to get a look and was confronted with solid black. All the while, the hoofsteps got closer and closer and the chirps got louder and louder. Think, THINK! she screamed at herself. There’s gotta be something you can do!

Chirp. Chirp.

Okay. What did she know about echolocation? Not much. An animal made a sound, it bounced off objects, and they somehow knew what the object looked like based on the echo. And that was it.

Except… Hold on…

Chirp chirp.

What if they couldn’t hear the echo?

Lock felt the thing she was leaning against. A barrel, a big wooden one. A cask? She couldn’t remember the terminology. She lightly shoved it. Something sloshed inside. Knowing she was probably wasting several centuries’ worth of work, and taking a petty glee in it, Lock punched a hole through the end, near the bottom.

Chirpchirpchirp.

Wine resistance prevented her from making much of a hole, even with her earth pony strength, but it was enough; wine began audibly pouring out onto the cellar floor. Just loud enough to be distracting, not pouring out fast enough to be done in seconds. Perfe-

Twang.

On pure reflex, Lock ducked. The bolt whistled over her head close enough to ruffle her mane. It embedded itself in the barrel she’d just opened.

Crk-crk-crk-

It was coming from behind her, and close. Within a few yards, at most. Lock turned and lunged at the sound. She slammed awkwardly into a wine rack between her and it. It rattled alarmingly and several bottles fell off, but she didn’t break through. Pain shot through her legs.

-crk-CHKT chirp twang.

A bolt zipped through one of the holes on the rack, impaling Lock through a front hoof. She screamed a curse, overbalanced, and toppled back. She landed on her rump in a puddle of wine. Her head banged against a barrel.

Chirp.

Hearing the sound again was like a shock to Lock’s system. She awkwardly punched over her shoulder with her good hoof once, twice, thrice. The third time broke through; wine began audibly dripping from the barrel onto her shoulder. She rolled onto her belly and, staying low, crawled through the growing puddle. She laid the leg of her pierced hoof flat across the floor to keep weight off her foot.

Chirp. Chirp.

There was something different about the chirp. Maybe it was slightly louder, slightly more… insistent? Lock hoped it meant her stupid plan was working. She passed another barrel, broke it. More drips. More noise. She felt like an olive getting dunked in wine. The place was beginning to reek as simple alcohol overpowered the scents of the different wines.

Chirp chirp. Crk-crk. Chirp.

Another barrel. Smash. Lock knew the quality of the sound had changed, but she still couldn’t say how. It was more frequent; was the batpony having trouble hearing the echo? Another barrel. Smash. Her coat was soaked through. Lock kept crawling.

Chirp chirp. Crk. Chirp chirp. Crk-CHKT. Chirp.

She chomped her tongue and imagined she tasted blood as her muzzle banged against a stone wall. Praying for a moment’s reprieve, she bit down on the arrowhead sticking out of her hoof and snapped it off. She tossed it aside and turned her hoof over. As she bit on the shaft, the arrowhead clinked loudly on the floor.

Twang.

Her teeth on the wood, Lock froze, but she felt nothing and heard nothing except dripping wine and the bolt clattering against the wall several yards to one side, where she’d thrown the arrowhead. She allowed herself a grin; the batpony didn’t know where she was, so her echolocation must not be working right.

Chirp chirp chirp.

Lock restrained a scream as she pulled the arrow from her hoof. She put weight on it. It hurt a lot less than she’d expected. Adrenaline, probably. At least she could use it. Leaning against the wall for support, she limped through the dark.

Chirp chirp.

She reached across the aisle, felt a rack of barrels, and punched one; half in the hopes the sound would keep disorienting the batpony, half out of frustration. More drips. By now, the room sounded like a cave, with dripping coming from every direction. If she hadn’t had her hoof on the stone wall, Lock would’ve lost her way in moments.

Chirp chirp.

Suddenly, Lock felt the wall take a corner away from her. She moved her hoof down the join and patted at the floor. At first, she felt nothing but concrete. She moved her hoof forward a little, and it bumped against a wall. She felt up. It wasn’t a wall; it was a step. The exit.

Chirpchirpchirp.

Lock slid her hoof up and down the wall, searching for the light switch. Exits always had light switches next to them, right? She couldn’t remember from her first trip to the cellar. But whatever switch there was wasn’t on this side of the door. Lock went to the other side, where-

Twang.

-she threw herself backward, performing a kind of awkward half-somersault through the leaking wine. A bolt whistled through the air where she’d been reaching. She picked herself up, only for something to slam into her, throwing her back down. She heard the whisking of leathery wings and ragged panting.

Chirpchirp.

On her back, blind, her head swimming, the world spinning around her, Lock’s addled mind tried to make sense of what happened. She realized she’d been found and kicked out. One of her hooves hit the shin of the unseen batpony, who grunted in surprise. Lock rolled over and lashed out again. Something wooden cracked and she heard a string snap. The batpony yelped and cursed. Lock heard a few splashes as her opponent backed away.

Chirpchirp.

She charged awkwardly in the direction of the sound, but the batpony batted her aside and Lock plowed into a wine rack. Lock gasped, then grabbed a wine bottle, spun around, and swung it through the darkness. It hit something and shattered; the batpony screamed. Lock tried to push herself to one side, but the batpony was on top of her in an instant.

Chirpchirp.

Lock landed on her back and instinctively threw up a leg to protect her face. The batpony’s fangs sank into it and pushed it to her chest. With all her might, Lock struck blindly at where she thought her foe’s head would be. Something cracked audibly and broke beneath her hoof. The batpony twitched and grunted. Lock struck again. Crunch. And again. Clnch. The batpony wheezed and went limp. Lock threw the body — unconscious or dead, she didn’t know and wasn’t sure she wanted to — off herself and scooted away from it. She splashed through the wine and small waves added their own splashes to the drips of the barrels.

Eventually, Lock stopped moving. Deep breath in, deep breath out, deep breath in, deep breath out… She twisted her ears around, listening. Nothing. Nothing unusual, anyway; she could still hear the dripping of the wine barrels and the sobbing breaths of the unicorn. “Hey!” Lock yelled. “Uni! You alive?”

“Yes!” gasped the unicorn. “B-but one of my hooves is broken, and th-the batpony put a n-nullifier ring on me, a-and-”

“I’ll come to you. Give me a sec.”

First, Lock climbed the stairs. Given everything that had happened over the last… fifteen minutes (only fifteen minutes? Wow), she wanted her exit to be open. The door gave way with a solid shoulder shove and opened into the Canterlot night, later than Lock had been expecting. The moon hung just above the skyline and stars winked in the sky. It was so peaceful out here. Lock took a deep breath of fresh air before heading back into the cellar.

Lock felt at the space of wall next to the door she hadn’t explored yet. She found a panel, and she found a switch on that panel, and that switch indeed controlled the lights. Lock blinked and squinted against the sudden brightness; had her eyes adjusted to darkness that quickly? Avoiding looking at the batpony, she pulled herself to the top of a shelf and peered through the aisles, looking for-

The door to the rest of the house opened up. Three or four ponies streamed in. “Diphylla?” one called. “Did you get them? You said you would.”

Lock silently swore, dropped back to the floor, and pressed herself to the wall next to the staircase. She was never going to get a string of good luck. Never. Was this her karma? She tried to do one good thing, rather than another plain theft, and all the bad mojo she’d gathered came back to her? That really wasn’t fair. It wasn’t even affecting her, it was mostly going after the unicorn. Lock could’ve just cut and run — could still cut and run — and end her own suffering.

“Diphylla? Diphylla?”

All she had to do was leave an innocent pony to her fate.

“She said they were in here. Find her and find them!”

With a deep breath and a pounding heart, Lock peered through the shelves again. Maybe, if the other ponies hadn’t found the unicorn yet, there was still a chance-

“I… I think I see one! Yeah, it’s the sacrifice! She’s still breathing!”

No chances. If she continued her rescue mission, she was dead. Praying they’d be too focused on the unicorn to notice her, Lock scampered up the staircase, nudged the door open, and crawled out onto the grass. The cool wind in her face felt like it came from heaven. She was finally out.

“Hey!” wailed the unicorn. “Hey! E-earth pony! Thief! Where are-”

“You shut it.” Thud. “We’ll find her.”

“N-no! Please…” The unicorn was sobbing. “P-please, j-just let-”

Thud. A scream. “I said shut it!”

Lock forced herself to close the cellar doors. They didn’t block out everything.

Another gust of wind. It felt colder, somehow. Lock collapsed to the grass and simply lay there. For all she knew, the ponies would be coming at out the cellar any second, but she didn’t care. She was sopping wet. She stank of alcohol. She ached all over. The wind was chilling her to the bone. She was bleeding in multiple places. Her heart wouldn’t slow down. She was short of breath. Most of her tools were destroyed. Her head was pounding. One of her hooves had been stabbed through. She’d lost the unicorn. And she was just so tired. The stars winked down at her, taunting her with the peaceful, blissful night she could’ve had if she’d just not tried to be the hero. She wanted nothing more than to run home and crawl into bed, sticky sheets be damned. But she knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep. Not while the unicorn was still in there.

As you shouldn’t.

But who was she kidding? She was a thief. A coward. She couldn’t do this.

You’re still alive. So’s she.

What did that matter?

You can still try to save her.

They’d be on the alert.

They’re still confused about what happened. If you can think fast, you can take advantage of that.

As she lay there, staring up at the stars, Lock considered arguing with her conscience some more, but her mind was already made up. This was a delaying tactic more than anything; the second she stopped arguing, she’d have to go back inside the mostly unfamiliar house inhabited and staffed by ponies perfectly willing to kill her and bury her body in the back garden. It wasn’t exactly the sort of thing that was pleasing to the mind. Not like money or jewels or loot or-

If you wanted a risk-free life, you wouldn’t be a burglar.

That was true, Lock had to admit. Still.

Finally, Lock groaned, got to her hooves, and stared at the streets beyond the fence. Still empty. Nopony to yell at for help. The rich socialites that populated this borough wouldn’t be on the streets at this time; they’d be at their destinations already, drawn like moths to a flame. That was even assuming they believed her in the first place; she looked like a particularly beaten-up bum and would be lucky for them to take her seriously, so she couldn’t even go banging on doors for help. Lock glared at one of the flickering streetlamps. The one time she would’ve given anything for somepony to see her and call the Guard, and-

Lock stared at the lamp. Moths to a flame.

An idea sprang into her mind. It was so stupid, so risky, so audacious, that Lock almost threw it out immediately. But she turned it over, poked at it, mulled it over. She ironed out some of the more blatant kinks, turned it over again. That might work, actually… She kept thinking. The focus on… whatever had come into her head slowly pushed away her aches and pains until they slowed her no more than the weight of her saddlebags: they were there, but didn’t really seem all that important and wouldn’t affect her much.

Once she’d settled on a vague course of action, Lock trotted to the outer gate to buy time as she thought it through more deeply. If this all went as planned (ha ha yeah right), she’d want it open once she came out of the mansion.

If she followed through on the idiotic improvisation masquerading as a plan, she’d only have one shot at this, anyway. At least it’d be over, one way or another.

Leave None Behind

The front doors of the house loomed before Lock like the gaping maw of some fanged beast, even though they weren’t even that large. She’d never imagined a simple, ordinary doorframe could look so… toothy. And she was plunging headlong into this monster. Lock swallowed and re-entered the house, ready to be chewed up and spat back out again. At least she had a plan. A risky plan. An outline of a risky plan. Part of an outline of a risky plan. Part of an outline of a risky plan that could easily — and probably would — get her killed. But it was a plan. That was better than nothing, right?

Right?

Lock immediately turned left and found the stairwell she was looking for, the one that she’d climbed to the servants’ floor what felt like ages ago. She should’ve known better. She’d barely set her hoof on the first step when she heard voices coming down. She shuffled back out, plastered herself against the wall, and listened. Time was of the essence, but Lock couldn’t help herself.

“-eed more ponies looking. What if the thief comes back?”

“Look, she’ll want to save her own skin. What kind of idiot would go back into a house where everyone’s looking for them?”

Lock had long heard that the line between bravery and idiocy was a very, very thin one, but now she was beginning to suspect there was no such line and instead quite a bit of overlap.

“I’m sorry, but did you see what she did to Diphylla?”

“That was luck and desperation, not skill. She ran. She’s never coming back here.”

“And what if-”

Deciding not to push her luck any more, Lock stopped listening. How intently were the ponies in the house looking for her? It didn’t sound like they were spread out. They’d be surprised she was still in the house. (She was surprised she was still in the house.) But there were only so many ways to the upper floors and it was natural that ponies would congregate near them. She needed to get to the fourth floor, a way that nopony else would use, and even assuming the dumbwaiter didn’t make noise, she herself had disabled it by breaking that ge-

The lightwell. Where was that in relation to this? In… the middle of the house. Keeping her ears up, Lock walked deeper into the house, barely even trying for stealth. She didn’t hear anypony, which was a blessing. A small one, but she’d take all the help she could get. Maybe they were all up on another floor. As that one pony had said, there was no way she was coming back, right?

The layout of the house was confusing, but Lock managed to make it to the lightwell without running into anypony. She opened up a window, climbed in, and closed it behind her. She looked up; the shaft seemed narrower than it had been the first time around. Whatever. Lock crouched in a corner, got a grip, and leaped up to the second story. She kicked off the wall to give herself just enough extra lift to grab onto a third-floor windowsill on a perpendicular wall. Her bad hoof twinged, but she managed. Her hooves scrabbled on the wall for a moment before she pulled herself into the frame and jumped straight up enough to reach the fourth floor. Not bad. Wiggling the window open was a matter of seconds, and then she was inside.

No servants about. They were probably running around on the lower floors, doing a lot of butt-covering. Still, Lock kept her ears roving, listening, hearing nothing. After a few minutes of orientation, Lock made her way back to the first stairwell and the storage room next to it. Specifically, the spare lamp oil inside said room. It was all bottled up in neat little easily-opened ceramic casks, complete with pairs tied together with ropes to be slung over the trunk. Lock took three such pairs; she had no idea of how much oil she’d need, but she couldn’t take too much without slowing herself down.

She poked her head into the stairwell. Voices drifted up, but they were vague, distant. Taking yet another chance, Lock skipped down the stairs as best she could without letting the jars clink together. Third floor: nothing. Second floor: something, but not enough something to worry about. Lock scampered down the balcony in the entry hall and back into the house proper.

The voices Lock had heard were a little bit louder, but still muffled. Not anywhere near her. Lock skittered to the library and quickly shut the door behind her. For the first time, she realized how much her heart was racing. She leaned against the door, slowly sliding down it, and laid a hoof on her chest. Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out…

Unfortunately, with calm came common sense: she was very, very, very, very, very lucky. What was she thinking? She was just walking through the place when everypony was on the alert. Regardless of what she told herself, the fact that she hadn’t run into anypony was pure chance. They were out and about and alert and she hadn’t even thought of what she’d done if she’d met one of them.

You could always punch them. It’s seemed to work so far.

Right. “Punch them.” Great plan.

If it’s stupid but it works, it isn’t stupid. Otherwise, breaking into houses during the middle of dinner would’ve been stupid.

It kinda was…

Still. She was here. Her plan had gone well so far. Now for the “fun” part.

She went to the relevant bookcase and pulled it open as slowly and quietly as she could. The voices were louder, coming down the secret passage. They might’ve seemed louder because of the way they echoed, but Lock thought that making noise now and hoping to not get heard would be pushing what remained of her luck a bit too far. A hasty look around the room, and Lock quickly picked out several of the oldest, most menacing, evillest-looking books she could find. Evidence for the Royal Guard once she was out.

Then she lifted one of the casks and slathered a shelf with oil.

As she upended another jar, Lock cringed. She didn’t have any particular love for books, but burning them was one of those things done only by crazies and dystopia-supporters. Even though most of these books were on black magic, it just felt… wrong. Freedom of speech and the press and information and all that. But desperate times. She needed a distraction. A burning library was certainly distracting.

Lock kept praying the family wouldn’t hear her. The passage to the storeroom was right there. All it would take was one pony, just one, to open the door and head inside… But Lock managed to stay quiet as she doused the place. Once everything except herself was decently wet, she listened at the door to the library. Silence. She looked outside. Nopony. Lock laid her last two jars just outside the door and trotted to the nearest lamp.

Why was it, when she was being careful and sneaking around, she got found out, yet when she was nearly scrambling around with minimal caution, she didn’t run into anypony? Come to think of it, how many ponies were in this house? A lot of the bedrooms on the top floor had been empty. There might not be that many in the first place. And if they were all trying to get the ritual done on the off chance she hadn’t cut and run…

Lock delicately lifted the still-burning lamp off its hanging. She turned it over and cringed. If this went wrong, she was pretty much screwed. But she didn’t have much of a choice. She tossed the lamp at the puddle of oil seeping out from the secret room.

The lamp shattered and the oil went up immediately.

It’d be nice to watch, but Lock turned and ran the second the fire caught. She took the long way around, galloping the perimeter of the house. Going straight to the ritual chamber was asking for even more trouble than she was already in. No ponies. Maybe they were all working on the ritual. After a solid thirty seconds of running, Lock skittered to a halt at a certain corner. Other voices were yelling frantically, cursing. She peeked around the corner; ponies were scrambling in and out of the ritual chamber, some of them screaming for water. Well, at least the distraction was working. Lock settled in, waiting for the traffic to stop. Or at least for the unicorn to be taken out. With a victim already chosen, Lock didn’t think even these ponies would risk throwing her away and having to kidnap somepony in Canterlot.

Once ponies had stopped streaming out of the room, with no sign of the unicorn, Lock waited another thirty seconds, sidled around the corner, and nudged open the door to the chamber. Two big, stocky ponies were still standing guard, pressed against the wall opposite the secret door. A few wisps of barely-visible smoke were leaking from invisible cracks in the wall. And although it was hard to see from Lock’s angle, the unicorn was on the table, her chest shallowly moving in and out. The statuette Lock had seen earlier was sitting at the head of the table, its eyes glowing a writhing red.

One shot.

Lock twisted her hoof around her bag’s drawstrings, threw the door open, and charged. She swung the bag at the nearest guard, smashing him on the head before he realized the door had been thrown open. He crumpled like a doll. The other guard actually managed to get a brief look at Lock before receiving a faceful of plundersack. She fell the same way. Lock didn’t spare them a glance before moving to the unicorn.

She cringed. More runes, deeper and more angular and more numerous than before, had been carved into the unicorn’s body, making her look like an equine chalkboard. One of her front legs was twisted at a strange angle and she didn’t seem to be as aware as before. But she was still breathing regularly, if shallowly. Lock stuffed the focus statuette in her bag, for evidence; the moment she touched it, it felt like needles were crawling up her veins. She flinched, shook her hoof once she released the focus, and lightly slapped the unicorn in the face. “Hey. You awake?”

The unicorn blinked blearily up at her. She tried to say something, but her mouth was sealed shut again. She nodded.

“Right,” said Lock. “Now hold still.” She cut through the runes again, the unicorn moaning quietly with each slice. She jiggled the nullifier ring open again and hoisted the unicorn’s bad leg across her withers. Lock was uncomfortably aware of how warm and wet the unicorn’s coat was. “We’re going to need to move fast,” she said. “Sorry if I drop you.” She exited the room and began walking down the hallway away from the library, letting the unicorn lean heavily on her. Not a pony was in sight, although she could hear them well enough.

“You… You came back?” the unicorn whispered. It sounded like that was all she could manage.

“Right thing to do,” said Lock, pre-empting her conscience.

The unicorn laughed weakly. “S-said the thief.”

“Hey, I only steal from ponies who can afford it.”

It’s still stealing.

Lock brushed the thought away and listened. Yelling echoed through the hallway and she could hear the cracking of wood. The fire was growing.

“What… did you… do?”

“Set all their black magic books on fire. And, by now, a lot of their other books.”

“Heh. Good r-riddance.”

Lock pushed a door open. It was the two-level living room they’d run through… less than fifteen minutes ago. Wow. Thankfully, it was now completely empty. She plodded towards the staircase down.

“H-hang on…” The unicorn lifted up her head enough to look around. “This…”

“I know where to go from here,” Lock said, sounding more confident than she felt. “And my preferred path is about to go up in smoke.”

“Heh. Boooo.”

The two of them stumbled down the steps with some difficulty. Lock sniffed; the air was still clear. Did smoke get carried up by the rising air? Or did it sink to the floor? She remembered something from when she was young about staying down if you were caught in a burning building. How fast did fire spread, anyway? So, since this was a floor down, they were safe, for now. Still no ponies.

“You feel fine? Mentally, I mean,” Lock said as they shuffled across the room to the door.

“N-not really,” the unicorn mumbled. “I mean, I-”

“Is it magically-induced not-fineness?”

“No.”

“Good.” Lock shoved the door open, looked left (nopony), looked right (nopony), and went left, praying she was getting the layout right. “I’m not fine, too.”

“…You? Y-you’re saving my life! How-”

Lock took the first right. The long, paneled hallway looked promising. “If I hadn’t decided to rescue you the first time-”

You wouldn’t be able to sleep.

“-I’d be home right now with over a million bits in loot.”

“…A m-million.” The unicorn giggled. “I gotta become a burglar.”

“And get lucky. And a fence. And some lockpicks.” They kept shuffling. Lock kept talking. It was a way to make the situation seem less dire to herself, and probably to the unicorn as well. And the unicorn really needed a psychological pick-me-up. “Speaking of getting lucky, why’d they take so long to get the ritual going? I’d’ve thought they’d have started it as soon as possible to prevent something like this from happening.”

“They did. Y-you know the stuff we threw out? K-kinda important.” The unicorn giggled again. Lock suspected it was less humor and more schadenfreude. “They had to c-completely rework everything and, and, and even pick a l-less potent one. I think. F-from what I heard. They weren’t even c-close to starting.”

Which meant Lock could’ve probably gone straight for the Royal Guard, but whatever. She didn’t dwell on the past. Now, she was getting the unicorn out. Now, she was limping through an unfamiliar mansion that was slowly catching fire. The past couldn’t kill her. Now could.

When they reached the end of the hallway, Lock was granted the greatest sight since she’d first seen her cutie mark: the entrance hall, completely empty. The fire was really diverting. She sniffed. The air was still clear. “Almost there,” she said. “Can you pick up the pace a little?”

“I c-can try.” And whether it was the suggestion or the sight of the hall itself that acted as a kick in the rear, the unicorn’s pace did speed up a little. They crossed the hall. Lock shoved open the door. A cobblestoned path stretched before them, pointing straight to the exit. Almost there. Lock lifted herself up.

The unicorn, however, nearly collapsed. “Th-the gate-”

“Is unlocked. Already covered it. Move.”

A pause. The unicorn didn’t say anything, but chuckled a little and stood a touch higher again.

They made it halfway down the path without incident. Lock glanced over her shoulder. Flames were leaping high from the house, curling up into the night, and a crowd was already forming outside the fence. Even as she watched, a pony pulled a sirens-blaring fire engine up. Good. She dug her hooves in a little bit more. “You still doing alright?” she asked the unicorn.

“Enough,” the unicorn gasped. “Oh, Celestia, th-thank you! I-I don’t-”

“I just got the snot beaten out of me by a batpony,” said Lock. “Like that was gonna slow me down.” She grinned crookedly at the unicorn.

The unicorn coughed and flinched. “W-well, I-”

“YOU!”

They both turned to the unearthly bellow. An earth pony had burst from the house, blown straight past the other ponies, and was charging them, murder in her eyes and spittle flying from her mouth. “I’ll rip your spine out through your sunblasted throat and skewer you on it like a kebab!” she screamed. Clods of dirt flew as her hooves dug into the earth.

The unicorn did her best to speed her pace up, but the earth pony was still outrunning them by a long shot. “You… or m-me?” she gasped as the earth pony screamed further invective.

“Me,” grunted Lock. She walked faster, slowly turning from supporting the unicorn to sort of dragging her. “Definitely me.” The gate was getting closer… closer… clos-

She was hit from behind by what felt like a freight train and torn from the unicorn. She rolled across the lawn, alternately pinned beneath the earth pony’s bulk and awkwardly falling on top of it. When she came to a halt, she was on her back. She looked up and, through the swimming mass that was her vision, managed to make out the earth pony’s crazed face, her bloodthirsty eyes. The earth pony raised a hoof-

A bolt of magic zipped through the fence and hit the earth pony in the chest. She flew over ten feet across the lawn and plowed a furrow through the grass where she landed. Lock looked up; a unicorn in Royal Guard armor was outside the fence and running towards the gate. “Gate’s unlocked!” Lock screamed at her.

“Got it!” the guard screamed back. A haze of magic, and the gates flew open.

Lock glanced around. The earth pony was staggering to her feet but still dazed. The unicorn was crawling to the gate. Other ponies were fleeing the house, but none of them were coming for her. Lock dragged herself over the unicorn, pulled her up, and started limping towards the gate.

The guard ran through the gate and brushed past them. Lock wanted to look, but not until they were outside the gate. After all she’d been through tonight and with her luck, the second she looked back, some security spell would slam the gate shut and weld the lock. She swivelled her ears back, but couldn’t hear anything except the dull thuds of irregular hoof-on-grass impacts. No hoof-on-face impacts at least.

By the time the two of them crossed the gate threshold, Lock felt ready to collapse. Earth pony endurance or not, it’d been a long night. She lowered the unicorn to the ground and cringed; blood from the cut runes was smeared all over the unicorn’s coat, glistening wetly. At least no more seemed to be dripping out and the cuts, thin as they were, looked like they were scabbing over already. “Do you feel okay?” Lock asked.

The unicorn coughed. “T-tired. Sore. Cold. W-wet. Pins and needles everywhere. Like I’ve b-been stabbed a few dozen times. But I’m alive.” She smiled weakly. “Thanks.”

“Sure.” Lock looked up, just to be sure the earth pony hadn’t ripped the guard in half and was now coming for them. What she saw was the guard pinning the earth pony down easily. A unicorn pinning an earth pony. The guard batted aside the earth pony’s wildly flailing hooves, shoved her horn into the latter’s face, and shot off a spell. The earth pony stiffened for half a moment, then went limp. The guard pulled a set of hobbles from her saddlebags, fettered the earth pony, and dragged her back to the gate.

When the guard arrived, Lock peered at the earth pony. She was still breathing regularly. “What did you do to her?”

“Stunning spell,” said the guard. “She’ll be- fine… in the…” She stared at the unicorn, noticing the remains of the runes on her body for the first time. Her jaw dropped. “What in Celestia’s name-”

“I think she was due to be a sacrifice for a ritual or- something,” said Lock, conveniently leaving out what she was doing in the house in the first place. They could cover that later. “I don’t know what for, and I don’t know if the ponies killing her were part of a cult or whatever, but she was on a table, bound with runes, and this was nearby.” She pulled the statuette from her bag, flinching at the feeling of pins in her bloodstream, and laid it on the grass in front of the guard. The eyes were back to glowing green, she noticed.

The second Lock put it down, the guard gasped and threw a shield up around it. She squinted at it. “Yep,” the guard muttered. “Grade-A focus item right there. Vitality container, I think. Do you feel numb anywhere?”

Lock ached so much numbness would’ve been a blessing. “No.”

“Good.” To the unicorn, the guard said, “And you?”

The unicorn shook her head. “N-not really, no. Cold and l-like all my legs have g-gone to sleep, b-but in that pins-and-needles w-way, not numb.”

“Oh, thank heavens.” The guard wiped her forehead. “I’m pretty sure you’ll be alright, metaphysically speaking.” She looked over the unicorn and folded her ears back. “Physically… well, you’ll live, but you’ll have a lot of scars.”

The unicorn’s laughter sounded like a cough from a laryngitic minotaur. “Scars are fine.”

Lock was only half-listening to them. She sat and watched as the fireponies sprayed the first jets of water onto the blaze. This was going to be a mess, she knew. One of Equestria’s oldest families (she couldn’t even remember which family, but one with that much money had to be old, right? Maybe) caught up in black magic and equine sacrifice, arson at a mansion, the main witness and the one who’d rescued the sacrifice was only in there to rob the place… It’d take weeks, probably moons, for this to get sorted out. It’d probably go down in history as one of those weird cases law enthusiasts and trivia buffs liked to talk about.

Whatever. At least it wasn’t her business anymore, except in a secondary fashion. Fine by her. She didn’t get along well with law enforcement.

The guard walked up next to Lock. For a second, silence. Then she asked, “So what happened in there? That’s a pretty big fire. The ritual didn’t go wrong, because she’s still alright.” She nodded at the unicorn. “I mean, that looks like arson to me.”

“My fault,” admitted Lock. “It was supposed to be a distraction.”

A plume of flame exploded from a third-story window. Sparks flew into the air as part of the outside wall collapsed.

“Some distraction,” said the guard. “But, hey. Good on you for getting her out.” She clapped Lock lightly on the back. “Not many ponies would’ve done that.”

And you kept wanting to turn back.

“Um. Thanks.”

The guard briefly examined the focus item again, then stuffed it into a saddlebag, still with the shield up. “Could you come with me, please? We’ll want to talk to you about…” She glanced at the burning house again and chuckled weakly. She turned her attention to the unicorn. “Come on. Let’s get you some first aid.” She delicately hoisted the unicorn over her back.

Lock stiffened. If she was questioned, they’d want to look through her bag. The haul in there was the whole reason she’d gotten into this mess in the first place, not to mention it held her best and most varied set of tools. It was worth several million bits, at least. And she was supposed to just drop it? For a moment, she considered simply bolting. They had the witness and the focus item and she could leave behind the books she’d taken. She was not going to have this whole night be all for nothing.

It won’t be for nothing. You saved a life.

Unsure whether she was doing it because it was the right thing to do or just to shut her conscience up, Lock took a deep breath, adjusted her saddlebags with all the loot she wouldn’t be able to sell, and followed the guard back to the rest of her squad as the conflagration of the mansion licked the night away.