The Immortal Dream

I was a ghost, and I couldn't see in the dark.

Sticking my head into a wall still gave me the feeling of being in a geometrically impossible space, but trying to navigate the mansion's corridors by that alone was completely impossible. So, before I could forget which way down was, I flew up, passing through a second and then a third floor before finally emerging into the misty night.

Outside, it was mostly dark as well, the moonlight filtered out by the thick fog shrouding the town. I could at least sense the outline of Crowscone's manor, but visibility was so poor I couldn't make out even the next building over.

These conditions were bad. If I went exploring and wasn't careful, I could get well and truly lost.

I started flying slowly, sticking to the edge of the mansion, looking for any hints of light. There had been unicorns in our welcoming party. If I could find one, maybe I could tag along and eavesdrop? I didn't really have anything important to be doing, but at a time like this, I could do far worse than gathering information.

Row after row of windows passed, dark enough that they were barely distinguishable from walls. There were no landmarks to identify where I had been before, but after a few minutes of flying I started to get the feeling that the mansion was laid out in a modified H pattern, with the four wings tilted outwards a ways to leave room for larger courtyards between them in the front and back.

So, where would the interesting stuff be? Somewhere out of the way, which meant either the top or the bottom...

Another circuit of the building, and a light glinting through a window gave me pause.

Immediately, I flew in through a window, passing through the glass as easily as if I was shadow swimming. Light was shifting underneath a doorjamb; I flew through that door too.

It was Neeve and Corona, making their way silently and professionally down a hallway.

Perfect. I had spent too long in my body before ghosting to catch up to them when they left us the first time, and I dearly wanted to hear what they would say when our backs were turned. Since my stealth was presently unbreakable, I settled in to follow them and see where they would go.

They sure were going somewhere. But they never got where they were going, and they never spoke while doing it. Opening doors, looking in through rooms, backing out and closing them again, crisscrossing hallways, I got the distinct impression they were searching for something. Except neither of them spoke a word, and whatever they were looking for, they clearly didn't think they'd have to check any given room too closely to find it.

I got a good look at the third floor's many chambers, at least. Their construction was impressive enough. Nothing extravagant like the Wilderwind government tower or Cold Karma's headquarters in Ironridge, and it prioritized form over detail - there were no carvings or pillars or artsy embellishments like I had seen elsewhere. This felt like the work of one above-average architect with only laborers and not many artisans to carry it out. And some of the furnishings felt like placeholders, or else were flat-out missing.

Neeve and Corona continued searching by the light of Corona's horn. Were they patrolling for thieves who might be taking advantage of the power outage to break in? Surely there was someone better suited to a task like that... Though if Neeve knew how to use that katana at his side, maybe he chose guard duty for a reason.

Still, shouldn't they at least be making small talk? They weren't even coordinating where to go next.

Or were they? There was something odd about Neeve's body language, the way he kept ruffling his feathers. Maybe he was supremely agitated and fighting to keep his temper in check, and if an assassination had just occurred on his watch, then he definitely had reason to be. But I didn't see any matching hints of frustration on his face. And the way Corona sometimes flicked her ears, and made small adjustments to her mane...

Maybe I was so paranoid that I was expecting them to be as paranoid as I was, but there was a possibility they were using some sort of non-verbal code.

Minutes passed, along with rooms and intersections, during which I watched their movements like a hawk. And sure enough, my suspicions were validated: Corona was using her ear flicks to signal which way she was turning at intersections, and Neeve was catching them out of the corner of his eye. And if they were doing that much, surely they were doing more, as well.

Maybe Corona was doing something with her horn? An old trick I felt like a unicorn had sprung on me before was to disguise their spellcasting by pretending they were just using their horn as a lamp. I didn't have enough experience with horn magic to tell if anything particularly fishy was going on, but there had to be something...

I fell back a little, trying to get a look at the pair's special talents. Neeve's, unsurprisingly, showed a katana. Corona's was a little harder to get a look at, since it was usually hidden in the shadow of her suit; I only got occasional glances when she turned a particularly sharp corner. But it appeared to be a silhouette pony leaning against a glowing street lamp.

Odd. For them both to have talents, they must be special; non-batponies with talents were uncommon in the north. But what passion could a talent like that be related to?

I kept following them. Eventually, they just stopped.

Nothing was different. I couldn't see anything that had changed. In one of the side rooms they stepped into, they just sat down, taking seats across from each other at a tea table and proceeding to do nothing at all.

Were they going to talk? Strategize? Scheme? Even just sigh and let their guard down for a bit? Neeve did pull something out of his suit collar and start fiddling with it, but Corona didn't even remark on it.

I hovered closer, trying to get a proper look at what he was toying with. It seemed to be a pendant on a small chain around his neck, previously tucked inside where no one could see it. The pendant was too small and narrow to be a locket. It was shaped like... a street lamp?

I glanced back at Corona's special talent, which was completely hidden in shadow. Something was very, very fishy.

Was it? I frowned. She was his marefriend. I didn't know much about romance, but carrying around a pendant of your marefriend's special talent surely wasn't that weird of a thing to do. It was probably nothing... but what if it wasn't? What if Corona was the leader of some secret order, and her symbol had been adopted as their symbol as a mark of secret loyalty? She had been calling the shots about where they were going. Could this be-?

No. Nope. I shook my head. There was no world in which that was more likely than a stressed stallion carrying around a customized pendant from his marefriend.

None at all. I reached out a ghostly hoof for the pendant.

The moment my hoof passed through it, I felt a slight flickering sensation, and was suddenly in the middle of a conversation.

"...the whole mansion by morning," Neeve was saying, far more animated than he had been an instant earlier. "I agree that we have bigger-"

Startled, I flinched back... and just as quickly as they had started, they stopped again. Neeve was fiddling stoically with his pendant, and Corona was staring off into space, focused and disinterested at the same time.

Frowning, I slowly brought my hoof back to where the pendant was.

"...need to talk about the Black Knight," Corona was saying, staring straight at him. "If your father really poisoned a Consul, the Consulate won't let him off the hook unless someone else is framed in his stead."

"We can't frame the Black Knight," Neeve sighed. "The citizens already consider her the legitimate ruler of Izvaldi. If the Consulate weighed in on her behalf and accused us of framing her, then the people would see them as righteous and we'd be hoofing this country over to Everlaste on a silver platter. It's absolutely out of the question."

I stared in bafflement at the street lamp pendant, withdrawing and extending my hoof several more times. The pattern was consistent: when I wasn't touching it, they appeared to be doing nothing, but whenever I was, they were having an animated conversation.

Presumably this hadn't been going on in the hallways, since I hadn't seen the pendant then. A power like this was downright devious. And for once, I was glad to be a suspicious, paranoid mess, because there was no way else I would discover this.

"That's not what I mean," Corona countered bluntly, shaking her head. "I mean, we let her carry out your father's investigation. Someone needs to get thrown under the cart before we're out of this mess, and I'd rather lose him and the brown sleep than get caught in the fallout ourselves."

"'Let her' carry out his investigation?" Neeve raised an eyebrow. "That's not why she's here. If we do nothing, that mare will be on her way the moment she has what she came for. And, as per our agreement, my job is to make her exit an easy one."

Corona rubbed the bridge of her muzzle. "What about those kids that were with her? Do you think they might try to stick their noses into this?"

"I highly doubt it," Neeve dismissed. "Her entourage initially struck me as bit players, though the sarosian is more likely a client. The other two... You know where those uniforms are from. They're chips for a power play with Everlaste."

Corona nodded, a distant, pained expression on her face. "I never thought I'd see the Black Knight with Wilderwind Escorts in her party again."

"This is all such a farce," Neeve growled, tired. "Even a year ago, Father would have been able to spot dozens of holes in this plan of his, and never would have pursued such folly. If only..." He put his head down and sighed. "Bergen would have known what to do with this."

"Sorry I brought it up," Corona gently muttered, as if she wanted to leave the conversation there.

Touching the lamp post pendant or no, that was the last either of them cared to say.

Somehow, Faye was getting by.

She followed Lissa and Flarefeather through the hallways of Crowscone's manor, her bulky armor traded out for her night boots to facilitate better stealth. A band of green from her bracelet illuminated the halls and corridors, but she wasn't going to get caught: she walked with one eye in the star world, and if any of the lights she saw in the distance started getting as close or vivid as her two friends', she would have ample time to turn it out and avoid them.

And if she didn't? Shadow sneaking with two passengers at once was possible. Deeply unsettling, but she had proven to herself that she could do it. Coda was safe and sound with Puddles, and she had the tools to keep Lissa and Flarefeather safe.

This wasn't a stable, long-term arrangement. She hadn't figured out why she could suddenly shadow sneak with her bracelet turned on, and she hadn't made peace with the idea of touching other ponies so much as steeled herself in advance for it. But for now, it was good enough that she had a little focus to spare for helping her friends investigate.

"Check out this portrait," Flarefeather whispered, stopping next to a rounded alcove in a hallway wall, set between two expansive windows looking out on nothing but night fog. From the outside, it must have looked like a pillar or column set between windows, but from the interior, it was hollow.

Faye glanced over. The portrait within was elaborately framed and depicted a stallion that was unquestionably Crowscone, perhaps twenty years younger than she had seen him in the foyer, yet still getting on in age. Set against a dim, mountainous backdrop, he held a slender mare who could have been his granddaughter if not for how closely they were touching. She had a long, straight bang and a rebellious, naughty expression that suggested she was in on some great secret - it was almost jarring next to Crowscone, who looked tired and broken down. If the mare had possessed a horn, she could pass for a more beautiful Princess Twilight, yet he looked like an indentured mine worker trying to enjoy his one allotted day of vacation per year.

"She's smoking, right?" Flarefeather quietly whistled. "Bet you that's my mom."

Lissa nodded. "Yeah, that could explain the cuteness differential. But if she's cozying up to someone as gross as him, don't count on her personality being as great as her bod."

Flarefeather made a mock gagging face and rolled her eyes. "Good thing paintings preserve one and not the other," she snarked, moving on but casting several glances back over her shoulder as she left the painting behind.

Faye sighed too. She felt like a chaperone on a high-stakes field trip. Flarefeather said she wanted to investigate and get to the bottom of this Consul assassination mystery, but her level of focus...

No, that was unfair. She hadn't spent too much time staring at that painting. If Faye discovered a painting of her own mother in these halls, she'd probably be much slower in tearing herself away.

"Hey, look at this," Flarefeather said, stopping in front of the next alcove, sounding a little more subdued than before. "There's another one, but it's..."

Faye stepped swiftly to catch up. There was another portrait of the same two ponies, with a few stark differences.

First was the background. This one was set to a landscape seen from a very high altitude, either from a tower like the one in Wilderwind or the deck of an airship. Far more importantly was their ages: Crowscone in this picture was a good two decades younger, but the mare he was with hadn't changed by even a month.

He looked like her father instead of her grandfather now. Life clearly hadn't been kind to him: his face was marked by well-used lines of stress, anger and grief. He had known enough hardship to want to move mountains, but not yet so much that he had lost faith in his ability to do so. Nor had he lost his ability to celebrate: though this Crowscone looked jaded and hard-charging, he appeared fresh off a victory that was as hard-fought as anything Faye had ever done.

What that victory was, she could only guess. And her attention kept slipping to that mare, posing at his side with the same teasing, juvenile, slightly discordant expression she had worn decades later.

That couldn't be the same mare, could it? She should have been an infant in this painting. Or middle-aged in the first one. And both times, she just didn't quite seem to fit, as if the two of them were living in and looking at two completely different worlds despite celebrating together, side by side.

Every time Faye had encountered inexplicable math around a pony's age before, the answer had been changelings. But changelings were people too. Even if they could use their powers to lie about their age, they couldn't go twenty years and pass themselves off as unchanged copies of the people they used to be. Not in front of an artist skilled enough to capture so much expression in Crowscone's face. There was just no shot.

And besides, had changelings even been transforming yet when these were painted?

"You think he forged the other one?" Flarefeather whispered. "Posed solo and had the artist copy in the likeness from here? That's kind of sad. Maybe she isn't my mother after all? I wonder what happened."

Faye flinched just a little. Right. A painter could easily do that, just as easily as they could make up any other details. Something about the way she and Halcyon could analyze another pony's affects, belongings and memorabilia to learn more about them required taking everything she saw at face value, and it almost physically hurt to put distance between herself and the idea that this painting was a literal window into the past.

But what Flarefeather said made sense. Crowscone hadn't been entirely rational when he greeted them in the lobby. Maybe that was reflected in his directives to his artists, and this mare wasn't real at all.

They pressed on, and came to what looked to be the third and final alcove before the corridor split into the mansion's outer wings. This one had a painting too, depicting once again the same scene, this time without a backdrop: a large, well-built pegasus stallion with a heavily-styled mane, clutching the same mare as always. Only with the context of the last two paintings could Faye identify this as Crowscone. He was in his mid-twenties at latest, untested and untried by the world, with the smug arrogance of a political court nuisance who had just enough power to live the high life while keeping ahead of the consequences for his behavior.

At last, the mare he was with looked like she belonged there. Next to a stallion who was more or less her age, with an expression that was more or less compatible with hers, they had the look of co-conspirators getting away with something naughty in the moment. Not like something untoward was happening just below the picture frame, but rather like this portrait itself was being painted against the wishes of someone very powerful.

More than either of the others, this picture made sense. If the others were doctored, this was the original.

"Why does he keep these?" Lissa mused under her breath. "They don't paint him in a very flattering light."

"I feel kind of bad for him," Flarefeather quietly remarked. "Figured I might pity the guy after seeing his taste in art, but not because of this."

Faye nodded. "Think you've seen enough?" she asked softly. "Or are we still looking for clues about the Consul?"

Flarefeather gave her a weird look. "Are you crazy? We're not going home just because he's got weird art."

Well, it was worth a shot.

They pressed on, and Faye soon found herself back to experimenting with her powers, seeing how far she could lean into her star sight without blanking on the real world or having another frightening realization. Puddles' star was somewhere behind them, back in their chambers. It was her reference point for a number of experiments: seeing how long she could track and identify a particular pony, and trying to translate the positions she saw into real, physical space.

She remembered the way back to their chambers. She had been memorizing it as they went, trying to use Puddles as a bearing to help her bridge the gap between where she perceived the stars as being and where the people they corresponded to actually were. But no matter how much she tried, the stars were just disjointed from physical space: she could see Lissa and Flarefeather's positions accurately, but anything more than a room away was hopeless. It was like trying to match up a map that was drawn on a flat sheet of paper to one that was drawn on a sheet that was constantly billowing in the wind. She could hold them together in the area close around her and make them cohere, but anywhere beyond her narrow sphere of influence, the two worlds had a mind of their own.

Two worlds. That was a decent way to think about it. Like she was somehow trying to pinch two worlds together, and could only make them spatially correspond in a very narrow space around her. Unfortunately, having a clear way to frame the problem wasn't helping her make progress-

One of the stars was rapidly coming into focus.

Faye immediately forced herself back into the real world, flicking off her bracelet as she silently lunged forward, awkwardly grabbing Lissa and Flarefeather under her wings and plunging into the shadows.

Both of them struggled a little, but seemed to rapidly conquer their reflexes and realize what was happening. Faye stayed down for a second, heart hammering, then slowly surfaced just their faces, taking a quick breath and glancing around.

Pitch darkness. The star she had noticed drawing into her range wasn't moving.

She could see Lissa and Flarefeather brightly as they fidgeted in her grip, despite the darkness. This close, their stars were pony-shaped, one and the same with their forms she was blinded to in the real world.

Faye forced down her reflex, forced her train of thought to stay on the new star as she cautiously swam forward. It still wasn't moving. Whoever this was, if they had seen her light, they weren't coming to investigate.

A loud snore caused Faye's ears to twitch. She chanced lifting her bracelet hoof, bringing a small sliver of her bracelet above the surface and lighting it to just an ember's glow.

Sure enough, ahead of them was a unicorn, dressed in a business suit that seemed styled to suggest he was a guard, out cold against a pillar in an alcove, a silly smile on his face as his chest rose and fell. Slacker. He snored again as Faye pulled her bracelet back below the surface and quickly swam on by.

Faye found a staircase to the third floor, and waited until she was halfway up to release Lissa and Flarefeather, by now clear of any stars that were close enough for her to pinpoint their location. The moment she allowed herself to break contact, she shuddered mightily, her thoughts feeling like a clogged pipe that had trouble restarting even now that she no longer needed to hold them back.

This was definitely not sustainable. She knew now that the key to shadow swimming with passengers was making physical contact; her boots were what had foiled her on every attempt in the past. She couldn't unlearn that, and even if she could, she didn't want to. This ability was valuable. But she needed a better way to stay sane while using it than simply trying to shut herself down. How could she... she...?

She was almost doing a good enough job at blocking out whatever she was trying not to think about that she couldn't remember what it was. Probably for the best. She could work on her own state of mind when she wasn't on the clock for keeping Lissa and Flarefeather safe.

"Not going to lie, that's pretty disconcerting," Lissa breathed. "Guess it's a good thing we have it? How did you know that guy was there?"

"Intuition," Faye lied. "I'm a professional, remember?"

Lissa slowly, skeptically nodded.

"I've at least been doing this longer than you have," Faye added, which was much more true. "Still want to keep going?"

Flarefeather resolutely nodded, and Lissa agreed.

"Less sightseeing," Lissa added. "We need to find that crime scene and see if there's any evidence they forgot to clean up."

Faye somehow doubted it. If Crowscone had directed his servants to clean it up, as he said, he probably wanted to ensure there wasn't any.

But this was their investigation, not hers. So she followed along, keeping her bracelet to a dim glow and watching for any stars that got too close as Lissa and Flarefeather led the way.

Before long, another one came into focus. This time, Faye was slightly slower and more deliberate in her reaction, halting the pegasi and killing her bracelet but stopping short of pulling them into the shadows. This star wasn't moving, either. And after a long second of listening, she heard another muffled snore.

"Great guards," Flarefeather mouthed, sarcastic.

Faye chanced a bit of glow, peeking around the corner. The conventional choice for architecture would have been to line the mansion's walls with rooms to take advantage of the window space, but Crowscone seemed to like having windows in his hallways, instead: they were at the very corner of one of the mansion's four wings, with windows lining the right side of the hallway both before and after the turn.

Faye was fairly sure this section of hallway was a square, encircling a large, windowless room in the center of the wing, and her suspicion was furthered when she saw the slumbering guard next to an ornate door that faced out through a window and into the night fog.

Top floor, big room, no windows, isolated from the rest of the building by a surrounding hallway? Guarded, pretty door? There was certainly something important here.

"Think this is the place?" Flarefeather breathed.

"Doubt it," Lissa mouthed back. "Don't see any servants coming and going to clean it up. And this seems more like where you'd put a vault or private study than a parlor for meeting guests."

"Yeah, but we're totally checking it out, right?" Flarefeather quietly insisted.

"Door's certainly locked," Lissa countered. "Although..." She slowly raised an eyebrow at Faye.

"Sure," Faye sighed, keeping her voice just as low as the others. "I can shadow sneak you in..."

They crept forward together, bracelet off, the barest hint of light filtering in through the wide windows and the dense night fog. As they reached the door, the guard snored loudly, making far more noise than their silent, padded boots, and kept on sleeping.

Faye put out her wings, and went under.

They surfaced in a room that smelled of old, musty paper. But Faye hesitated to light her bracelet: a new star had come into focus, and it was one of the strange ones.

A ways ahead of her and a little to the right, there was the red ring she had seen at a distance in her initial scan, its center clouded and completely opaque. Whatever it was, it was bigger and more remarkable than a pony, but it didn't have the feeling of measureless value she got from Lissa and Flarefeather - and somewhat from the guards, too. If she let her thoughts run away from her, she was pretty sure she would perceive this more as a tool or natural feature than some kind of collectible.

"Lights?" Flarefeather whispered, nudging her.

Right. Whatever that ring was, it wasn't a guard. Faye lit her bracelet, turning it up a little more than usual.

They were in a study, alright. "Wow," Lissa breathed. "That guy didn't strike me as the bookish type."

The ceiling was high and vaulted, with old wooden shelves, cabinets and display cases packing every available inch of wall space. A worn, messy desk sat at the back, with a large, dilapidated chair reinforced with cushions that was clearly sized for Crowscone. Two doors flanked the desk at the back of the room - they couldn't lead to spaces much bigger than a supply closet. Behind one of them was the red ring.

Every shelf was filled with worn manuscripts, every stand held some odd artifact. The carpet was frayed and compacted from countless hours of pacing, making an odd contrast with the rest of the mansion's newish construction. This room must have been heavily used to have worn down so quickly. Faye didn't get the feeling professional cleaning staff were allowed in here.

"Alright," Lissa said, sneaking up to the desk, "let's see what your old stallion works on in his spare time. Bet you it's not safe for innocent fillies like you two..."

"Watch out for traps," Faye murmured, tensing as Lissa crept ahead.

If there were any traps, they didn't go off - perhaps because their stored power had been stripped like every other battery in the city. Faye and Flarefeather joined Lissa at the desk.

Spread messily on its surface were a jumble of documents ranging from business and legal contracts to security briefings to calendars and ledgers to what looked like dissertations on chemistry. It was messy and disorganized, and all seemed far more complicated than Faye had given Crowscone credit for being able to comprehend.

There was a small framed picture of that mare who looked a little like Twilight, too, propped up against the quill fountain. At the bottom, it had a stylized caption that read Triandra.

"Okay, so dad's got a mind for numbers," Flarefeather mused, pulling up a sheet and inspecting it. "Or not. This is some sort of license agreement from thirty years ago. What's he doing, reading over past glories because he's not cool enough to make new ones?"

"Something like that," Lissa agreed, moving on to one of the bookshelves. "Let's see what his library looks like..." She ran a wingtip over a dusty tome. "A history on the evolution of Varsidelian alchemy?"

Flarefeather glanced up. "Alchemy?"

Lissa traced her wing along the shelf, reading out more titles. "Meditations on the search for immortality... The reconstructed banned works of Bomberain... Steps and preparations for the Elixir of Life..."

Faye and Flarefeather met each other's eyes.

Lissa pulled out a tome, flipped it open to the middle, and began to read. "Upon consumption of the Tonic, thou shouldst expect a stabbing sensation in the heart, akin to that of a knife. In this phase, the beliefs of the imbiber are paramount: should thou succumb to belief that the poison hast doomed thee, so too shalt the body succumb. But the worthy Alchymist who hath trained their mind for one thousand, five hundred days and nights, no more and no less, may see Truth, that such pain is born of expungence of worldly flaws. Should thy mind not wander to death, thou shalt be reborn, immortal of flesh and mind, in not more than one year of the day of consumption. But beware the pull of doubt, for should it enter thy mind before the old flesh is purged, so too shalt thee be purged with it."

She looked up with a grimace. "So you drink this potion and it kills you, but if you don't believe you're dying, you reincarnate in a year? Guess he's a believer in quack science."

Flarefeather raised an eyebrow. "Maybe he's afraid of dying and wants to live forever?"

"Well, check this." Lissa held the book out to Flarefeather and Faye. In the margin, next to the manually-written main text, was a note scrawled by someone else: I made him drink his own tonic. He didn't come back. Another dead end.

Flarefeather queasily shrugged. "Weird vibes are weird..."

Faye's eyes went back to the small picture on the desk, of the mare who didn't change throughout the decades.

"I don't think we're any closer to the crime scene," Lissa muttered. "But I'm starting to get a better picture of what your dad is like. If these are his interests, I bet they have something to do with why he was dealing with the Consulate in the first place."

Flarefeather nodded slowly. "You think that mare in all the pictures somehow really was immortal, and he wanted to stop time for himself so he could be with her...?"

"Immortals aren't real," Lissa countered with a shake of her head. "Mention Garsheeva and the Night Mother all you like, they conveniently vanished right before we were born. It's all just the wishes of sad, desperate people who don't have the courage to make their own change in their lives."

Faye decided not to mention that she was probably immortal, herself.

"Working hypothesis," Lissa said, trying to change the subject. "The Consulate tried to assassinate Crowscone by selling him a poison disguised as an immortality potion, figuring he'd believe something like that. He made them test it on themselves to prove it worked, and they died as a result?" She frowned. "No. Why would either side be that stupid?"

"I mean, he did seem kind of delusional," Flarefeather pointed out.

"But there are surely easier ways to off a ruler you don't like," Lissa insisted, still remembering to keep her voice down. "And if they knew it was poison, they'd never drink their own swill. Though if this book is anything to go by, there's already a history of this..."

While they talked, Faye moved to the other side of the room, keeping half an eye on them but deciding to investigate for herself. The most prominent display case held a bizarre sight: a glass sculpture of a mare that she was pretty sure doubled as a bottle.

It was hard to investigate too closely without opening the padlocked case, but the mare sat straight up on her haunches, mouth open and forelegs extended, with a weird, blissfully guilty expression that suggested she was kissing someone and betraying them at the same time. Her mouth was open, forming the mouth of the bottle, and through her neck Faye could see a tube in the glass leading down to a large cavity inside her hollow barrel, which was partly filled with a clear, colorless liquid.

She had a special talent, etched into her flanks with frosted glass that depicted a backwards clock, the numbers arranged opposite the order they were supposed to be. This didn't seem to be the mare from all the paintings; Faye didn't think she had seen her before.

Down at the bottom, there was a plaque that read Original Sin. Scrawled alongside it was a note reading This elixir is the real thing, but I can't figure out how she used it.

Faye stared at the plaque, and then at the glass mare, and then at the clear, see-through liquid in her clear, see-through barrel. Something about looking at it didn't feel right. It was like... she was sharing a bed with someone who had just been violently ill, and was resting between bouts of sickness, except they didn't tell her and she only knew this through the smell. A nameless, distant, squirming unease.

As a changeling queen who didn't fully understand her powers, Faye frequently had no choice but to put stock in her sixth senses. It would be nice if those senses could be a little more descriptive about what they were picking up and why. But she was pretty certain that substance wasn't just water, and whatever it did wasn't good.

"A little light over here?" Flarefeather quietly called.

Faye tore her eyes away from the treacherous glass mare and walked back over to the desk, holding her bracelet high enough to illuminate the books the pegasi were holding. "Found anything?"

"Just trying to peek through business records to see who he's had dealings with," Lissa muttered. "Most of these have the look of Varsidelian contracts. Might be some sort of transportation or shipping business. Maybe he was an importer?"

Flarefeather nodded. "To just step in here and take over the place, he must have had a fortune from somewhere. But I was always told that when he first left Izvaldi, he went to Everlaste."

"How much longer do you want to spend here?" Faye asked. "I'm sure there's a lot to find, but we do need some sleep before morning."

"Which is probably only a few hours away." Lissa grimaced, then turned to the two doors at the back of the room. "At the very least, we've gotta check his closets before we go."

Right. Faye's instincts told her to save the door with the red ring behind it for last. It was just a hunch, but this felt like the kind of thing where they might need to leave in a hurry after seeing what was in there... Before Lissa or Flarefeather could accidentally choose it, she stepped to the other door, the one on the left, and beckoned for them to follow.

It was locked, naturally. A little shadow sneaking got them under.

On the other side, there was a sharp right turn, and then a steep staircase descent. Well. Not a closet after all.

This time, Faye led the way, the light from her bracelet casting rhythmically shifting shadows over the stair steps as she descended. They went down one flight, two flights, three, climbing down through a narrow, isolated stairwell that was undoubtedly a hidden passage to the mansion's basement. It finally bottomed out in a dark, stone-ceilinged room, the walls lined with extinguished candelabras and sconces. Two repurposed, velvet pews provided seating at either edge. One had a noticeable depression in its cushion, as if someone large and heavy had spent a lot of time there.

In the middle of the room was a coffin with an open lid.

Faye held her breath and stepped closer.

There was no body inside. Only a painting, propped lovingly against the head pillow. It showed the same couple as the ones in the second-floor hallway. Crowscone appeared somewhere between the ages he had been in the younger two paintings, perhaps in his mid thirties, an accomplished adult who had grown up but not yet gotten old.

In this painting, the mare had aged with him. They embraced each other happily before the artist, the rebellion of youth replaced with an earned fulfillment and just a bit of intimate sheepishness. Their manestyles looked slightly more casual and less honed for a powerful court. They wore trappings reminiscent of wedding clothes, though nothing extravagant or covering - a white collar and tie for Crowscone, and a small white flower arrangement tucked in behind the mare's ear. This might have been because the mare had something more important than clothes to show off: a tiny, swaddled foal, presented proudly for the painter to capture in time.