Twilight returned to the hotel around nine o’ clock, saying goodbye to Lumb in the lobby. She saw no stripe of light under the door, so used a simple spell to let herself in, having forgotten her key and not wanting to wake anyone up with a knock. As soon as the light from the outside corridor was gone, the room lit up, showing most of her friends lounging on the beds and floor. Applejack shared a bed with Rarity and Pinkie, and grinned at Twilight.

“Pretty neat, huh? That magic Vanilla gave me seems like the real deal,” Applejack said.

“You turned the lights on?” Twilight asked.

“Sure did, sugarcube.”

She got into bed next to Octavia. “I’d like to take some notes on your spell-casting process sometime, if you don’t mind. I’ve never had an earth pony’s perspective before.” She glanced at Octavia, slightly guilty for not thinking of it for her.

“Eh, Ah guess not. Can’t say how helpful Ah’ll be, though.”

“Did you find anything yet with your research?” Octavia asked.

“That’s what we need to discuss. Where’s Rainbow and Fluttershy?”

“Talking,” Rarity said. Twilight understood the tone in her voice clearly: it was about Trixie.

“They’re on the roof,” Pinkie said. “I can go get ‘em if you want!” She sprang from the bed, jostling Rarity.

“No, let them have their space,” Twilight said. “But the rest of us need to figure this out. I’ve got a couple ideas of what’s inside that sigil.”

“Let’s have it,” Big Mac said.

“There are two strong possibilities, from what I can tell. Number one is that it’s some kind of monster, which a previous owner summoned gradually through a pinhole Tartarus opening in the attic.”

“Yes, of course,” Rarity said, looking at Octavia. “An opening to Tartarus right in the attic. How did I not guess?”

“And number two is that it’s the pony who summoned it, or her body, at least.” She paused, trying to remember everything she had read. “Although she could still be alive, I suppose. Depends on the skill of the pony who put her in stasis.”

“That works?” Pinkie asked.

“It can, though it’s hugely illegal.”

“Why would someone want to preserve themselves after death?” Big Mac asked. “Seems like a lot of work fer not much payoff. If she’s in there, the world she knows has passed her by.”

“Lots of necromancers are attracted to the idea of being revenants,” Rarity said. “That is what this nameless pony is, right?”

“Yeah, necromancer. Gave life to an inert form,” Twilight said.

“So what do we do? Rather, what do you do?” Applejack asked. Big Mac looked at her, and she shrugged. “She’s the one with the brains fer this, not us.”

“I’m not sure. Oh, and the third option is there’s nothing in there at all, but I kind of doubt it. Now, that sigil’s been up there, walled off, for close to thirty years before Octavia got the house.”

“So it’s been untouched for thirty years,” Rarity said. “That’s really not so bad.”

“Thirty years is a long time,” Octavia said.

“But it’s not centuries,” Twilight said. “And yes, for at least thirty years, it’s been untouched. At least. But here’s where it gets confusing. You see, my research indicated certain well-educated ponies—not necessarily unicorns—occasionally going in to touch up the sigil. I don’t know the last time one of them went in. See, so it could be thirty years, or it could be sixty since someone last checked the sigil.”

“Or more,” Big Mac said.

“Yeah, or more.”

The door opened again, and Whooves strolled in, wearing a garish scarf, which he tossed over a chair.

“What were you doing with a scarf? It’s still summer out there,” Applejack said.

“Oh, just woolgathering, my dear. A little blue sky for the old noggin, that’s all. You know what they say—”

“Hi doctor,” Twilight said.

“Twilight! I met our large friend outside the hotel. Knew to wait for me, he said. I was just at the Astras for some tea and scones, finally got to see their bird machine—fascinating specimen, a true marvel of magic and engineering.” He sighed. “I remember the first time I saw an enchanted wheel in a textbook. Back when they were legal—”

“Come on, come on,” Applejack said. “Twilight was talkin’ our ears off first. No offense, Twi.”

“Quick and to the point, then! Yes, expediency in all things, an unquestionable virtue. I told our good friend Lumb that some of the Astras are planning on attending his ball.” He laughed. “You can imagine the state that left him in. Why, I could swear I almost saw an irate blush even on those aubergine cheeks. Well, not aubergine, that’s more of a purple, but—”

“Anyway, Twilight, the sigil.”

“The sigil?”

“Based on what I read today, and from what I’ve seen,” Twilight said, “the magic is of pretty good quality, despite being a little outdated.”

“So how long do you think we’ve got ‘til it goes kaput?” Pinkie asked.

“This is a rough estimate, but I’d say it should be at least another two or so years before it really starts to come undone. What we have now, the creaking walls, the uneasiness in unicorns, and all that, it’s pretty mild.”

“I haven’t experienced any unease,” Rarity said.

“Me neither. I think it’s because… well, frankly, we’ve been through a lot. It probably didn’t register.”

“Might there be one of your Elements of Harmony inside?” Whooves asked. “I just thought of that.”

“I’d have detected something that powerful when I scanned it the first time.”

“So some monster, or a necromancer,” Applejack said. “Heck of an option.”

“If it’s the necromancer, she probably won’t be much of a problem. She’ll be disoriented, weak, and there’s a good chance she won’t even remember who she is. Keeping a pony alive and in stasis after her natural life has passed is close to impossible. She’d need Princess Celestia herself to make sure she was okay when she came out.”

“Quite the surprise for whoever’s living there at the time,” Rarity said.

“Oh, I’m going to tell Lumb everything. Now, if it’s her monster, that’s a different story. Whether it’s mostly made of flesh or magic, it had a lot of Tartarus in it, which means that if it gets out… I really don’t know. I don’t know how Tartarus magic will hold up against an Equestrian spell for extended periods of time.”

“Can ya make an educated guess?” Big Mac asked.

“Well, I would think a lot of it would be degenerated by now, or well on its way to being reduced to what it once was. When that spell goes down, it might just be a lump of clay, or a big piece of driftwood or something that falls out.”

“It sounds like there’s not much threat here,” Rarity said. “Or am I jumping to conclusions?”

“I think not. I think there’s a greater chance that whatever comes out of there is harmless, if not a bit scary, but I wanted you girls’ thoughts.”

“Seems to me,” Whooves said, climbing into bed on Octavia’s other side, “that we should tell Lumb about all of this, and let him worry about it. There are ponies who can help with this haunted sigil, I’m sure, and they can see to the disposal of this creepy piece of flotsam, or ancient, senile necromancer.”

“He’s right,” Rarity said. “We need to move. We can’t take even more time to worry about something this small.”

“Okay, good. That’s what I was thinking too,” Twilight said. She looked at Octavia, who was looking back to her. “Question?”

“Can a Tartarus gateway support malignant spirits?” Octavia asked.

Twilight frowned before realizing Octavia’s meaning. “Oh, sure, it’s possible. Not common, but possible.”

Octavia nodded to herself. “Such a simple explanation.” She got up. “I will be out.”

“No snuggles?” Whooves asked.

“Snuggle Twilight. I need fresh air.”

It was six in the morning in Ponyville, the one hundred twenty-second day after the disaster. A third of a year. Colgate, Allie, Flitter, Cloudchaser, and Foxglove shared the empty spa common area, speaking lightly. The Tartarus opening was south of Ponyville, a couple miles south of Pinkie Pie’s rock farm, which was itself several miles south of Cloudsdale farms.

Their jobs were simple, but not easy. They would walk to the gateway, the majority of their supplies buried under camping gear, to assuage anyone who might see them. At the gateway, Flitter and Cloudchaser were to circle the area and watch for ponies and dangerous creatures alike, a difficult task in the wooded area where the gateway had sprung up. Allie and Colgate were to cast a sequence of spells all around the area, scouring any ambient Tartarus magic from the landscape before culminating in a massive, complicated sigil that Allie needed to lay to hold it open from their side. It needed to be held from both ends so that Foxglove could come back; her job was to cast magic inside the gateway, on the Tartarus side. The last thing she wanted was to get stuck after her magic did its job.

Colgate could only sit on her bench and wish that there were steam to hide her eyes from the others. They had all noticed a change in her, she knew, and it bothered her. She had stopped going to therapy as soon as she was sure that her neighbors had stopped caring, going so far as to mimic a breakthrough on her final day so she could leave the office without hassle. Her wounds had healed fully, though her hoof was still slightly tender from the abuse she had given it earlier. That Allie, in her mind, had forced her into the position made her seethe quietly.

Of them all, Allie worried her the most. She knew that their truce after Spike’s funeral had been false on both sides, and it was only her slightly sharper suspicion, she thought, that had kept her unharmed during training.

When it was six-fifteen, Foxglove got up, and they all followed her to get their things in the other room, packed the night before. Among their supplies, Foxglove had a set of chains stuffed into her saddlebag, and a large, plywood disc that could not have passed the door. They used the teleportation sigil in the steam room to leave from an unmarked, abandoned house inside the forest’s edge, and they were underway. Foxglove strapped the disc to her back, quickly adjusting to the slight stoop it imposed on her posture.

Colgate could feel the pegasi’s anxious energy in the air between them, and she knew she was adding her own stiff fear as well. For her, part of it was the morning itself. The air was still cool and damp, the light pale, and she felt a strange pang of discomfiture as she passed the hospital. She thought of her patients, many of whom would have to find their way up to Canterlot for another orthopedist. The morning sounds seemed to go on too long as she moved, the only other accompanying sound her companions’ hoofsteps: a solitary march into unknown lands.

The larger part was her company. She knew that Allie would not try anything with Foxglove watching, but she also knew that Foxglove couldn’t monitor them constantly. As they walked, skirting Sweet Apple Acres, which was active with hundreds of Cloudsdale immigrants’ lively banter, a horrible thought formed. The Tartarus gateway, the physical portal between the Gaia and the mirror world, would be the perfect site for revenge. One push, timed well, and Colgate might not have time to get her bearings and come back out. Tartarus was not pony hell, she knew, but it would quickly become that for her if Allie’s plan were successful.

She considered her course as they walked along the Everfree Forest’s rim.

They rested at a smooth rock formation beside a weak spring, and Flitter and Cloudchaser went up briefly to gauge their distance from Cloudsdale Farms. They had emerged on the far end of the empty countryside between it and Ponyville, and had a significant distance to cover before seeing anything but trees and grass.

When they started walking again, Colgate was sure to let Allie go ahead of her. Flitter moved to her side, but Colgate ignored her as she studied Allie for any signs of suspicious activity.

They reached the edge of Cloudsdale Farms just ten minutes before noon, where they stopped for lunch. Foxglove expected they could reach the other side, or close to it, by nightfall, where they would set up camp. Many Datura operations took place at night, she said, but theirs would not. A group of ponies moving at night would arouse suspicion, and would save too little time, given how close the gateway was anyway.

The flat farmland was broken by silos, barns, and processing plants, but the Daturas would be afforded no shade as they traveled obliquely along its edge. From the ground, the patchwork of cultivated land lost its texture and color, becoming a single, contiguous line for the eye to traverse. Soft sunlight brightened the green into a shining floor and the blue sky above into a wide, arched ceiling, Cloudsdale a chandalier in the middle. For Colgate, who had only seen Manehattan and Ponyville, the wide, open space was not calm, but watchful. She felt impatient as she scanned the rows of corn and soybeans, thinking how much distance they had to cover.

“No gaps,” Flitter said.

“You don’t think the Elements of Harmony are the only ones who know how to piece our country together, do you?” Foxglove said.

“I thought they were supposed to be,” Cloudchaser said. “Isn’t the magic involved really complicated?”

“It’s more a power thing than a complexity thing,” Foxglove said. “I think they were told they were the only ones so they wouldn’t get complacent. That would make sense to me, at least.”

“Seems kind of funny that the princesses would lie about that,” Flitter said. She glanced at Colgate.

“Deception’s the name of the game when Discord’s playing. See, he likes to make the big plays, deal with the whole thing at once. There’s no such thing as a small disaster when it comes to him, and he’s not above throwing out his plans to stomp on the game board if he feels threatened. Celestia and Luna have to play along as best they can while working against him quietly, doing things he won’t notice, or won’t think are legitimate threats. That’s why the Elements are traveling alone.”

“What could he possibly do if he got spooked?” Colgate asked. “We’re already in a bad situation. What more is there?”

“Break the spell,” Flitter said after a second.

“That would do it,” Foxglove said. “Remember, we’re a mile off the planet. All he has to do is find a way to break the country’s enchantment, and we’ll all plummet.”

“Does the Datura have a plan in case he does that?” Cloudchaser asked.

“Not the Equestrian Datura so much; we’re worrying about him in the here-and-now. The changelings and minotaurs have a plan, though, in case that happens. It won’t be a pretty sight, though.”

“Well, we’ll all die, right?” Allie asked.

“I don’t know. It depends a lot on how much the country breaks apart in the fall. One thing’s for sure, we’d make the largest tidal wave in the history of the world when we hit. Everyone surrounding us would be totally wiped out, except probably the minotaurs. Their country extends pretty far south.” She looked at them all. “I’m not saying we’re likely to fall, just that it’s a possibility.”

“Question,” Cloudchaser said.

“Yes?”

“We’re going to have to get back down eventually. How are we gonna do that?”

“No idea,” Foxglove said. “It’s not exactly a priority right now.”

“Fair enough.”

They fixed upon the boundary between cultivated grass and free weeds, using it as a guide, and the pegasi hardly stopped talking. Conscious of their proximity to civilization, their conversation, when it was about the Datura, was veiled, and Colgate was able to observe quietly for most of her time, only contributing when addressed. As the sun went down, they moved outwards to skirt the lengthening barn shadows, and they rested briefly in the shade of a large tree near an inactive harvester.

By five o’ clock, the farmland had gone mostly quiet, and they stopped to rest again at a bend in a narrow path, a route that led from the farms to a scattering of tiny settlements in the deep south, worth marking on only the most detailed maps. Flitter sat against a tilted fence post, a mangled lock of wire hanging off. Cart tracks stood out in the dust, creating broken fishbone shadows under their hooves, and they could see a windmill in the distance. It was also visible from Ponyville, but only from a couple elevated spots.

Above them, Cloudsdale floated like a fortified bank of dark snow, supporting countless buildings, the tops of which they could only begin to see. Thin, polychromatic lines trailed down from the city to dots of clouds far below: rainbow reservoirs. In the gloaming, the lines shone like liquid gold, or blond hair adorned at the tips with pearls.

“How’s Cloudsdale doing nowadays?” Allie asked.

“Better,” Flitter said, “but still not that good. Their government is crap.”

“Still?” Foxglove said. “I thought they replaced the director.”

“They’re working on that, but it takes a while to get anything done.”

“Too much bureaucracy,” Cloudchaser said. “It’s causing a lot of problems elsewhere.”

“They don’t care,” Flitter said. “As long as they’re producing at minimum, they’re not worried. It doesn’t help that two thirds of their best technicians are out working on that cloud convoy, or stuck wiring generators in the ocean siphoning station.” She grinned. “Don’t get me wrong, I’d give anything to see it in action, but it hasn’t done much for the life in Cloudsdale.”

“Well, that’s why there are so many immigrants working on the farm, right?” Foxglove said.

“No jobs for sure, but it’s Tartarus in the social spheres up there too. Pardon the pun.”

“A little too apt, sis,” Cloudchaser said.

“It’s the most important city in Equestria from a logistical standpoint, ‘cause it’s the only one that can possibly keep the weather circulating over cities, and it’s also the most understaffed and least wealthy. Well, Appleloosa’s less wealthy still, but they don’t really count in this discussion.”

“The Appleloosa Datura have actually been having a hard time lately,” Foxglove said. “There’s some weirdness going on there that they can’t seem to pinpoint. Some poor mare got her life sucked out somehow.”

Flitter gasped. “What happened?”

“Don’t know. And that’s not the evasive ‘don’t know,’ that’s a real, genuine, I don’t know what’s going on. However, it seems contained, so it’s not my problem.”

There was a lull in speaking as a cloud passed over the dying sun. “I heard they were considering a Wonderbolt for the Weather Directory,” Cloudchaser said.

“Spitfire, yeah,” Flitter said. “I hope that doesn’t happen.”

“What’s so bad about Spitfire?” Colgate asked.

“She’s a grade-A moron. Most of the Wonderbolts are. All they care about is going fast and smiling for cameras. They’re entertaining, but they can’t do anything. Spitfire least among them.” She flared her wings suddenly, and gesticulated as she continued. “We don’t need a dang celebrity on the Weather Directory right now! That’s tourist stuff, soft-hearted revenue boosters to get the mindless public to dump money on hotels and other tacky crap.”

“Wouldn’t more money be a good thing, regardless of where it comes from?” Allie asked.

“It’ll just give a jolt to the local entertainment industries and create non-sustainable jobs. In a couple months, ponies will be right back where they started, but angrier and even less willing to trust their government, which’ll probably become an all-out plutocracy in that interim.” She snorted. “I suppose Spitfire could take the fall for that, but why bother? That just hurts her, doesn’t solve anything.”

“Well, what do you think should happen?” Foxglove asked.

“What it needs is a total overhaul,” Flitter said immediately. “Purge the government entirely, get ponies in there who aren’t afraid to think outside the confines of tradition.”

“Keep going, Flitter,” Cloudchaser said. “I know you’ve got more than that.”

“Don’t put me on the spot, Cloud.”

“Come on, impress our company.”

Flitter rolled her eyes. “It’s not that impressive. But what they should do first is have their weather factories partner up with some of the local charities, get ponies to push clouds and things around for free. Consolidate what money they have left and just buckle down and produce. More clouds, more snow, more rainbows, all of that. Celestia’s got the airships, so shipping wouldn’t be a problem, at least not on their end. And if she has to take a bigger bite out of the royal treasury than usual, so be it. Get places like Manehattan and Appleloosa hydrated, and, at the same time, put together a city council or something like that, all citizenry. Ad-hoc stuff, it doesn’t matter, it just needs to be a figurehead so ponies will get their hopes back up and get interested in the way their city is run. Then it’s down to the actual officials to listen to their citizens.”

“You’ve got this all figured out, don’t you?” Allie said.

“I’m just spitballing,” Flitter said quietly, blushing. “For all I know, the local revenue isn’t enough to support even that. Maybe they really are screwed, and there’s no getting out of it.”

“Have you thought about going up there and trying to start some reform yourself?” Foxglove asked.

“I’ve considered it, but I really just don’t want to go back there. That’s the thing, and I hate how hypocritical it makes me. Cloudsdale is a bummer to live in right now, and I like Ponyville.”

“Well, why not write for the paper?” Cloudchaser asked.

“Yeah, incite change in Cloudsdale through the Ponyville newspaper. Great, Cloud.”

“Political essays,” Foxglove said.

“Ponies read those?”

“Are you kidding? Ponies… well, okay, maybe not the Ponyville ones so much. I was thinking of Canterlot.”

“What about contacting the Datura in Cloudsdale and getting them to help out?”

“Absolutely not,” Foxglove said. “The Datura is never supposed to interfere in government procedure. We’re powerful enough as it is.”

“Could it hurt to do it just this once?” Flitter asked.

“Yes, it can. The instant we start changing cities’ governments to fit our standards, we’ve gone too far. Our jurisdiction is in the extranormal only. No exceptions.”

“All right, sorry. Forget I mentioned it.”

“Just remember that. We let normal affairs take care of themselves, even when we don’t like them.”

“Right, I guess so.”

“Are Daturas allowed to hold government positions?” Colgate asked.

“Depends,” Foxglove said. “If a Datura wants to apply for something, they have to clear it with Luna first.”

“They have to clear it with the founder? No middle-pony?” Allie asked.

“It’s complicated. There’s a whole system in place, but I can’t tell you a lot about it, I’m afraid.”

“Are we too low ranking?” Flitter asked.

“Yep. It’s not that we can’t have you knowing how the chain of command works, but there are some rather unavoidable conclusions you’d reach if you understood it. Conclusions you’re not qualified to reach yet.”

“But Luna gets a pass,” Cloudchaser said. “On the rulership thing.”

“She was ruler before she had the Datura. In the grand scheme of things, we’re just a pet project. A hugely important one, but a pet project nonetheless.”

“Does she ever go on missions?” Flitter asked.

“Yeah, sometimes. She goes on the especially dangerous ones, ones that regular Daturas can’t handle.”

“I imagine that’s rare,” Colgate said.

“It’s difficult to find a situation that actually demands her attention. Sometimes, though, she’ll go on a mission with the lower ranks, to inspire them.”

“Aw, that’s nice,” Flitter said.

“She’s a nice pony. Very good leader.”

“Have you been on any missions with her?” Cloudchaser asked.

“One.”

“How was it?”

“Sorry, Cloudchaser.”

“Darn it. Will we ever meet her?”

“I doubt it. She’s too busy running the country in Celestia’s absence to do more than the most essential Datura stuff.”

“So who handles it all for her?” Flitter asked.

“Sorry. That would be saying too much.”

“Really? How advanced do we need to be to know these things?”

“Zecora’s about the lowest rank,” Foxglove said. “She’s third from the bottom.” She got up. “Come on, two more hours of walking, then a light dinner, then sleep. I’d like us to put this farm behind us, if we can.”

It was night when they reached a line of trees before a river, right off the edge of Cloudsdale Farms. There was no fence, but a row of signs that told them they were officially leaving the farmland, and to have a nice day. They would cross the river in the morning, and Foxglove instructed them to set up camp and prepare a small fire. Colgate did so with her magic, a spell that impressed the pegasi, and the only one she was totally comfortable performing. Every now and again, it was handy to have a horn she could use for cauterizing.

“We will meet Zecora and her team at the gateway tomorrow, where they’ve done some preliminary research,” Foxglove said, taking a seat beside Allie on an uneven log. “For now, rest.”

They ate in silence for several minutes, accompanied only by the sound of the world coming to rest. It brought Colgate no peace of mind.

“What worries me most is if a gateway decides to open up somewhere in the middle of nowhere, and we only find it by the time it’s bled half of Tartarus into our reality.”

“Can that happen?” Allie asked.

“Sure, if no one shuts if off quick enough. Think of it like a leaky faucet. Sheesh, that’s really trivializing it. Think of it like a lit match in a forest. If there’s someone to stomp it out, then it’s not a big deal. That’s what we’re doing here, stomping out a tiny spark of Tartarus. If one opens up down in the great, empty desert, though, and goes unchecked for a month… there’s a problem.”

“What happens?”

“Anything. Tartarus magic screws with everything it touches in some way. We could get toxic air, unstable ground, bad water, all sorts of stuff ponies can’t easily test for. Or, we could get some kind of incredible monster loose in the wastelands. Now that has happened before. The desert Datura patrols have encountered some properly freaky stuff.”

“Uh… example?” Flitter asked.

“Let’s see here. Hm, nothing recent, but they once had to fight some kind of creeping, predatory root-structure, one that took on the shape of the creature it got a hold of. Imagine a thirty-foot tall pony made of blackened, dried bark and twig legs, walking around willy-nilly. Now imagine the Daturas’ astonishment when setting it on fire only made it easier to see at night. There’s a whole story to it, but I don’t know a lot of the details. I wasn’t there.”

“And this happens a lot?”

“No.” She sighed. “Gateways don’t normally just show up. These are special times.”

“Could the Elements of Harmony close off a gateway?” Flitter asked.

“I think so. They work with the same general magic that Allie and I are gonna use. It probably wouldn’t be as clean, though.”

“What does that mean?”

“There would be issues. The Elements are pretty explosive things, when you get right down to it, and that might not mix well in the Tartarus magic. They’d want to do it well away from other ponies, that’s for sure. I wouldn’t be surprised if all that glorious light became heat or something in the mix.”

“Yeah, how does that work?” Allie asked. “Light without heat. I’ve seen them put their necklaces together—it’s really something—but how do they not, you know, go blind or something?”

“No idea,” Foxglove said. “They’re quite primitive tools, but delicate as well. My first guess would be that it’s all one big radiation effect, with the ponies themselves safe inside some kind of magical shell.”

“Could the Elements keep them in a kind of stasis?” Flitter asked. “Keep them safe that way?”

“I doubt it. Like I said, they’re fairly simple tools.”

“But they’re so important,” Allie said.

“Yeah, but they’re old. Celestia and Luna had them made a long, long, long time ago, back when Discord was still in control.”

“Oh, and magic wasn’t well understood then,” Flitter said. “Makes sense.”

“It’s actually quite interesting. Celestia and Luna didn’t know anything about holding magic in reserve at that time, so they needed something with a quick release, but that couldn’t be accidentally activated. I guess they designed the things over the course of a week, going through hundreds of ideas.”

“Well, they work on friendship, right?” Colgate said. “That’s the idea.”

“If you share a strong bond with someone else, and you both get Elements, those Elements can be sort of attuned to you. You know how a pulse crystal works? How there’s that period of adjustment, for the thing to… what’s the word? Learn, I guess? Get accustomed to the way the pony moves, how her muscles contract with the use of magic, all that jazz. Same idea. The Elements learn to resonate with their bearers after a day or so of contact.”

“How can an object learn?” Cloudchaser asked.

“Oh, something about how the magic fires across the crystal’s internal lattice structure. That’s why crystals are so useful. They’re really reliably structured, so it’s easy for the magic to flow through them.”

“So… the friendship goes through the crystal’s lattices?”

“The magic, the magic of friendship—essentially the ambient, unfocused mental energies of two ponies who are really in sync with each other—Celestia, this is getting heavy.”

“I think it’s fascinating,” Flitter said. “Keep going.”

“Well, so that friendship, that vague, useless, sort of everywhere side-magic gets focused into these tiny reserves,” Foxglove continued. “And if you get all six together, then they reach some kind of harmonic resonance with one another. Elements of Harmony, get it? And when that happens… aw, shoot, how does it go?”

Flitter poked at the fire, and Colgate watched Allie in the dying light. Her face was sharp and grim, her eyes sunken, her mouth an almost mournful frown, the only sign of the fear and loathing that seeped through her.

“Right, I remember. You have to study these things if you get high enough in the Datura. An utter waste of time, if you ask me. Don’t tell Luna I said that.” She chuckled. “So there’s some kind of threshold that they have to reach, that they can only possibly get to if all six are together. Figuring out the math on that had to have been one of the singular most maddeningly frustrating acts of genius. Once the Elements hit that threshold, there’s a cascade effect, and everything comes rushing out in one great big torrent.”

“Why six?” Colgate asked.

Foxglove smiled. “Are you ready for this? Six was all they could afford at the time.”

Flitter and Cloudchaser laughed, and Allie smiled too. “Oh, that’s perfect,” Cloudchaser said. “The most powerful artifacts in Equestria were made on a purely financial decision. I love it.”

“Yep, that’s the reason. Hey, money makes the world go ‘round, after all, even if it’s run by a demented dictator, or, indeed, a mile off the ground in a bunch of puzzle pieces. Look at Cloudsdale.”

“I’d really rather not,” Flitter said.

“So is each Element having its own friendship title just a cosmetic thing?” Allie asked.

“Oh, not at all. I don’t pretend to understand this part one bit,” Foxglove said. “But each crystal is designed to react to those specific vibes. Laughter, for instance, would be just a dead rock if Applejack tried to use it. Well, actually, I don’t know. It might just work less well. Heck, I really don’t know about this very much.”

“Could someone make more Elements?” Colgate asked. “If all Celestia and Luna had to do was order up a batch from some miner somewhere, what’s stopping them from doing it again?”

“That sounds like that would be really useful for fighting Discord. More Elements, more magic. Right?” Flitter said.

Foxglove thought. “It’s not that simple. For them all to work, you have to have all the bearers in the same space, so the magic can resonate and combine with itself properly.”

“Ah, I see the problem.”

“Exactly. Getting all six together is enough on its own. If we had twenty of them, it’d be a nightmare. Plus, I’m not really sure if the cascade threshold would hold up. I don’t know how well it scales.”

“What happens if someone not related to the Elements becomes a close friend of them?” Allie asked. “I ask because, last time I saw them, they had some other pony with them, some gray mare. I forgot her name. She said they’d been traveling together for a while.”

“Depends on how deep the bond is,” Foxglove said. “I think if someone else gets connected well enough, they can get added in.”

“How does that work?” Colgate asked.

“I’ve got no idea. I don’t even know whether that’s happened. It’s just a theory, based on the way the things are made.”

“You’re saying that, out of all history, no one has gotten to be close friends with an Element bearer?” Allie said.

“No no, what I mean is that I don’t think the Elements have been used with an additional, non-bearer friend. Keep in mind that bearers haven’t been called to action very much. A lot of the time, Element bearers weren’t anything more than glorified friendship consultants. Their potential for shutting down dangerous magic wasn’t particularly well explored.”

“How many times were the Elements used, outside of the current generation of bearers?” Flitter asked.

“Oh…” Foxglove yawned. “Three or four times, I think. Well, once to deal with Nightmare Moon, of course. That was Celestia alone, and she didn’t have anyone else close enough to impose an Element. Not surprising. They were used once back in the late first millennium, to dissipate some kind of enchantment that got away from its caster.” She yawned again. “I’m sorry, we can talk tomorrow, if you really want to hear more history. I’m bushed.”

She grabbed another small branch and tossed it on the fire before retreating into her sleeping bag. Flitter and Cloudchaser soon followed, leaving Allie and Colgate. Neither spoke, and when Allie went to bed, she was sure to lie so she could see Colgate, who hadn’t moved a muscle since the talking stopped. She just sat at the fire’s edge, lost in thought.

They woke to rain. So close to Cloudsdale, they could see a billowing, gray umbilical cord of storm clouds trailing up to the city’s underside, spreading farther below and covering much of the farmland and empty fields surrounding. They ate under a tight dome of shield magic from Colgate, who raised no objection to the exertion. It was her first outside of training.

Cloudchaser saw no bridge or narrow part of the river inside the forest near their location, and so they had no choice, in Foxglove’s words, but to ford it. She led them in a line across the unmoving, cold waters, quiet while the pegasi complained of intense cold. They were nearing the boundaries of where the Elements had cast their very first ground-reparation spell, and would soon need to cross a gap.

“Remember those?” Foxglove asked conversationally.

They stopped at the final tree before a large, open field, its gentle rises glistening with rain on grass. The clouds had overtaken the field, and, though no one spoke, they could all feel collective hesitance reeling them back from the long, cold march.

Foxglove was the first to move, followed by Allie, then the pegasi, then Colgate. She was not afraid of the rain, only of having Allie out of sight.

“She’s waiting for the gateway. Last night proves it; she was too interested in unnatural openings to Tartarus. The way her ears stood up when Foxglove was talking. She knew I would see her, she knew she was visible. She’s taunting me.” Her expression remained completely neutral as she shoved through lengthening grass, blinking away raindrops. “She knows the next move is hers, and she knows she has the advantage. That nag, she got lucky, and now she’s flaunting her position like it was all part of her plan. She wants me to try something preemptive.”

“So where were you before you came to Ponyville?” Allie asked up ahead.

“Sorry, Allie, that’s classified,” Flitter said from behind, earning a laugh.

“It really is, though,” Foxglove said.

“Seriously? I was just joking.”

“It’s not usually like this, I promise, but I’ve been through some nasty changes recently. You don’t need to hear about them now.”

“Things get pretty serious, huh?” Cloudchaser said.

“Are you saying that this isn’t serious?” Allie asked, turning back. Her eyes connected with Colgate’s.

“Even here. That smirk, no one smirks like that. But what can I do?” Colgate stumbled in a puddle.

“Whoa, watch out there, Colgate,” Cloudchaser said. “You okay?”

“Just fine, thanks.” She put on an apologetic smile. “Sorry if I’m a little spacey right now. I’m just thinking.”

“Wanna share?” Flitter asked.

“Yeah, what’s up?” Cloudchaser asked.

Colgate paused, and the pegasi both raised their eyebrows. She had taken her pill with breakfast, as always, and found herself suddenly stupefied. The unique combination of mind-numbing medicine, body-numbing weather, and seemingly genuine curiosity from multiple sources triggered within her a deep-set, reactionary thought, which registered in her brain as a spark of the fight-or-flight impulse.

“No, Colgate, now is not the time for a scene. Smile and say something benign.” She caught up, hopping jauntily over another puddle, and said, “Just thinking about therapy.”

“You got discharged, right?” Allie asked.

“That’s right.”

“I had a friend who went to therapy once,” Cloudchaser said. “Back in Cloudsdale. Remember Banana Peel, Flitter?”

Flitter giggled. “How could I forget?”

Colgate let their conversation become white noise. “Good. In and out, no problem. Well, no more problems. I wonder if I can get Allie kicked out of the Datura for trying to sabotage me. No one asks a follow-up question for such a delicate issue so quickly. She was ready. Not surprising; I should have seen it coming, frankly.”

“You took kinesiology, right, Colgate? For pre-recs?” Flitter asked.

“No, don’t worry about me, I’ll just pretend to know what that word is,” Cloudchaser said.

“Yeah, two semesters,” Colgate said. “Physical therapy stuff, a lot of it. At least that’s where it was going to lead. I jumped ship when I saw where I was headed.”

Allie looked back at Colgate and smiled.

The ground was wet slop with stone teeth, and walking was painful and slow. They had seen the rigid vertebrae of fence posts an hour ago, showing an end to the empty field, and thought they were approaching possible shelter, or at least variance to the cold, depressing view through which they trudged. They found themselves, instead, skirting the edge of the rock farm Foxglove had said would mark the zone where they needed to begin moving with caution.

They saw only one pony, a lonesome, small form framed against brutal saw-tooth mountains in the far distance, her back bent under a large yoke. She appeared to take no notice as they passed, and they quickly left her behind. The rain stopped around five o’ clock, and they encountered their first gap a few minutes later.

Within easy walking distance of the farm, the endless cliff was wreathed with low mist and pinstripes of flowing rain. Flitter was the first to speak, asking why rain was able to fall off, where rivers were not. No one knew.

Foxglove walked them to a single fence post, leaning at an angle that indicated clearly that its counterparts had fallen away. Around its base was coiled a single, yellow flower on a narrow stem, its petals dripping. She rummaged through her saddlebags, producing a purple potion: a teleportation potion, she explained, one of Zecora’s recipes. They each took a sip, and, facing with the lone flower, were torn across the gap to rest in a wide, wet clearing, where they took a brief rest. The exact same way Daturas were traversing the rest of the world, and how Zecora had so easily navigated the shattered forest in the confusing days directly after the disaster.

“The gateway is only around a mile from here,” Foxglove said, “so I want no conversation from here on. If you need to ask me something, now’s your time until we meet with Zecora and ascertain that it’s safe.”

No one had any questions; they had spent an entire day on the various perils a leak of Tartarus magic could create. It was immediately evident that some of them had not come to pass, but there were still the possibilities of many other, subtler dangers—like a voice amplifying to deafening volumes inside the enchanted air.

They did not stop until first seeing a misty helix of long, vertical hairs in the distance, seeming to originate from behind the trees and fade into the backdrop of dark clouds. It didn’t take long for Flitter to confirm that it was coming from the gateway, though Foxglove said they would need to get closer before determining what it was. No one moved quickly.

They met Zecora and her team on the edge of a shallow pond beside a pair of stumps, some three hundred feet from the gateway. Zecora smiled and said simply, “the air is fine.”

Her team consisted entirely of zebras, the same Colgate had seen close to a month ago, with Spike: two in undecorated, wooden masks; one with small, glass balls hanging in her braided mane; one covered in spiraling fur designs; and one with a rickety wedge of kindling strapped to her back. While everyone got acquainted, and Foxglove and Zecora exchanged information, Colgate watched, paying particular attention to Allie, who spoke with the two masked zebras. The three laughed at something one zebra said, and Colgate studied Allie’s face for signs of false emotion. She couldn’t be sure in the dim lighting.

They followed a rut in the ground to a break in the trees, where Zecora gestured at the clearing. The gateway was a large circle of unreflective black, totally flat against the textured forest floor, offering no sense of dimension or content. There was no hard edge; it was as though the ground had simply been erased in one spot, and might continue to fade away if left unchecked.

Flitter and Cloudchaser gasped lightly before Colgate, who took in her surroundings without interest. Trickles of rainwater fell from the trees, collected in dimples close to the gateway, and then, when they were close enough, turned back upwards to become the faint hairs they had seen from a distance. The water fell upwards off of a slick, rocky depression, divested of nearly all of its topsoil. Small patches of grass held on, strangely isolated in the barren stone divot.

Foxglove doffed her disc and stood it up against a tree. “Zecora’s team and the pegasi are coming with me to clear the surrounding mile or so. Colgate, Allie, I want this place empty of ambient magic, as much as you can make it. Don’t worry about that gravity-reversing magic; that’s coming out of the gateway itself. There’s nothing you can do about it.”

Colgate smiled politely, dread and excitement moving sluggishly together inside her. “Yes, ma’am.”

The distance was punctuated with occasional grand, sweeping sounds as Zecora’s Bird Datura took off to inspect the higher spaces of the forest, and it put Colgate in a strange state of calm. While Allie used her horn and a large book with laminated pages to find unnaturally enchanted objects or pockets of air, Colgate followed behind her and extinguished them with a simple dispelling spell, which Foxglove had taught her. “Good for most small-scale Tartarus leaks,” she had said.

Allie concentrated on a bush growing mostly inside the reverse-gravity area, and put it behind her. “I’m glad you’re out of therapy. That must feel nice.”

“Yeah, I’m happy to be done.” Colgate stopped, eyes tracing a leaf as it swung on a tiny current around her leg. The rain had resumed, but she didn’t mind. She frowned thoughtfully, knowing Allie was watching. “Can I share something? It’s a little personal.”

“Of course.”

“This isn’t easy to say, but my therapist told me talking about difficult things like this can help, especially when I’m not feeling too hot.”

“Are you not? You seemed fine today.”

“Aw, you know how I am,” Colgate said lightly. “It’s funny, I never told my therapist this. I didn’t want to make it into a whole big deal, but I was actually thinking about suicide a while back.”

The silence was exactly what she had expected. The Bird Datura flapped noisily nearby.

“Colgate, really?” Allie asked. She was quiet, her voice respectful, worried, and disbelieving.

“Right off the top of the hospital. Can you believe it?”

“Well… no, not really. I mean… wow, what? I’m sorry, I don’t really know what to say.”

“Nothing. You don’t have to say anything. I’m not going to do it, I know that. It was a momentary impulse. Well, more like a day-long impulse.”

“Why?”

“It can’t be that hard to imagine why. Look at what I did to myself.”

“But… still. That’s not the way to deal with things, Cole.”

“Cole? Good try.” “I’m aware.”

“But you’re not thinking about it now. Uh, can you get this for me?”

Colgate dispelled a displaced bird’s nest, watching curiously as it pirouetted when the magic left it.

“Exactly.” She watched Allie’s faint shadow on the water, trying to determine, from her stance, how she felt, and whether she needed more material before pursuing the line of conversation, an utter fabrication. After a moment more of quiet, she continued. “I don’t know for sure, but it could have been the nadir of my life.”

“You’re not sure?”

Colgate smiled to herself. “I had a very confusing upbringing, let’s say.”

“And… did this, er, contribute to those feelings later? I’m sorry—just tell me to back off if I’m getting too personal.”

“No, you’re fine.” “You’re perfect.” “If you must know, I think the biggest part of it was all the nonsense with you and Spike. It’s too much for one pony to keep track of.”

“You did an okay job,” Allie said, and Colgate thought she could hear bitterness.

“Too okay, and that was the problem. You pointed that out to me quite clearly.”

Allie hummed assent, and dispelled a small button of water herself. Colgate knew what it meant; she was giving her space to talk and think. She was buying the story.

“I’m glad I came to my senses.”

“Me too.” She sat in the water for a second, thought evident on her face. “Isn’t it weird how things work out? You and I were fighting a week ago, and now, here I am, listening to your innermost feelings.” She smiled softly. “And I’m happy to do it, Colgate. You know that, right?”

“I’ll confess a little worry about that, actually.”

“Well, you needn’t. I still don’t exactly… well, you know. We’re in a truce.”

“Of course, of course.” The Bird Datura crashed through tree branches in the distance. “That’s part of the appeal. I don’t have to worry about freaking you out too much, because you have no real intimacy with me.” She feigned ironic laughter. “Do you want me to pay for this therapy session?”

Allie laughed. “Don’t worry about it. This is what non-enemies are for.”

When the others came back, Allie and Colgate were taking turns lobbing stones into the gravity well, watching them shoot upwards before crossing the boundary and coming down in massive parabolas, ending somewhere in the trees. They had used a different spell to check for magical anomalies after Allie had thought she had found them all, dispelled the scraps, and waited.

“Good, and we’re clear for a mile around,” Foxglove said, surveying the area. “This gateway hasn’t bled too much into the environment, although Zecora’s team is going to have to block off certain sections of the nearby river, just to be safe.” She removed the chains from her saddlebags. “Flitter, Cloudchaser, you’ll be in the air to circle the area. Anything approaching, tell us immediately. Colgate, get these chains secured to that disc; I’m gonna have Weteck help you hang it over that gateway. Allie, rest up and prepare for your sigil.”

“Do I have to be upside-down?” Allie asked.

“I’m afraid so.”

“It would have been nice to know that going in,” Cloudchaser said.

“Daturas don’t always know what’s going to happen to them. I want you all to be as flexible as you can.” She shook water out of her mane. “Besides, you don’t have to worry about it. You fly.”

“It’s the thought that counts.”

“It’s fine,” Allie said. “I’m not afraid of a little flip in my internal gravity. Huh, never thought I’d say that.”

Colgate tuned out the rest of their speech as she slipped the chains’ latches through rectangular slots in the disc while one zebra placed a circle of small, spherical potions around the gateway. The Bird Datura helped her move the disc over, where Colgate placed the chains into the potions’ mouths, just wide enough to admit the first few links, where they stuck as if in concrete.

“Think of those like tiny cinder blocks,” the Bird Datura said. “They’ll hold on to anything immersed in the liquid.”

Colgate nodded absentmindedly. Part of her knew that she should be more interested in the array of new magic she was being exposed to, but Allie was too much of a distraction. She lingered on one potion to watch Allie from the tops of her eyes, but what she saw served only to stir up more dull anger. She had expected Allie to appear thoughtful, to contemplate what she had heard; the lie was meant to entice her into attempting a betrayal that, in reality, would not hurt Colgate. Instead, she looked troubled.

“She’s toying with me, even now,” Colgate thought. “I know I was too subtle to arouse suspicion on my own. The nag must have been hiding her own preexisting suspicions all along.” She tugged on the chain, hurting her hoof, testing its placement. The potion held fast. “She’s taken the single sign of friendliness from me and turned it into some kind of portent in her own head, and now she’s pretending to be concerned.” In a way, it was admirable, she reflected. False concern as a default reaction to uncertainty was not something she had ever thought of for herself.

“So I got nowhere. I have to assume she’s sticking to her plan, whatever it is. She has no reason to change it, if she’s just going to disregard my conversation. I should have known she’d be too suspicious to try to fool.”

“There, that one looks good,” Weteck, the Bird Datura, said. She let the platform fall upwards, as instructed, and Weteck took off after it, transitioning easily into the gateway’s repellent force as she flapped to stay level with the swaying platform. She grabbed it just as it began to tumble back to the ground as it crossed the boundary on the backswing.

And then, the idea came. It was so simple that Colgate could not help but smile to herself as she moved around the gateway, catching a thrown chain in her magic and placing it in another potion. No one was watching her closely, and Allie, even distracted as she was with taunting Colgate, seemed engrossed in another thought.

She lowered her head as if to inspect the potion. With a final quick look around, she lit her horn and allowed an easy pulse of telekinesis to tip the potion, spilling half its contents. The falling rain and gray forest interior helped mask her light blue magic haze, which held for only a couple seconds. The chain was immersed only to the last quarter of its ending link.

She could only weaken one other hold safely, and, in a matter of minutes, she stood between Flitter and Cloudchaser while the Bird Datura tested the platform, suspended defiantly above the gateway. She hopped up and down on it, upside-down, and Colgate waited with grim self-loathing for it to snap prematurely. She had not anticipated a test of its stability, and knew she should have.

“Okay, feels all right,” Weteck said. “Allie, you be careful. It’s still a bit wobbly.”

“Not surprising,” Allie said quietly, looking up at the platform.

“Flitter, Cloudchaser, start flying,” Foxglove said. “Be careful not to cross into the gateway’s gravity column.”

The pegasi took off, and Allie put her head over the edge to let her mane fall up.

“Colgate, stay with the zebras. You’re the ones who respond if the pegasi see anything. Weteck, you’re watching the platform?”

“And the pony on it, yes ma’am,” Weteck said.

Foxglove nodded. “I’ll need you to help me get inside when it comes time.”

“Yes ma’am.”

Colgate watched Allie work, her book on the platform’s outer edge, pages flat to the ceiling. She could not look away, not even for a second. Allie’s revenge was tied to her knowledge of magic, and there was only the one opportunity that Colgate saw.

She breathed deeply through her nose to relax, as she had done before hundreds of surgeries. That past seemed too distant, part of another life, even though she could still remember the details of her final patient’s condition. Operating on another life required nerves of steel and indomitable patience, and she had both. Feeling herself so close to an unnamable betrayal, she was nonetheless in control of her thoughts and her emotions. Her heart beat slowly, and her blood felt cool and distant. In her head, she played through all the possible scenarios. “Allie falls up, and eventually out and back down—I can be sad, devastated even if the Bird Datura or pegasi fail to save her. Allie stumbles but stays on the platform—I can be afraid for her. Someone notices the faulty knots and fixes them—I can apologize, pretend to be stupid, accept a reprimand. At least I’ve bought some time. She’s going to be freaked out regardless, unbalanced.”

“Looking good up here,” Cloudchaser called.

“Am I prepared for her blood to be on my hooves?” She let no emotion betray itself on her face, and smiled up at the pegasi. “Awesome! We’re looking great down here too!”

“Zecora, did you already get some of the weeds around the rim?” Foxglove asked.

“We have got some in a saddlebag already,” Zecora said. “I intend to study them at my house when I return.”

“Very good. Keep me informed. I’m curious.”

“They’re not my hooves. If she perishes, it’s her own fault,” Colgate thought. “No pony acts without sufficient cause, and her actions have fed my own. There is no crime in self defense.”

Allie paused and flashed Colgate an inverted smile, which she returned. Her mouth was still sore; she hadn’t been to a dentist since bludgeoning herself.

“What’s more, she should have checked the chains herself. If her life is on the line, then she’s a fool not to make sure that line is secure.” Her thoughts stopped and restarted suddenly, resuming from a different track. “And what if I’m the one whose life is on the line? What if the trap has already been laid?” She looked around, concealing her worry. “Sigils can do multiple things, I think. What if its other design is to destroy me? If so, there’s nothing I can do to stop it.”

“What’cha looking at, Colgate?” Foxglove asked.

Colgate moved her eyes around in a dramatic, wide circle before answering. “Nothing really. Just trying not to get too worried, you know?” She looked up at Allie, whose sigil was mostly complete. Her calm thoughts cracked.

“Almost ready up there?” a zebra asked.

“I think I hear something,” Colgate snapped.

“What?” Foxglove asked.

“I can’t tell. It sounds… I can’t tell.”

“Zecora, go with her.”

Without waiting, Colgate turned and trotted into the forest. She felt no better as the sigil vanished behind the first trees, and her trot turned to a gallop as she tried to put more distance between her and Allie. Zecora crashed behind.

The structured, deliberate thoughts from before were washed away in a sea of noise and rain as Colgate moved through the trees, frequently picking the most difficult looking routes. A simple direction stuck out to her: away. Get away, and the sigil might not catch her. She imagined it, detached and wheeling through the forest like a possessed table saw, careening off trees and heading always for her, flattening and elongating as needed, always unhindered. Her imagination blazed with the image, and she focused randomly on the phrase “death from above.”

Rain splattered and puddles broke under her hooves, and she was hardly aware of her own body moving. Operating purely on instinct, she pushed herself onward without thinking, wanting only to go away.

“Colgate, stop!” Zecora shouted, and something grabbed her, making her nearly sprawl forward. Zecora moved to block her path. “What is this?”

One look back, and Colgate’s fear raveled back up. She grinned sheepishly and adopted an embarrassed voice. “Sorry. I think I got carried away.”

“You are certainly right, you did. Explain yourself.”

She thought for as long as she dared, searching for an alternative explanation for her rash behavior.

“Okay, come with me. We’re going back,” Zecora said impatiently. “Daturas don’t run headlong into danger, are you aware of that?”

“I thought I was going to chase it away.”

“A cute idea, but a stupid one.”

When they got back, the sigil was gone, Allie stood right side up on the forest floor, and Foxglove looked at Colgate. She didn’t recognize the emotion on her face at first.

“So, Colgate, would you like to explain why the platform wasn’t secured correctly?” Foxglove asked.

Colgate frowned at her. “What do you mean?”