Twilight's Reign

Chapter Six: The Inn of Spiral Secrets

Sandwiched between the endless evening sky and the sparse buildings on the edge of town was a sunset.

No pony stepped hoof in the same river twice, the old philosophical saying went. But no pony saw the same sunset, either. For the stars renewed themselves every chance, and ponies did too. Ancient pony legends posited that the first settlers in Equestria had come from the very stars themselves, dusted with stardust and a cosmic perspective that was lost in the modern world. The remnants of ancient lore could be found in the eyes of frequent stargazing ponies, the twinkles in their eyes shining like the forces that supposedly brought their kind to Equestria. Nowadays, it was seen as more of an old Mare’s tale, stories spun from yarn just to get young fillies to respect the earth, mostly to not litter. But tonight felt far away from the childishness of a picture book or a plush space blanket.

Twilight gazed up at the stars, and discreetly used her magic to lower the sun officially. She was just barely gazing out of the rattling window, the soft night breeze musing her disguised mane. Since the two ponies were still in the outskirts of Trottingham, the disguises were necessary. Twilight didn’t think that the city was deserving of such a hideous coat and mane color combination, but she kept those thoughts to herself. There was no point in worrying or being vain about her appearance when she had bigger things to worry about. Most pressing was the pony that was obviously following them, mysterious in name and background but not in appearance or political affiliation. The red pony was clearly aware that he had made himself known to his targets. Clearly, this pursuer wanted Twilight to know she was in danger. But why be so blatant and so elusive at the same time? What was he trying to prove? What kind of game was he playing? And why did no one else notice him? His attempted assasinnation of Twilight was front-page news! Of course, he and his crew had managed to slip out of Canterlot jail by some extraordinary effort against the tip top security, but why was he making himself known to only them too? What in the Tartarus was happening?

And most importantly, who was helping him? Clearly, he couldn’t have gotten both in and outside of the castle without an insider’s help. Clearly, a staff member or several had coordinated the attack, knowing that the wedding stress would mean that most security personnel that day would already be overwhelmed with their duties. Clearly, someone close to Twilight had betrayed her.

The old adage was to keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Whoever was responsible clearly took that to heart. Twilight has some guesses on which ponies had joined her attempted killers in their hatred of the crown, but didn’t want to go any further with her thoughts. Anymore of the thought spiral and she would be dancing with the devil himself, hoofs in rhythm to her own rapidly beating heart. Friendship was magic, of course, but magic wasn’t always for the greater good. She would have to figure out who had coordinated this attack, and why. Maybe she was right and maybe she was wrong. Maybe she was an evil power hungry figurehead of an abusive institution, and maybe she was an angel sent from heaven to save Equestria. It didn’t matter now what the extremes of public opinion meant, she only needed to jump over this hurdle, and everything would be as it was supposed to be. Of course that wasn’t true but it damn should have been.

Who was the mysterious pony? What was his organization? Why did they cloak themselves? Why did they want to kill and not just talk or sign a treaty or advocate for a law? Who was helping them?

The second, and less pressing of Twilight’s worries was the thing that was growing between her and Starlight. She didn’t know what this thing was, but it was certainly welcome. It made the world just a tad rosier. A bit warmer, like an endless amount of raspberry hot chocolate being poured in her veins.

Okay well, maybe that wasn’t the best simile, but this new and uncharted territory was aching to be explored. Her friends were all settling down. Applejack and Rainbow Dash were married, and so had Fluttershy and Discord, although their wedding featured a significant amount of sneezing piñatas and glowing origami napkins. Pinkie Pie and Cheese Sandwich had a young son and were planning to have another baby. Rarity gently let Spike down after years of the dragon’s pining, and had recently moved in with a handsome colt who taught science at the Canterlot Academy of Magic. Even her own folks had been gently prying to see if there was a “special somepony” in her life. After a brief flirtation with her trusty guard Flash Sentry that had ended because of the stressful power imbalance between a ruler and her staff, she was bereft of a pony that made her heart sing.

Was Starlight that pony? It would be a perfect enemies-friends-partners story that any hopeless romantic would love, but Twilight was too plagued with her own problems to even consider such a thing. She had already roped Starlight into this wild goose chase that hadn’t even worked out. She hadn’t even got to meet with her mentors, which was the reason she had set out in the first place? How could she complete the hero’s journey and make atonement with herself and others if there was no change to begin with? If her entire trip was just a barren wasteland of simmering romantic feelings and near-death experiences? If that old quote about the river was just a pile of manure?

Whatever then.

The inn that they had checked in had a merciless lack of rooms, but they had managed to secure a tiny storage room on the top floor of the inn after paying what amounted to a small home’s mortgage. Although the owner was gruff and short, clearly annoyed with such an egregious last-minute check in, his eyes betrayed him, and Twilight could see the kindness in his eyes, even as he put away the equivalent to several years of a salary. They made eye contact again as he showed them up the stairs, and Twilight could have sworn there was a twinkle in his eyes. Did the owner know them? Were they being recognized? She put those thoughts away. Maybe the owner was just being kind because they were clearly wealthy customers.

The bits basically amounted to a mortgage for a room no larger than a home office, with dusty boxes and one small window. This room had a lot of stories to tell, Twilight figured. All those boxes had a whole lifetime in them. That was the thing about hotels, hostels, inns, and everything in between. They were the meeting place of every traveler, the great equalizer of the general pony condition. Whoever passed through, on the run from the past or a slow creeping pace to an uncertain future, they had passed here. Weary, excited, angry, aroused, depressed, hopeless, and hopeful; it was all here. In a place like this, ramshackle that had seen a fire a few too many times. Trottingham had plenty of places like that. For a city of such glamor and publicity, the old guard of Equestria had kept many secrets under its picturesque bricks and grasses.

Twilight mentally blocked out another torrent of mental monologue so she could focus on the sun’s lowering, when the sky had completely darkened she had sighed away a weary few hours. Starlight was passed out, using her magic to conjure up a simple configuration of boxes that made a less than comfortable bed. Neither pony wanted to use their magic for what was completely necessary, for fear of attracting unwanted attention. That, and deplugging from the convenience of magic was good for the soul apparently.

While she tried to ignore Starlight’s unbearably loud snoring, she decided to open a few of the boxes, careful to keep the room tidy so the owner wouldn’t know they were snooping. Then again, with the amount of bits she had paid she felt okay snooping to her heart's content. The first few boxes were nothing to write home about, a collection of building deeds, floor plans, employee contracts, and the like. It was when she opened the sixth box, which was remarkably lighter than the rest. She opened the flaps, expecting to find an empty space. Maybe the owner had accidentally left too many boxes in here and some empty ones had remained. But no, that was not the case. Inside was a simple note with a dark scrawl. A dark purple scrawl.

It read: “I know who you are. Don’t look behind you. What you find won’t be good. Keep your attention on your pony friends. Some are not who they seem.

Open the seventh box. It’s in the wardrobe.”

The mountain of boxes did, indeed, cover a larger wardrobe made of deep mahogany wood. The sides were curved with a beautiful molding, and the large doors were smooth and oddly inviting, even with the dust. The moving of boxes tousled Starlight awake, and she gently started helping.

“Soooo……what are we doing?” Starlight’s voice was deadpan with a hedge of sleepy annoyance. Her disguised mane was rumpled and her eyes were struggling to stay open in her post sleep haze.

“Um…moving boxes, I guess. I’m trying to get that wardrobe open.” Twilight didn’t speak of the strange note she had found, but it didn’t take long for Starlight to take the crumpled note of its open box and scrutinize the words.

“Well, that’s not ominous at all. Between the note and the pony following us, I’d say this is challenging Nightmare Night ‘88 for creepiest night of my life.”

“What happened on Nightmare Night ‘88?!?”

“Well, as a teenager I thought it was a fantastic idea to explore the caves that lay on the outskirts of my village. Let’s just say that my fashion sense wasn’t the only horrifying thing I found in the cave. Apparently it was a rendezvous point for some secret…ahem…club of sorts. There are things you can’t unsee, Twilight. Things you can’t unsee.” Starlight was half-laughing at the unsavory memories of her adolescence.

Twilight wondered if that, combined with her heartbreak at Sunburst’s absence, had led her to the equal-cutie-mark cult she had started. But that was a conversation for a glass of wine and a comfy couch, not a creaky-floored and dusty glorified closet.

They worked for a while to clear the boxes, stopping every so often to collect a pile of papers that had slipped out or some little trinkets that had been spilled. The silence seemed to envelop them like waves lapping at a sun-soaked shore.

Eventually, the last of the boxes had been cleared away, and both ponies opened the doors to reveal…nothing.

Well, it wasn’t nothing, but it wasn’t the fabled seventh box they had been expecting and likely hoping for. After all it was a shaky sign of support from a world that had seemed to shun them. However sketchy, it was also just another glimmer of hope.

Instead, they were greeted with a line of dark coats, probably vintage from the looks of it. Mothballs and a stale air wafted from the cabinet, as if it hadn’t been opened for a long time. Maybe never. Starlight looked at Twilight, and Twilight looked at Starlight.

Twilight gave a slight nod to her companion, and both walked in at the same time, expecting to hit the wall at any moment. It was apparently a quite deep wardrobe, as they surely must have been in a different room by now.

“Oh my Celestia, it’s like we’re in Narnia!!!” Twilight’s bookishness was showing through as she shifted a squeal in the small space.

Starlight couldn’t quite see Twilight’s face in the dim wardrobe, but she knew that her friend had the biggest grin in the world. It made her heart happy. While Twilight’s emotions were hard to reign in these days, Starlight was thrilled for any glimpse she got of Twilight’s infectious joy.

They might have been headed to certain death or the greatest treasure known to ponykind. It might have been a secret passageway or a truly large coat closet. But as the floor descended into a tunnel-like structure, Starlight’s bet was on the former. Whether they were smart or foolish to follow this path was anybody's guess.

There were no torches on the walls or any light source for that matter. The coats that were long behind them did a great job of blocking out the steady stream of moonlight that had filtered into their room from the darkened sky outside. The floor of this mysterious passageway was cold and damp, further confirming the hunch that both ponies had that this hallway was not well-traveled. As the hallway continued to descend, it started to curve sharply into a lowered stairwell that could have gone on forever if Twilight hadn’t chipped off a piece of the hallway’s molding and dropped it into the abyss below them, hearing a soft clank after a few very long, very tense seconds.

“Well, at least we know it has a bottom!” Starlight chuckled nervously. She felt the same chills as she had when she and her friends had ventured into the changeling hive. An intoxicating mixture of adventure and determination, of apprehension and wonder, of fear and courage and everything in between. The cocktail of emotions was draining down her throat and settling into her nervous stomach. She could feel the adrenaline coursing through her veins like a sacramental wine.

“Yeah…but what’s down there?” Ever the skeptic, Twilight’s darkened face was sure to have been creased with concern. “We’re down in a stairwell in a town we’ve not exactly been safe in, after following a mysterious note that could have easily been written by a serial killer. This. Is. Just. Wonderful.” The last few words were bitter on her tongue and just barely made it past her teeth. Twilight wasn’t scared really, but it wasn’t lost on her just how suspicious this whole situation was. She hadn’t gotten to talk with Celestia and Luna, her wake was clearly being stalked by a scary and dangerous pony, and now she and her closest friend were trotting down a mysterious stairwell that appeared in a long tunnel that they found after going through a wardrobe. Were the Narnia kids scared when they traveled into their winter wonderland? She couldn’t remember. It had been ages since her mom had read her the series by her bedside.

“Well, we’re already going down it, and the distance can’t be too far judging by the chip we broke off. I say we just keep going and hope for the best.” Starlight wasn’t used to being the optimist of the group, but she mustered all of her emotional strength to keep going down the steps. The olden walkway hadn’t seen pony hooves for ages, probably.

Eventually, Twilight used her horn to light up the room. The stairs they were descending were fashioned like an upside down lighthouse, the dim light casting creepy shadows on the black stone walls. There were no corners, and as they rounded the last set of steps and plopped on the stone floor, it was a relief to see a small circular room, barren except for a small table with a lit lantern and what looked like a map of Trottingham’s underground. With the room illuminated enough, Twilight and Starlight looked around the small space, failing to notice the shadowed door just under the curve of the stairs where they had stepped off. The desk was a simple wooden set fashioned with a darkened cherry hue. The few books that were piled on it looked to be from an earlier century, with their deeply yellowed pages and Old Ponish language. It was probably a hangout for underground intellectuals, those who resisted the political corruption that plagued Trottingham a century earlier.

A wealthy oil baroness has ascended to the position of mayor for the iconic city and had done more to pardon her rich friends than anything for the struggling artists and academics that lived on the streets. The “Trottingham Revolution” as it was often referred to, was a city-wide series of protests that kicked off subsequent hearings and meetings that reached all the way to Princess Celestia, who promptly instigated the most consequential royal review in a millenia. Trottingham’s reputation as a cosmopolitan city was stained somewhat by the discovery of its rising population of ponies in poverty, but the recovery within the next few hundred years was nothing short of remarkable.

That was something that always amazed Twilight when traveled, and even when she was a young filly sitting in class, paying attention to the textbooks with rapt attention. Every city block had a lifetime stored inside every storefront, from the hooves that had passed over the sidewalk to the reflections in the glass window. No history book could ever truly encapsulate the heartbeat of a city street or historic market or stained glass window. In this specific instance, what Starlight and Twilight were likely looking at was a secret remnant of a secret meeting. The desk was probably for manifestos or pamphlets of some sort. It was quite literally an underground operation, if the small pile of evidence was to be extrapolated from accurately.

“Hello, Princess Twilight.” A voice that came from neither Twilight or Starlight pierced through the vale of tense silence.

Starlight screamed, a loud shrill sound, and all the color drained from her face, and Twilight nearly did the same before she was stopped by her royal inhibitions.

She was expecting to see the scary red pony that had been clearly stalking them, but instead it was the front desk pony from earlier, the small business owners that had battered them out of a massive pile of bits. His clothes were the same as earlier, a faded cream-colored button down shirt and jeans that were clearly well-loved. His shoes were a simple pair of green tennis shoes, and a pair of reading glasses adorned his gaunt, middle-aged face. He had big, king eyes and a thinning brown mane with streaks of gray. They were the same kind eyes that had checked in, and Twilight felt relief when she noticed that same and now familiar twinkle in his eyes. The shock of seeing another pony in the hidden room subsided in favor of blatant curiosity.

“So, um….are you going to kill us or something?” Starlight’s voice piped up before Twilight had a chance to speak. “Because I’d rather not have that happen.” Although there was a bit of a nervous quiver in her voice, her deadpan cadence showed that she wasn’t really convinced she was going to be murdered. And neither was Twilight. They may have just found their guardian angel.

The pony laughed. “Heavens no, of course. I’m on your side.” He said. His voice was no longer the gruff bluntness they had encountered earlier. He was speaking in a much softer tone, as if he was wary of others in earshot. Must have been par for the course for somepony who spent time in a secret chamber.

“You’re on our side? I….what?” It had been so long since Twilight had heard somepony say something like that who wasn’t already on her payroll. “We just happened to waltz into the one building in Equestria that housed a single pony who not only supports us but also has a secret bunker?!?” The sheer absurdity of the situation seemed to hit twilight like a truck, and she turned to sit on something, before just plopping down on the floor when the lack of seating became apparent. “This. Is. Insane.” Each syllable was sharply articulated and she just shook her head back and forth as if this situation was a fever dream she needed to wake up from.

“It’s a little bit of a strange place we’ve found ourselves in, but I promise I mean no harm to you young ladies. I just came to warn you.” He paused before continuing. “You see, I’ve owned this building for over fifty years, and have spent thirty-five of those years at that very front desk, after my receptionist became convinced the building was haunted and fled town.” He laughed, but no one found it funny.

“I mean….is it haunted?” Twilight ventured. She wasn’t one to believe in ghosts, but she also knew magic worked in mysterious ways. A chill seemed to run through the room, but it was just in her head.

The pony pushed his glasses up higher and considered her question. “In all likelihood, yes. Considering the age of this building, I wouldn’t be surprised if there were a few spirits here and there. But that’s not why I wanted to get you both down here. This matter is urgent, much more urgent than ghosts. As I have worked as a receptionist for my business, I have seen all matters of ponies come through those doors. Backpackers on a shoestring budget, wealthy patrons wanting a taste of Trottingham’s suffering artist days, and the like. The point is, I’ve seen a lot of folks over the years, and I am deeply, deeply worried about right now.”

“Why?” Starlight asked, then immediately facepalmed at her silly question. Of course a small business owner would be worried right now. Clearly, he was facing some budget issues, and wanted the help of a wealthy and powerful princess to get his life back on track, even if she was one of the most persecuted ponies on the planet. She rolled her eyes and made sure the pony saw.

“Of course, the economic concerns for ponies like me who rely on tourism are worth talking about, but it’s part of a larger picture. Ponies aren’t traveling like they used to, and the amount of anger, weariness, and even just plain sadness that I see coming through these doors each day is a fright. I go to the farmer’s market and the mood is more like a funeral. Everything is getting more expensive, and the sacrifices a pony has to make to get by is something I would not wish on anypony. And it all comes down to you, Princess Twilight.”

Twilight was stunned by the pony’s moving speech, if one could call it that. The various issues that he had pointed out were things that kept her up at night, serious horrors that seemed to increase tenfold after the disastrous Neigharaha Falls accident.

He continued. “You are in grave danger, Princess. And although some would not agree, I think your leadership is something that Equestria would be even worse without. You are the pony we need for the world to come back together. And that cannot be done if the pony that is following you gets his way.”

At the mere mention of this pony, Twilight’s blood ran cold. That strange group she encountered were obviously violent, but even her attempted assisination didn't quite hit her heart that way it did just after the pony’s faltering words.

“HOW DO YOU KNOW ALL OF THIS?!? ARE YOU STALKING US TOO?” Starlight's voice was angry and dark. In the dark room it seemed even more amplified and Twilight was startled at how loud a single pony could get.

“I am not ‘stalking’ you two. I am merely looking out for you too. It’s my job, you know.”

“IT’S YOUR JOB MY RUMP!!! HOW DARE YOU EVEN SUG-”

Twilight held up a hoof to silence her steaming friend. Something in her heart told her she could trust this gentlecolt.

“It’s my job, you see. I’m a remotely stationed member of the royal guard. There are plenty of us around Equestria, for cases such as this. Runaways, I mean.”

“How….how did you know it was us? We’re disguised, obviously!” Starlight had regained her composure(and her dignity) after her brief outburst.

The pony, whose name they still didn’t know, seemed almost amused. “You may be disguised as ponies, but your magic is not. All royal guards, especially those outside of the Royal Castle, have magic maps. I simply followed your star. I must say, I was surprised and delighted that you chose my humble inn for a stay!” he grinned, and his yellowed teeth showed. Clearly he was getting up there in age, but his mind must have been as sharp as a tack if he was still a member of the Royal Guard.

“But…but that still doesn’t explain what in the hay is going on here? Why are we down here? Who is the actual owner of this inn?” Twilight's questions were speeding into the forefront of her brain so fast she could barely get them out.

“Well, I may be a Royal Guard member, but this is still a real inn. I’m a legitimate business owner. I’m afraid if you're looking to bust up money laundering places, you can go to the rival business across the street and cause some havoc there.” The owner wiped his glasses with a handkerchief and gave an eye-roll at the mention of the place across the street. Twilight and Starlight had seen that business on their way to the inn, and it was much larger and fancier than the place they were currently at. And from the looks of it, much snobbier too.

The puzzle pieces were starting to click together in twilight’s mind. Starlight, for her part, had stayed mostly silent, but Twilight could tell she was beginning to understand. Clearly, this owner was a secret member of her royal team of guards, stationed in Trottingham, which was randomly the city that they had happened to be closest to, and also happened to be in the exact inn they had chosen to stay at. It would have been a suspicious coincidence if the pony hadn’t looked so kindly at them. The elements of harmony were always helping Twilight out when she was least expecting them too, so perhaps meeting this innkeeper wasn’t a twist of fate as much as it was right on the path she had a;ways been walking on.

There were still more questions to be asked, even before they got to the clearly heavy subject of the conversation. “So, if you're a guard member, why are you running a struggling small business? Why not just retire to some wicked mansion somewhere or a nice cottage, or even one of the Victorian townhomes in Ponyington?” Starlight asked.

“Well, I’m a guard, not a billionaire, first of all. Those Victorian townhomes are pretty pricey, you know! Also, the point of being a secret guard is to be secret, and a pony with loads of money and no job is pretty suspicious, so most guards have legitimate jobs to prevent such inquiries into their real jobs.” A fond but bittersweet smile crossed his face as he added, “And I love my job anyway. It helps me connect with the world. I get to hear the stories of this wonderful city.”

“Well that makes sense. But what about this place? What’s the deal with this secret passageway? I feel like I’m in a Shadow Spade novel!” Starlight’s anger at the pony had clearly waned as she pressed him for answers.

The pony’s glasses were again cleaned with the handkerchief in his right hoof. It must have been a tick of his, because he always seemed to do it when he was about to tell a long story. “Well, you’ve heard of the ponycombs in Mare-is right? Those ponies had so many bodies they had to bury them down under the city. There’s a similar system in Trottingham, but it isn’t nearly as well known, and this room was an offshoot of that.”

“So when you say this place is haunted…you mean we’re standing in an underground graveyard?” Starlight’s teeth began to chatter as she chewed on her hooves nervously. Even Twilight was a little rattled by the revelation of where they currently were.

The pony clearly wanted to soothe their nerves as he held off his hooves to placate them.
“This room, in particular, is not where the bodies were stored. A small circular room is not a place for corpses, that’s for sure. When these tunnels were being built, so much focus was on the larger systems in Mare-is that the Trottingham system wasn’t given the same attention. When workers were digging, they were “persuaded” by some powerful officials to create private spaces as offshoots of the original tunnels. As the tunnels were no longer in active use, these rooms were forgotten. But a ton of these spaces still exist, and I’m sure there have been some crazy happenings in these walls.”

Twilight gulped. The thought of what kind of debauchery had occurred in places like the one she was seated in was unnerving. It was not unlike the cave system that Starlight had reminisced about in her anecdote about her teenage years in her small village.

The pony looked at the both of them with a level of earnestness that made Twilight relax just a bit after such a disturbing revelation. It was almost even worse to not know the specifics of what kind of things had gone down in these rooms.

The innkeeper-who-was-secretly-a-guard continued. “In the seventies and eighties, there was a bit of a revival with some crazy underground discos and the like, and even a satanic cult scare at the turn of the century, but since then it’s been a bit quiet. Most of the rooms have likely been either filled in or used for storage purposes. This room had been used by the previous owner as a small and secluded study, and as you can see I haven’t done away with any of that.”

Suddenly, the books and maps made a bit more sense. This room must have been used as a secret intellectual haven. Whether or not it was a place of political dissent like Twilight and Starlight had theories about earlier was still up in the air.

The room grew tenser as their mysterious pony companion had run out of a story to tell. Without the pleasant distraction of the impromptu history lesson, Twilight would have to face the real reason she had been sent down here: she was going to die.

As if he could sense her hesitancy in broaching the subject, the pony offered a comforting hoof on her shoulder. “I’m truly sorry about this Twilight. But you are being more than stalked, and this mess won’t stop even if–Celestia forbid–you are done away with. That rogue group of ponies that tried to kill you a few weeks back? They aren’t in this for murder. They’re in this for war.”

War was not a topic that Twilight thought about lightly. With just three letters her world was shaking, and although of course she had considered that the mysterious cloaked ponies were plotting some kind of revenge, she hadn’t really thought about it that much ahead. Selfishly, she had been most concerned with her own wellbeing as a pony, and the further ramifications hadn’t settled in yet.

The pony sighed. “I’m telling you this not because you aren’t already aware of the severity of the situation, but for my own sake. I cannot sit by in the shadows and wait for a war to break out. I know conflict is bound to happen at some points of a royal rule, but I fear this is much, much worse than anything before. If you and your friends don’t help stop this upcoming problem, Equestria as we know it will be over.”

The guard walked over to the little enclave under the stairs, where Twilight just noticed a few extra books lay, along with what looked to be entrance to a small closet. The guard, noticing her curiosity, swung open the tiny door to reveal a bar-bones shelf with just a few trinkets, papers, and some small weapons. “Nothing to look at, I’m afraid. Just junk left over from the previous owner. I’ve stored some stuff down here, and occasionally use this space for private royal messages and whatnot.” He shut the door, which gave an audible creak as it was closed. He had grabbed a small white book.

He gave the book to Starlight, who was slightly closer to him. She, like Twilight, seemed shell-shocked by the revelations of the evening. The guard then adjusted his glasses that seemed to be perpetually sliding down his face, and gave a smile that could have as well been a grimace. He gave a look down the book that Starlight now held in her shaking hooves.

“I’m sorry that I don’t have time to talk more about this, but I must attend to my duties upstairs. But please read the book I just gave you. It explains everything. It’s..well…it’s certainly something. I can’t quite explain it. You’ll understand when you read it through.” And with that, the air of the room settled into something resembling acceptance. Not acceptance of the specific horror that was almost certainly heading Twilight’s way, but acceptance of her life in general. Twilight knew that the first step to solving a problem was to accept that the problem existed in the first place. Celestia had taught her that.

She started up the first couple steps of the stairs, Starlight slightly ahead, both of their legs dreading the serious climbing they would have to do. But a tinge of curiosity made her stop briefly.

She had one final question before she and Starlight took up the long, long way back up to the surface. “If you didn’t let the ponies into the castle, then who did?”

The guard's face darkened to an impossibly forlorn state, but he could not give her the names. “I’m sorry, Princess, but I’m not at liberty to discuss such things.”

“So was it a stranger, then? Do Celestia and Luna know who did it?”

“Yes, Princess, yes they do. There were no strangers involved, as far as I am aware. Have a good night.” The guard spared no further glance, as if his eyes would reveal the truth that his words weren’t permitted to.

Twilight and Starlight climbed up the stairs in silence, each not wanting to break each other’s quiet contemplation. Who could have done such a thing? If it wasn’t a stranger, then Twilight was right that she had been betrayed. Who betrayed her was the real question.

As the two ponies settled into their shoebox-sized room for the night, it occurred to Starlight that they hadn’t gotten their massive deposit back from the guard, something she hoped that he would do considering all the information they had just shared. But no such pile of money came, and she flopped down on her bed of boxes in a huff. Starlight’s snoring soon filled the room, but Twilight was wide away as she gazed out the window, illuminated only by moonlight.

As she peered out into the night sky, it occurred to her that whoever let the rogue ponies in must have had a lot of authority and power over castle staff. They must have instructed the guards to let the cloaked wannabe-assassins in without much of a tussle. They may have even instructed Twilight’s senior guard to act surprised, if he had been on it, too. But Twilight figured that none of her friends or even most of the guards had been on it, only a select few who must have been sworn to secrecy. The operation must have been so incredibly covert to make sure it looked like an authentic break-in.

But who could have pulled that off? Who had more power than Twilight? Who were her staff more loyal too than the princess herself? Who could it have possibly been, other than the two ponies she desperately wished it wasn’t?

There was only one possibility of Twilight’s betrayal, and tears clouded her vision until the moon was a blurry mass. Celestia and Luna wouldn’t stage an attack, right? They wouldn’t play with the possibility of war just to prove some lesson about friendship, right? But with the way her heart was beating and ringing filled her ears, she couldn’t be sure of anything anymore.

She glanced down at the book that rested on the floor next to her, and lay down for a few hours of sleep. She…hadn’t known that was a possibility, until now.