The Element of Honesty hung on a sparkling, purple tether of magic some hundred and fifty feet behind the airship, and the salt prisms had slowed to a livable pace. In just a couple stunned minutes, they had reoriented the ship and cleared the remaining salt off, a task made much easier with Twilight’s enhanced telekinesis. One after-effect from its bestowal, she discovered, was its utter separation from her natural magic; even tired out from a deep sea dive, her augmented magic was as fresh as if she had just woken up.

When they were level and clear of debris, they set to finding a way to solve the problem of the destroyed wheel, while Twilight went below to research a way to break the spell on the Element. While she could hold it for several hours still with a weak levitation spell, she would have no choice but to bring it back before falling asleep, else lose it a second time.

While Applejack and Fluttershy inspected the broken wheel mount, Rainbow sat under the returned torch and read Trixie’s letter. It had come in response to Rainbow’s only shortly before their battle with Thunderhead, and the relaxed tone of her letter made Rainbow smile faintly as she read.

“How’s she doin’?” Big Mac asked.

“Good. Manehattan’s starting to look weird, but she’s doing all right.”

“That’s good. Ah liked her.”

Rainbow looked askance at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Meanin’ Ah thought she was nice.”

“Oh. I thought you had a thing for her or something.”

“Nope. Unicorns were never my type.”

“Big bro, you think you can come over here an’ stomp a hole in the deck fer me?” Applejack asked. “Ah can’t figure out how this dang thing works.”

Big Mac sauntered over to Applejack and Fluttershy, and Rainbow went below to stow her letter with the others. The cabin had been restored to its former orderliness, and Twilight sat on the bed, reading from a pair of books.

“How was it down there?” Rainbow asked, sitting next to her.

“I’m studying, Dash.”

“It’s just a lousy summoning spell, though. Why do you need to study it at all?”

“It’s not that simple. Discord uses chaos magic, which makes it a chaotic enchantment. All the cards are off the table when you’re dealing with that kind of magic, even for a low-level spell.”

“Why?”

Twilight sighed and tore her eyes from her book. “Because chaos magic doesn’t fade away when it’s broken. It goes all over the place, and if I do it wrong, it’ll screw with everything else. If I don’t break this spell absolutely correctly, I could summon a blanket of salt half a mile across.”

“Geez, okay.” She hopped off the bed. “Is it possible that nothing would happen?”

“Well… yeah, it is, but safety comes first.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“What I do not understand is why he told me to look up the Deep Freeze at all,” Octavia said. She and Pinkie sat in the back, watching Applejack and Big Mac dig at a hole where the wheel had once been. The entire deck was tarnished with holes, none larger than a bit.

“Maybe he just likes to share!” Pinkie said.

“I do not get that impression. He does not seem like the type of pony to give information for no reason.”

“But what’s so special about the Deep Freeze?”

“I have no idea.” She watched Applejack stuff her head into the hole in the deck, tail switching. “Perhaps it is not the ship, but its captain.”

“I wish she was still alive. She sounded super-duper nice!”

“I would like to meet her as well. I have never encountered a siren.”

“Do you think we will?”

“Unless we go to the surface, I do not think so. Even then, it would be doubtful.”

“But the surface is all ocean now, right?”

“Yes, but the sirens within have been swept to a climate that is much cooler than they are used to. I do not know how resilient they are, but I would be surprised if many have survived in the lower latitudes.”

“What about the arctic ones though? They can handle it.”

“They are different.”

Pinkie hummed assent. “Soooo, no sirens?” she asked at last.

“Likely not.”

“I guess it’s just as well. I don’t like the cold anyway.”

Octavia leaned to get a better angle as Fluttershy took Applejack’s place, and a pink glow emanated from the hole in the deck. “I am surprised that Applejack does not know what she is doing.”

“She’s not a mechanic, sis.”

“But she is our pilot. I would think she would want to learn about the ship as much as possible.”

“Hey, Ah ain’t a mechanic, okay?” Applejack said from where she stood.

“See?” Pinkie said.

“Hm.” Octavia looked up. At some point in the madness, the rain had stopped, but was starting again with an ominous crackle of thunder from near the far end of the ocean. “I do not care for the cold either.”

An hour later, they were heading back toward the shore. With help from Fluttershy’s magic, Big Mac was able to wedge a dislodged deck board into the pit of wheel mechanics. The mechanism was jerky and slow to respond, but it was enough to turn them around and keep the wind from pushing them off course. The gangplank had to be retracted, and Fluttershy set to examining its injured hinges, to no effect.

The storm was buffeting them from all sides when they passed over the jagged shoreline, and Twilight directed Applejack to land them by the farthest pier. She was ready to break the spell, but they needed something to hide under in the torrent of salt that would come before she could free the Element from Discord’s chaos.

They debarked, with some help from Rainbow and Fluttershy, and crowded under a sagging, wooden pier by an encrusted, leaning shack. A lavender pony watched from a grimy window as Twilight activated her horn and reeled the Element in. At twenty feet, the salt was filling up the space around them, and her friends had to rush to push it out onto the rocks. At ten feet, it was pouring in from everywhere, but as soon as she had it under her studious gaze, the origin point switched, and they were inundated. Ready for the sound and heart-stopping rattle of battered boards above, they were nonetheless brought into a frozen huddle as Twilight worked on the glittering, orange jewel.

It only took her a minute. The tumult ended with an exhausted tinkle of blocks down the slopes they had formed around the pier, and they escaped with a simple shove of gray magic. Back aboard the ship, Twilight lowered the Element of Honesty onto Applejack’s neck, and Fluttershy dug her own out of her bag. Two of six, they stood together at the strange, vertical steering board while the others exchanged congratulations and expressions of relief, cut short quickly with an avalanche of thunder and a deluge that turned the balloon into a kettle drum.

When they landed at a port for repairs after a two-hour fight with the weather, the sun was going down, and no one bothered to stay out on the deck while workers serviced the ship. The eight of them gathered in a cabin to play cards and listen to the rain.

“So where do we go next?” Rarity asked.

“I’m going to write to Princess Celestia tonight and ask for advice,” Twilight said. “Hoofington is the closest town, though, and we haven’t gone there yet.” She set her cards down with a scowl.

“Didn’t you say you were from there, Octavia?” Applejack asked.

“That is where I did most of my growing up, and where I learned music,” Octavia said.

“You’ll probably be pretty happy to visit home, then,” Twilight said.

“My happiness is irrelevant to this.”

“Octavia, don’t start with that crap again,” Rainbow said. “If you wanna go home next, just say so.”

“What’s it like there?” Rarity asked quickly. “Is it warm?”

“It is warm,” Octavia said. “We get rain from time to time, but the town is mostly warm and dry.”

“What else?”

“You will like it, Twilight. There are many studious ponies there, and the Hoof—”

Twilight gasped. “The Hoofington Art Museum! I’d completely forgotten!”

“Settle, sugarcube,” Applejack said, raising a hoof.

“It’s just a museum,” Rainbow said.

“It is the most comprehensive collection of Equestrian visual art in the country,” Octavia said. “It also has a stunning Lepidoptera exhibit.”

“Lepi—”

“Butterflies,” Fluttershy said.

“Kind of a weird combination,” Big Mac said.

“The curator is a lepidopterist of some repute,” Octavia said. “His name is Lumb.”

“I’ve seen that name before,” Fluttershy said. “I don’t remember where, though.”

“He has a chair on the Equestrian Wildlife Preservation Society.”

“That’s it. I get pamphlets from them sometimes. His signature is always really huge.”

“How do you know all this about him?” Rainbow asked. “Are you friends or something?”

“Yes, actually. He has professed great interest in my house, and, particularly, my library. Celestia knows why,” Octavia said.

“I’d love to meet him,” Twilight said. “And I’d love to see your house. It must be pretty big to have a library.”

Octavia paused. “We should avoid my house. It is infested with termites.”

“Twilight, I propose we stay in a hotel,” Rarity said.

“Afraid of some measly bugs, Rarity?” Rainbow asked.

“Gee, Dash, what do you think?”

“No, Octavia’s right. If her house has termites, we can’t go occupyin’ it,” Applejack said. “Might cause careless damage.”

“Exactly,” Octavia said, standing and putting her cards down. “I know that I am opening myself to jokes here, but I believe I will turn in for the night.”

“Just go,” Twilight said. “Get some rest. We all need it, especially you.”

Equestria’s coastline was behind them by eight in the morning. The workers had repaired their wheel and gangplank, and Applejack refilled their water stores before taking off and heading south.

Twilight had written Celestia the night before, just before bed, and her response directed them toward the Everfree Forest. Luna, passing over the swamps to their southeast, had stumbled across another Element, but had not the ability at that time to go searching for it. Celestia didn’t specify what held her up, but Twilight knew it was likely related to her most recent death.

Rainbow emerged from her cabin last, a curious look on her face. Before anyone could ask, she lifted her wing to let something drop.

“Another one?” Twilight asked, floating the salt block over. “I could have sworn I’d broken the spell.”

“Read it,” Rainbow said.

Twilight squinted at the engraving on the side. “Open me up, Dashie. That’s ominous.”

“Yer not gonna say yer considerin’ it, are ya?” Applejack asked.

“It could be important,” Rainbow said in a small voice.

“It’s just a stupid parting shot,” Twilight said, preparing to swing it over the rail.

“Wait! Uh… at least let me get rid of it myself, okay?”

“Fine.” Twilight floated it back to her. “Go ahead.”

Rainbow walked it to the gunwale and looked down at the waxing field below. “Eh, I’ll get to it.”

“Rainbow,” Applejack said.

“We get hints from his taunts sometimes, okay?”

“If you do smash it, do it over a bowl!” Pinkie said, springing over from where she stood with Rarity. “Since somepony swept all the old stuff off the ship.”

“Yeah, right,” Rainbow said. “More salt, just what we need.”

Colgate had been a Datura for three days, and it was an unwelcome shock to Spike when she covered, in an hour, the history, tenets, and practices that had taken him, Flitter, and Cloudchaser several days. From there, under Foxglove’s guidance, he continued to stretch and condition his body while his friend shot ahead. While he would hold a deep crouch for leg-destroying ten minute intervals, Colgate and Foxglove sparred in the grass. His friend always staggered away in obvious pain, often bruised, sometimes bloody.

Foxglove had all appearances of an ordinary earth pony, in her color, her gait, and her voice, so seeing her pulverize and instruct Colgate at the same time was not something Spike processed easily. He had asked her on the second day why she was comfortable leaving such evidence of their encounters on Colgate’s body; the two of them had discussed it previously, she had told him, and left it at that.

When they broke for lunch, Foxglove produced a picnic basket from a hidden bundle of blankets in a tuft of grass, and they stayed in the meadow.

“Today’s a big day for you,” she said. Her voice was quiet and measured, a reflection of the gentle deliberation with which she moved and behaved outside of training; Spike had not once heard her raise it. “Zecora has been keeping an eye on the surrounding wilderness outside Ponyville, specifically the southern areas. There have been minor reports of strangeness out there, and while much of it is in line with what she and her team typically deals with from the Everfree, some pieces of news have gotten my attention.”

“Like what?” Colgate asked. Her face was undamaged, but Spike could see a nasty reddish crescent on her chest where Foxglove had connected a powerful blow.

“Someone released a swarm of things called bush balls out in the forest a couple days ago, and one of them she saw malingering a little close to civilization. Now.” She leaned forward and widened her eyes, something Spike saw her do often to convey that she was finally getting to the point. “Normal procedure would be for Zecora’s team to round up the balls, bring them out somewhere far away where nopony will see and fire won’t spread, and exterminate them quietly. But you’ve been doing pretty good, and I thought it would be nice for you to see some action.”

“Are we gonna fight it?” Spike asked. The thought didn’t sit well in his mind.

“No, but you get to watch Zecora and her ponies dispatch it.”

“What exactly is a ‘bush ball’?” Colgate asked.

“Imagine a big, floating ball of branches and underbrush, with retractable hooks for scraping food off the forest floor. That’s essentially a bush ball.”

“And there’s an entire swarm of these things in the forest?” Spike asked.

“They move slow, and are generally non-aggressive. Think of them as giant bumblebees.”

“Generally non-aggressive,” Colgate said.

“They’ll fight back if you attack them, like any other animal. You shouldn’t have to worry, though. They’re pretty common in the Everfree; Zecora’s team takes care of them all the time.”

“What do you want us to do to be ready?” Colgate asked.

“Just come by the field around… let’s say ten-thirty. That’ll give us enough time to actually find the thing. No need to bring anything with you.”

Spike looked to Colgate, whose face revealed nothing. “Sounds fun.”

He and Flitter shared a bowl of popcorn on the couch in the library living room. He had rigged up Twilight’s old projector and some film reels he had gotten at the Ponyville media trading post, much revitalized since the town’s brush with Manehattan film.

“Got any movies of Rarity?” Flitter had asked, playfully nudging him. He still wore a blush as they got ready for the first movie.

The first thing he had done after his training was race to the spa, and, in the steam room, tell Flitter why he had been spending so much time with Colgate, and then of his adventure later that night.

She had apologized on the spot, tearfully admitting to jealousy she knew was unfounded. Even at the beginning, a part of her had known that there was no way Spike was falling for Colgate, but she had allowed emotion to overtake her anyway. They hugged and kissed, and she apologized a second time before they left for the library.

Only half an hour later, she lay across the couch with Spike wrapped in her wings, settled comfortably against her chest.

“Say, Flitter? Do you know where precogs come from?”

“Naturally occurring mutations in the brain that let ponies tap into ambient magic and follow causality to different points. Why?”

“Colgate and I were wondering about them. She said Bonbon’s a precog. A really weak one.”

“Oh. Huh, I’d have never pegged her for one.”

“Like I said, she’s weak. Colgate said she probably doesn’t even know it.” He squirmed in her embrace. “So you just knew that off the top of your head?”

“For my minor, I took a class on anomalous intellects in law.”

“Oh, right.” A double major, with a minor in law for fun: he had forgotten entirely.

“It’s actually really interesting. Did you know that one of the landmark laws on agriculture business was founded entirely on the testimony of a precog? We got to read some transcripts from the hearings. They got heated. You wouldn’t believe how complicated the law gets when you start adding precogs into the mix. Heck, postcogs even.”

“Wow.”

She chuckled, bouncing him slightly. “Here’s something more relevant. Did you know that Applejack’s testimony is legally admissible in every court in the country?”

He looked up at her. “No way.”

“Element of Honesty,” Flitter said. “Not even the princesses have that power.” They both jumped as the door knocked, and Spike allowed himself to slide out of her warm grasp. Outside the library stood Allie Way, flanked by Berry Punch and Derpy. Noteworthy stood behind them all, looking on bitterly.

“Uhhh… I’m busy.”

“Is that Flitter in there?” Derpy asked.

“We need your help, Spike,” Allie said.

“What is he doing with you?” Spike asked.

“It’s about Colgate,” Noteworthy said. “We need to talk.”

“Spike?” Flitter asked from within. He sighed and closed his eyes. On the cusp of his first pleasant night alone with Flitter in a long time, he was suddenly faced with the prospect of dealing with Noteworthy and Colgate instead. He wanted to slam the door in their faces. He wanted to back away, shut the four ponies out, and return to the calm and warmth of having his back scales massaged by Flitter’s downy fur. Instead, he sighed again and faced them. “How long is this gonna take?”

“Could take a while,” Derpy said apologetically. “Colgate’s situation is… super complicated.”

“Let them figure it out themselves,” he thought. “Colgate’s craziness can wait.” Something in Derpy’s eyes, though, said otherwise. She stood at attention, misaligned eyes serious and worried, and her side very close to brushing Berry’s.

Against his better judgment, he turned back inside to tell Flitter, but she was already behind. “Do you need me too?” she asked.

“I don’t think so,” Allie said. “You managed to avoid her for the most part.”

“Well, okay.” She looked down at Spike, then kissed him. “I’ll be here when you get back.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I guess so.”

Colgate stood before her bathroom mirror. Four ponies and a dragon were approaching her house; she had seen their silhouettes by Allie’s weak illumination spell. The pony in the reflection looked back at her and forced a crushed, bleeding grin. Stained teeth stuck out of torn gums and black lips, a gory crown to a sticky bib of blood she wore on her chest.

She went to the kitchen and put on a pot of water, setting out, as she did so, a tea bag and a spoon. She didn’t bother to let her visitors knock. Admitting the five of them into her house, she went immediately to the chair and set her book aside, which she had been reading before seeing the strange glow in the distance, and rushing to the bathroom to prepare their surprise.

“All right, Colgate. What in Tartarus is going on?” Derpy asked.

She simply looked at them, noting with no satisfaction their faces at her own destroyed mouth. “I see Noteworthy managed to—”

“Stop,” Allie said. “Don’t even try.”

“We all talked,” Berry said quietly. “We exchanged the stories you told.”

“We know it was you,” Noteworthy said. “All along, you.”

Colgate scoffed, but her head was suddenly buzzing. “Seriously? That’s your conclusion? You can’t possibly believe this, can you?” she looked from Derpy, to Spike, to Berry.

“You told me, Noteworthy, and Derpy that it was Allie,” Berry said. “You told her and Spike that it was him.” Her voice faltered. “Please, Minuette, tell me what I’m missing.”

“You played us against each other,” Noteworthy said. “And we know it.”

“Who’s really responsible for your injuries?” Allie asked.

“Fine. I am.” Colgate stood up to get the whistling teapot, returning with a mug of tea and setting it down.

No one spoke at first. Spike watched, stunned, behind Derpy, who looked on with a slackened jaw.

“That’s what I suspected,” Noteworthy said. “I thought your medication removed those impulses.”

“Why would it?”

“What? Isn’t that what—no, never mind. It doesn’t matter.”

“Psychopath,” Berry whispered.

“Pardon me?” Colgate asked.

“You’re a psychopath,” Berry repeated. “I mean… I know what… look at this, Colgate! Look at what you did!”

“What I did?”

“Yes, what you did,” Allie said. “This whole screwed up situation. Why did you do it? How could you do it?”

“Did you tell the truth to anyone?” Spike asked.

“What is wrong with you?” Berry hissed.

Colgate sipped her tea, still too hot, trying to think against the sudden torrent of indignant reactions spinning through her drugged mind. She set the mug down gingerly, but her voice was a tense grunt. “I think I see what’s going on here.”

“Then please, tell me!”

“Yeah, I see it, plain as day.” Behind the veil of medication, anger stirred, but became no more than a hot germ. “I try to protect myself, and you all get upset with me for not consulting you first. That’s what this is.”

“What?”

“You can’t be serious,” Derpy said.

“I thought you were my friends,” Colgate said, lowering her head aggressively—a habit from her youth. “So, naturally, I had assumed that if I was ever in trouble, you’d jump at the chance to help me out. That was my mistake, assuming.”

“What does this have to do with anything?” Allie asked.

“Don’t pull that on me, Allie.”

“No, really, tell me. I’m…” Her voice softened, and a single tear blinked down a crease of her face. “I’m really confused.”

“She needed an indirect way to get me off her back,” Noteworthy said. “So she orchestrated this, knowing I’d be the first one to be blamed. Then she told me it was Allie, so I’d never wise up.”

“I thought I’d save us all the time and let you help me without your knowledge. I thought that would be okay,” Colgate said.

“You manipulated us,” Derpy said. Unconsciously, she put a wing over Berry, who could only stare.

“I did your jobs for you,” Colgate said matter-of-factly. “I know you pretty well. You’re not actresses. You’d have never flourished if you knew the nature of my deception, and that’s fine. I never expected you to. I created this whole situation, all to make it easier for you to do for me what you would do anyway.” She stood, and the whole crowd leaned back. “But no. Being in the dark is unacceptable, so you conspired behind my back, each and every one of you. That’s what you were doing, wasn’t it, Spike?”

Spike jumped “Huh? Uh, I, uh—”

“How long were in cahoots with these snakes?” She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter now. I see you all for what you are.”

“Min, please!” Berry cried. “Don’t do this!”

“Traitors and control freaks,” Colgate said. “That’s it. That’s all you are. Same as everyone else in this town.” Her voice shook. “Same as everyone else!” She stomped her hoof once, and then moved to sit back down. Already, the anger was fading. She knew she had been wronged, but, by the time she reached the chair, her sanguine rictus was an act. “I’m most surprised at you, Berry. You say I’m the psychopath, as you throw away the longest friendship you’ve ever had. What do you have to gain from this?”

Berry took an involuntary step back. “Wait, what? I’m not betraying you, Colgate. I just want some answers.”

“Don’t even try,” Colgate said. “You’re all liars and turncoats, pretending to be my friends just as long as it suits you. Well that’s just fine.” She grabbed the door in her magic, opening it. “I’d like you all to leave now.”

“We’re not leaving until we get a straight answer,” Allie said. “Why did you manipulate us?”

“Dispense with the empty rhetoric, Allie. I didn’t manipulate anything.”

“You lied to all of us!” Derpy cried. “How can you defend that?”

“I helped you,” Colgate said. “I helped you help me, just not the way you would have liked it.” She paused, a sudden idea hitting her. “Maybe you were just uncomfortable taking the central role, Allie.”

They only stared at her.

“I’m sorry if you were. I should have gotten a clearer idea of how you’d do in that kind of situation before thrusting you into it.”

“You shouldn’t have done any of this,” Noteworthy said. “You framed me, and betrayed her. You injured yourself. How long is it going to take for your mouth to heal, Min?”

“Don’t change the subject,” Colgate said. “How many times do I have to say it? I didn’t frame anyone.” She sipped her tea. It was cool enough to drink. “You all were doing fine on your own, but you just weren’t content with letting me run the show.”

“If we didn’t know we were being manipulated, how could we know you were running things?” Berry asked. Her voice was a hot accusation that made Colgate raise her eyebrow.

“If you’re going to get angry, then I’m not going to talk. I don’t see why we can’t discuss this like adults.”

“Damn it, Colgate, don’t you see what you’re doing?” Derpy asked. “You’re the one throwing away friendship, not us! Can’t you see that?”

Colgate forced an arrogant smile. “I’m a doctor, remember. I’ve read all about ponies like you. I’ve met ponies like you before. You delight in ensnaring innocent ponies in webs of lies, and ruining lives just for the sake of seeing if you can. I’m not going to let you do that to me. So, again, get out of my house.”

“You’re insane,” Derpy said. “I don’t know how, but you’ve got this whole thing flipped around in your head.”

“Lies,” Colgate said, shaking her head. “I have to admit, you had me going for a while, Derpy. Playing the innocent simpleton really worked well for you.”

“Shut up!” Berry yelled. “Please, just shut up! Stop talking! You… you… you’re making me sick!”

“I thought we were friends,” Allie said, shrugging. “I really did think that, Colgate.”

“It was an admirable attempt,” Colgate said, taking another drink. “Now please, leave. Before one of you gets upset and hurts me even more.”

“You need to see a doctor,” Noteworthy said evenly.

“I’ll take care of myself.” She watched them steadily move to the door, filtering out one by one, until only Berry remained, looking at her with tears in her eyes.

“Were we ever friends?” Berry asked. “Or was our time together just you waiting for… this?”

“I would not have anticipated a betrayal like this, Berry,” Colgate said. “You know that.” She shut the door, went to her seat, and opened up her book.

Spike almost didn’t meet Colgate and Foxglove. After her house, the five of them stopped at the park to talk. Berry wept, despite the outpouring of warmth from Derpy, and Allie simply stared morosely at nothing. Noteworthy explained everything to Spike, starting with his threats to keep Colgate from interfering with the Datura. After they separated, he returned to Flitter, to whom he promised he would explain everything after his bush ball sighting. Whatever was happening, it wasn’t quite over, he said.

He met the two mares at the practice field, Foxglove with a pair of undecorated saddlebags, and Colgate with a crusted over mouth. He put his back to her as they walked away from town.

“Bush balls are common fare for Daturas,” Foxglove said. “They come from Tartarus, but are relatively benign, as long as you know to keep your distance. Like I said, they move pretty slow.”

“And what exactly are they?” Spike asked.

“I’m not entirely sure.” Her voice was faintly apologetic. “They take in energy and eliminate waste like animals, but their actual construction is much more mechanical in nature.”

“How do we get rid of them?” Colgate asked.

“We don’t do anything. We watch Zecora’s team handle the single bush ball that came out this far from its swarm. This is just so you can get an idea of what it’s like to deal with actual threats. Not that a bush ball is too big a threat, but… anyway, you get it.”

“When will we start actually doing stuff?” Spike asked.

“Soon, possibly. I said bush balls come from Tartarus. If there’s a swarm out in the forest, then there could be a gateway nearby as well. Once this is all taken care of, Zecora’s going to do a sweep of the surrounding area. If she finds a gateway, she’ll want us to help her close it off.”

“Oh.” His footsteps suddenly felt very far away. “Isn’t that a little dangerous?”

“That’s why I’m accelerating your training, Spike,” Foxglove said patiently. “Along with a couple other things.”

They walked to a ruffled line of shrubbery on the forest’s edge and followed it past the view of their training field. A long ridge of short stones emerged from the darkness, and Spike saw a bobbing equine head moving behind them.

“Zecora,” Foxglove said. “Right on time.”

They met the zebra at a rough archway, a pinched, aggressive face cut into the stone just beside her emerging, striped one. She nodded to them and looked back at a growing glow behind the wall. Spike stepped away from Colgate to see a second zebra emerge, momentarily blinding him. From her mane, hanging on decorated braids, miniature spheres of light jiggled and bobbed. Behind her, three more appeared: a male in a rough wooden mask, and two more females, one with a triangular canvass of twigs and folded membrane lashed to her back, the other a walking mural of spiraling fur designs. The pungent smell of vinegar wafted from the team, and a sweeter tinge of spices he could not identify.

Zecora introduced them, each with a foreign moniker, and listed their roles on her team, ending on the burdened female, who, with a quick snap of her neck and a pull of an unseen ripcord, unfurled two crinkling wings with enough force to make Spike stumble back.

“Bird Daturas,” Foxglove said. “Non-pegasi with artificial wings. They can’t fly, exactly, but they can jump and push things around really well.”

“I didn’t know about these,” Colgate said.

“They tend to avoid the big city. Too much stuff to run into. Plus, look at those wings.” The zebra held her wings out for them to admire. “Ten feet from tip to tip. Can you imagine trying to get a solid takeoff in the middle of the street with those things?”

“They look like they’re made out of branches,” she said. Spike only looked at her as she spoke. Her voice showed no evidence of the encounter only shortly before.

“Magical engineering,” Zecora simply said. “Foxglove already told you what we’re doing?”

“We’re ready,” Spike said. “Let’s see this monster.”

“That’s the attitude I like.” She nodded to the winged zebra, and her rickety looking construction folded in on itself with a soft creak. They assembled on the other side of the wall behind the zebra with lights in her mane, and followed her along it, across a shallow ravine, and into a patch of forest. The trees were thin and short, and they tread a loose hoofpath past a small stream and to another clearing. A silo watched from far away, with smaller buildings at its base.

“What is this?” Spike asked.

“Cloudsdale Farms,” Foxglove said. “Cloudsdale grows some of its own food, but not all. This is where the rest of it comes from.”

“And the bush ball’s out here?”

“Past here, on the other side,” Zecora said. “Skemer, douse the lights.”

Their little globe of illumination faded with a twitch of the zebra’s ear, and they were suddenly bathed in a pale wash of starlight. They walked single-file along a low wire fence, a thread of shadows crossing before the distant, dark silo. It circled behind them steadily until they were standing in a wide meadow, surrounded by a soft, wooded crescent.

“Two o’ clock,” the masked zebra mumbled.

“Spike, Colgate, go with Skemer to the bush ball. You should see it,” Zecora said. She looked at Foxglove. “If that’s okay?”

“Please. Go check it out,” Foxglove said.

The zebra with the lights glanced back at them before trotting across the meadow, and Spike followed behind Colgate. It was dark, and he couldn’t see her face, but nothing in her bearing had suggested any discomfort. His head still rang with her simple admission of guilt. “Who’s really responsible for your injuries?” “I am.”

“How long have you girls had Bird Daturas?” Colgate asked quietly.

“The technology was only perfected around a decade ago,” the zebra, Skemer, said. “We had the magic, but the wings kept falling apart every time someone tried to use them.”

“Falling ponies.”

Spike shivered at the light tone in her voice as she said it.

“Zecora said you were both new.”

“I have a couple years in Manehattan, a long time ago,” Colgate said.

“I’m new,” Spike said.

Skemer grunted and stopped her advance. “See it? That floating circle up by the treetops.”

Spike squinted against the darkness. The bush ball was exactly what Skemer had said: a floating, circular shadow ornamenting the trees’ black branches, motionless and threatening in its quiet incongruity.

“Can we go closer?” Colgate asked.

“Sure.” Skemer dipped her head slightly, and a pair of globes nestled in her mane came to life. “I’ll put a spotlight on it when we’re close enough.”

They walked a minute more, stopping at a small gully of roots and underbrush. Nodding and tilting her head, the zebra activated a mild beam from the crown of her head, and let it show the bush ball more clearly. What they saw was less than they had expected. No features or strange colors set the floating sphere of branches apart from the rest of its surroundings, no moving parts intimidated them. From within its mass, they could hear a gentle clicking, easily lost when a breeze ruffled the leaves and grass around them.

Its form was a simple sphere, around six feet in diameter, and rough with protruding twigs. Spike could see no variations in the surface, no holes, and the ball did not immediately respond to Skemer’s light.

“How do you know it’s dangerous?” Spike asked. “It’s not even moving.”

“Look again,” Colgate said, and he threw her a small frown before looking up at the bush ball. Its bristling, intricate shell was a moving mural of shadow, and he realized after a second that it was rotating. In the dark, though, and at the angle from which he viewed it, he couldn’t tell whether it was coming closer.

“Let’s get back,” Skemer said, killing her lights again. “They’re not dangerous if you know how to pay attention to your surroundings.” She trotted a rift through the grass. “Better safe than sorry.”

The quiet clicking disappeared behind as they moved to rejoin Zecora’s team, which met them halfway across the field. The marked zebra carried a square bottle in her teeth, the masked one trailing behind, mumbling quietly in her ear.

“So what are you gonna do?” Spike asked.

“That’s an incendiary potion,” the bird zebra said. “She can throw it from the ground, but Zecora wants me to show off my wings.”

“You’re gonna incinerate that harmless bundle of branches?”

“Over the forest?” Colgate asked.

“My job is to lure it out,” the masked zebra said.

They reached the bush ball after a couple more silent minutes, and the masked zebra trotted to the bush ball, stomping his hooves and hooting quietly. It wasn’t long before the bush ball was drifting away from the trees and out into the open, and he jogged back. The potion was passed to the bird zebra, who motioned for them all to back off. When she had sufficient clearance, she tugged her cord again, and the rattling contraption sprung out around her like a trap, wooden frames swinging around with enough force to bend the grass back momentarily.

With light steps, she first circled the floating collection of tinder. After a full orbit, she jumped up and flapped her wings with a whip crack sound. Spike gasped involuntarily as she rose twenty feet off the ground, arced over the bush ball, and flung the potion down into its loose body. She flapped a second time, arresting her descent a few feet off the ground and allowing her to land softly, her wooden wings splayed to the sides for a second before contracting back in. In his stupefaction at her sudden, graceful jump, he only realized what was going on when the glow of fire pulsed visibly above.

The clicking had stopped, and tendrils of smoke uncoiled from its body. He looked at Colgate again, and saw the first tongues of flame reflected in her bruised eyes. Dark shards of dried blood wreathed her mouth like rotting teeth, and he shivered again.

A hiss of escaping steam was the only sound the ball made as it slowly turned, drifted, and was engulfed. The floating bonfire threw fearsome tree shadows all around, and forced him to shield his eyes. Under the cup of his hand, he could see the lifeless buildings of Cloudsdale Farms, miles away.

“What if someone sees?” Colgate asked.

“We have someone else out there,” the masked zebra said. “The mask is enchanted for her and I to communicate. If there’s someone awake to see this, I’ll know.”

“Why have I not heard of any of this?”

“Zebra Daturas are different from pony Daturas,” Foxglove said. “Their magic is more shamanistic than ours.”

Zecora trotted after the bush ball. Cinders and coal rained down into the field loudly until all that remained was a small, glowing core, which hit the grass with a weighty thump. With a quiet pop of an uncorked bottle, the air was suddenly filled with a cascade of water, and then the aggressive sound of miniature fires and coals suddenly going damp.

“Pressure potion,” Foxglove said. “Materials enchanted to be packed into tight containers. Water is the most popular, used for—you guessed it—putting out fires. Your friends have a similar enchantment going on with the fuel in their airship torch.”

“Wouldn’t that be heavy?” Colgate asked.

“That’s why we enchant the material, not the container.”

“You have everything figured out, don’t you?” Spike said.

Foxglove smiled. “It’s just a bush ball. Cloak Pond was more advanced than this dumb thing.”

“You know about Cloak Pond?”

“As your team leader, it’s my duty to know your histories, both in the Datura and out.”

“What’s Cloak Pond?” Colgate asked.

“I’ll tell you later,” Spike said, and stopped. The phrase had come out automatically. “Uh…”

“We’ll talk later, don’t worry.”

Zecora’s team parted from Foxglove’s at the wall by the field, not before her Bird Datura took off once more for Spike’s pleasure. Foxglove sent them home with a simple “see you tomorrow,” and Spike and Colgate went back to the library. She only had to wait a minute outside; Flitter was asleep, and Spike was able to follow her to the hospital immediately.

“I thought you were kicked out,” he said as they entered her office.

“Suspended,” Colgate said. “Foxglove saw to my work schedule so I can be in the Datura. I don’t know what she did, but Nurse Redheart said I’d be welcome for whatever hours I could get, after this suspension runs out.”

“Nice.”

She regarded him, grabbed a piece of paper, then set it aside. “I don’t blame you, Spike. I’m sorry I snapped at you earlier tonight. I was upset.”

“Upset that we discovered your grand deception, you mean.”

She sighed. “Spike, do you know what a psychopath is?”

“Uh, yeah. A crazy pony.”

“More than crazy, Spike. A psychopath is the most dangerous kind of pony you will ever meet. They are totally without remorse or empathy.”

“Like you.”

“Like what Allie wants you to think I am, yes, exactly. Listen. A normal pony feels feelings about her fellow equine. She sees somepony in trouble, and feels bad for them. You felt bad for me, didn’t you?”

“I did.”

“Exactly. A pony like Allie, she didn’t. She couldn’t. That little switch in her brain that makes her understand how others feel, it’s permanently turned off.”

“So what does this have to do with you, or me, for that matter?”

“Everything, Spike. You, like me, are betrayed.”

“Uh huh.” He looked back at the door as it knocked.

“Enter.”

Through the doorway, Allie Way walked with an air of affected calm. “I thought I might find you here,” she said.

“So did I.”

“Then you expected reprisal.”

“From you, yes. You get hot-headed, and I wounded your pride tonight.” Colgate smiled, showing off stained teeth.

She took a minute in answering. “Why are you here, Spike?”

“He wanted to talk, so we were talking.”

“Spike, don’t listen to her,” Allie said. “Whatever she says, it’s just lies.”

“That’s quite the accusation, Allie. This is an innocent chat between friends, nothing more.”

“Spike, what did she tell you?”

“I told him to watch out for ponies like you,” Colgate said. “Ponies whose second nature is to lie and manipulate.”

“That’s an innocent chat?”

Colgate waved her hoof dismissively and grabbed a pen in her magic. She spun it idly before letting it rest, its tip pointing at Allie’s face. “Isn’t it interesting how everything she says manages to sound like an attack on my character, Spike?”

“Shut up! Stop poisoning him! Spike, come on, let’s just go.”

Spike was frozen, torn between the mares. Allie stood at the door, her temper suddenly simmering, while Colgate rested behind her desk, as cool as when she had turned them all out of her house hours ago.

“I want to ask a question first,” Colgate said. “Just one.”

“Everything you say is a lie,” Allie said. “Why should we listen?”

“That’s my question, actually. Why.” She looked at Spike. “Why, Spike? Why would I do this? What do I have to gain?”

He frowned. “I don’t get it.”

“Let’s say Allie’s correct, that I’m behind this whole mess. Why would I keep lying? If she’s right, then my plan’s been unraveled. I’ve lost my friends, my self-respect, and my career—thanks for that, by the way. So why would I keep trying? Why not cut my losses?”

“Uh…”

“However, let’s say I’m right, and she’s the liar. What does she have to gain from this? More defamation of my character, Noteworthy’s appreciation, and saving face after I ruined her attempt to catch me off guard tonight.” She faced Allie. “More deception won’t crush the truth, Allie Way.”

“You’re insane,” Allie said, her lips peeling back in a disgusted snarl.

“Is that all you have to defend yourself?”

“I… uh…”

“Use your head, Spike. Look at us. I can explain everything. Why can’t she?”

“You’re… that is… Spike, please,” Allie said. She turned to shout at Colgate. “You’re so deep in your own web of lies, you don’t even know what you’re trying to do anymore!”

“Voices down. I don’t want any patients hearing you.”

“What about all those self-inflicted wounds?” Allie asked, quieter. “You said it yourself, you were behind them.”

“I said I was behind this.” She showed her smile, but dropped it an instant later, moving to lean over her desk. “You command a lot of ponies’ opinions right now. This… this ruined mouth… this is proof, Allie. Proof that you don’t control me. Proof that there’s nothing you can do to me that I can’t take.”

“I didn’t do anything to you, though!”

“Enough!” She cleared her throat. “I don’t want to hear it.”

“You say I have no explanations, but the second I try to offer one, you say you don’t want to hear it.”

“Because you’re just begging the question,” Colgate said.

Allie stared at her. “This is ridiculous. I’m out of here.” She turned and slammed the door open, and was gone.

“Coward,” Colgate said. “I’m sorry you had to see that, Spike. Like I said, a complete psychopath. She doesn’t care if you’re in the middle of all this.”

He only looked at her, still rooted to the spot. Her words filled his head, but he couldn’t make sense of them. Someone was lying.

“Are you okay?”

He averted his eyes. His voice was soft, and he recoiled involuntarily as he spoke. “I think I’m gonna go talk to her.”

“She’s just going to pull you into her pit of lies, Spike.”

“I have to talk to her, though.” He heard her say “suit yourself” as he put her office behind him. There were no windows in the corridor immediately outside, but he could sense the lateness of the day. The hospital was still, and all the nurses, medical assistants, office workers, and physicians were either asleep at home or doing quiet busywork in their own areas. Colgate had once told him that she had worked the night shift at Ponyville Hospital for a couple years after arriving in town. The small hours, she said, were always the most stressful for her; she had learned to expect emergencies at that time from her work in Manehattan, and never gotten used to the peace everyone else looked forward to. “The silence always seemed to precipitate a disaster that never came,” she had said.

He passed empty exam rooms, empty gurneys, empty beds in empty bedrooms. He jogged by a dark window at a corner that would lead him to the ICU, where he had walked once or twice, very close beside her. He passed no one in the front lobby, save the receptionist, and saw Allie’s pale body through his own confused reflection in the glass doors.

His mind reeled. Someone was lying, and someone was not. Colgate had bludgeoned her own mouth, and perhaps done more. One of the mares, one of his friends, was trying to use him.

He made no sound as he approached Allie. Mind fixed on the blue unicorn in the back of the facility, he only raised a tentative claw to get Allie’s attention. He reached, stumbled, reached again, and heard an angry shout.

“Back off, Colgate!”

She kicked out, and then he woke up in a soft bed in an empty room. A nurse entered shortly after, and he was aware of a quiet beeping coming from an unseen source.

Allie had bucked him, thinking it was Colgate attempting further antagonism, around one o’ clock on a Tuesday morning. It was Thursday, around noon, when he woke up with a headache and a lot of questions, and only a nurse he had never met for the first hour.

Flitter and Cloudchaser visited him on their lunch break, and, after a tearful reunion that belied the short time Flitter had been without him, they caught him up on events. The whole town had been informed of Colgate’s incredible deception; Allie herself had told near a quarter of the ponies before going to bed that night.

The news spread, and no one, Flitter said, believed Colgate’s story. The surgeon spoke well, had explanations for everything, but could not fight the fact that Allie had gotten her version out first. Rumors spread and mutated, and, that morning, Cloudchaser had heard talk of a lawsuit from a customer.

“She said that Allie was behind it all, though,” Spike said.

“She’s a dirty liar,” Cloudchaser said. “A lying, manipulative psycho.”

“But—”

“Spike, there’s no way Allie could have done this,” Flitter said. “Trust me. I heard both stories, and Colgate’s explanations don’t hold any water. For one thing, they don’t actually account for where any of her wounds come from. Everything she says is just deflecting back onto Allie.”

“Plus, Allie’s just straight up more trustworthy,” Cloudchaser said. “She emotes.”

Spike thought back to Colgate, and her abnormal calm, even during the heat of the accusations. “So what’s gonna happen?”

“Not much, I’m afraid,” Flitter said. “The only pony who can possibly sue her is Noteworthy, but she only got in trouble because he was blackmailing her. He knows better than to poke that beehive.”

“Why can’t Allie sue her?” Cloudchaser asked.

“Colgate didn’t do anything illegal.”

“What?” Spike blurted. The blood that rushed to his cheeks made his vision squirm, and he collapsed back into his pillow.

“She didn’t do anything illegal to Allie. She came close to slandering her, but that’s it. The rest is just a lot of misrepresented self-mutilation.”

“No way,” Cloudchaser said. “So she’s gonna get off with nothing?”

“Her reputation has been obliterated, but, legally, there’s not much recourse. Allie can try to sue her for slander, I suppose, but there were no formal accusations made, no evidence. It would be like me trying to sue Noteworthy for saying my hooficures stink.”

“What about defamation of character?”

“There wasn’t any, though. Colgate never said anything about her publicly. In fact, it’s more likely that any lawsuit that we get is the other way around, Colgate suing Allie for dirtying her name.”

“No way,” Cloudchaser said. “But she’s too caught up in her own craziness to do that, right?”

“I think she probably is.”

“So she was using me the whole time,” Spike said.

“And Derpy, and Berry Punch,” Flitter said.

Cloudchaser shook her head. “I don’t understand how someone can do that. Like… it must have hurt beyond belief. We all saw her that one time she was in the splint.”

“She broke her own leg at one point, yeah. It’s scary.”

They shared the hospital silence that was not really silence for a minute, before Cloudchaser eventually spoke up. “I think she specifically requested to take care of you when you came in earlier.”

Spike frowned. “What?”

“She did,” Flitter said. “She wanted to oversee your recovery.”

“Uh… huh.” They all turned to the door as it opened, Spike shrinking under his blanket at the expectation of Colgate’s perfectly timed entrance. Instead, it was Golden Mercy, her medical assistant.

“Golden, didn’t Colgate specifically ask to take care of Spike?” Cloudchaser asked.

“Sure did.” Golden did not smile as she checked Spike’s vitals and machines. She tapped at an IV drip, and gently removed the needle he hadn’t even noticed sticking into his arm.

“What do you think of all that’s been going on?” he asked.

“I don’t know.” She gave him a hollow smile and left, and it was only a couple minutes before the unicorn herself entered, wearing the same bloodstained scrubs that many ponies knew her for. Her mouth was cleaned up, and her limp was softer.

“I’d like to speak to my friend alone, please,” she said.

Flitter and Cloudchaser eyed her, but left, Flitter after a peck on the lips.

“They told me it was all you,” Spike said.

“Not surprising.” She pulled up a chair and sat down. Her mane was bedraggled, her coat un-brushed. He could see exhaustion in her slouch. She looked at him with dull eyes for a second before lowering her head. “Celestia, what a mess.”

“I’m not gonna believe you, you know.”

“I don’t expect that. All I want is for you to let me take care of you, and let me give you a prelude to what I’ll be doing later this afternoon.”

“Breaking your other leg?”

She sighed, and, in her voice, there was a catch. “Allie was right. Everything was a lie, every single thing. Every single damn thing was a stupid, stupid lie. I… Celestia, what a mess.”

“What are you trying to say?”

“Noteworthy tried to blackmail me. That’s true. But… I don’t know, I guess I just lost my grip on things. I’ve been a surgeon for a long time now, and I always thought I had an ironclad psyche. Something about him, about the situation, about… everything, I just didn’t know what to do. One idea led to another…” She took a shaking breath, but did not look up at him. “And then I got scared, and I didn’t know what to do. I told Allie that more lies wouldn’t help, but I should have told myself.”

“Colgate, stop.” He adjusted himself in the bed to look at her. There pooled a sheen of tears on the tile below her muzzle, and his own thoughts stopped. “Look at me.”

She slowly turned her head up to him, her face wet.

“I… why, though?”

“I couldn’t think of anything else,” she whispered. “Anything more direct would just make him hurt me. Hurt me worse, I mean.” She smiled without humor. “I really don’t know what to do anymore.”

“Maybe see a psychiatrist?”

She sighed. “Do you think I need it?”

“Uh, yeah.” He recoiled at his own harshness. “I mean, yeah. There’s gotta be something wrong, if you can pull off something like… all that.”

“You may be right.” She stood shakily. “Did Golden Mercy already check on you?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you need anything?”

“Uh… when can I get out?”

“I’m not sure yet. I want to hold you for a while still, just in case.”

He nodded. “Hey, Colgate? What made you realize what you were doing?”

“Allie kicking you. It was… a shock, to see you like that. I guess it got me thinking.”

“Huh.”

“Yeah. So… see you around.”

“Bye, doctor.”

Colgate stopped home fifteen minutes before her public apology and tugged a crimson thorn out of her frog, using a washrag to stifle the sudden outflow of blood. With careful magic, she slowly inserted it into a different hoof, deep until she could feel her own pulse like caustic jaws on her muscles. The pain was distant and indistinct, but she knew resting her weight on the hoof would eventually lead to tears.