Although Strumming followed through on sending in a doctor to have a look at my hoof, I didn’t see her again until late into the evening on the next day. That suited me just fine. I wouldn’t have been able to work on my escape plan with her hovering over me. If she’d just barged into my room unannounced, she might’ve caught me in the middle of my preparations, and that would’ve been it. Game over.

If I wanted to get away from Strumming, it would have to be during the trip from the embassy to the docks. Security in the embassy was too tight, and there wouldn’t be anywhere to escape to once I was stuck on a ship.

In theory I could try for a getaway once I was back in Equestria, but I would be a fugitive on the run without any resources or support, and I’d have the entire Equestrian government after me. In Freeport, I only had to get away from a couple dozen EIS ponies, and there was a chance the Council, Kukri’s clan, or some of Puzzle’s contacts might help me.

However, there was a big problem with my escape plan: Strumming wasn’t stupid, and she probably knew a lot more about holding onto a prisoner than I knew about escaping. She had to be aware that my best chance to escape would be while she was taking me to the ship, and she would be watching in case I tried anything.

Not that there was much I could do about that. I just had to try and anticipate her security measures and hope my escape plan was good enough to beat them. And that my plan didn’t blow up in my face. Literally.

I was actually happy to see her for once when Strumming finally strode into my room. Well, not her exactly, but I was pretty happy about the tray of food she’d brought with her. Breakfast had been a bit smaller than I usually liked, and for lunch I’d gotten one of those kelp dishes that I’d never really acquired a taste for. I wasn’t starving or anything, but I was more than ready for a nice big dinner.

The main course was a bunch of roasted breadfruit slices nicely spiced and wrapped in haybacon, with a fruity and rich red sauce drizzled over the top. On the side were a dozen dates stuffed with almonds and bleu cheese that looked absolutely delicious. Just to top things off, there was a huge slice of chocolate cake for dessert. My mouth might have been watering just a little at the sight of all that food.

“Hey, bacon-head.” Strumming grinned and set the tray down in front of me. “Figured you deserved a little something special for your last meal in Freeport. Celestia knows I’m not looking forward to living on ship biscuits for two weeks.”

“For once, I agree with you.” Not that Strumming was going to be suffering too much, judging by her seemingly inexhaustible supply of junk food. I suspect that if I’d opened up her suitcase while we were both on the way to Freeport, it would’ve been filled to the brim with candy bars and bags of potato chips. Either that, or she had an extradimensional pocket—a spectacular marvel of science and magic—and used it for nothing but junk food.

“Forgoing your usual reflexive arguing is a welcome change of pace.” She paused, then sighed and shook her head. “Look, I know we haven’t exactly been getting along. Some of that’s on you, some of that’s on me, some of that’s on my bosses, and a lot of it is just on account of the circumstances. Point is, we’re gonna have a long trip back to Equestria, and I’d like to spend some of that time making peace.” She waved at the tray in front of me. “I don’t like all the orders I get, but one of the sucky things about being part of the EIS is that I still have to follow them. Sure, I can protest or offer alternatives, but eventually my station chief just gives me the whole ‘I don’t want to debate it, it’s not open to discussion, just get it done’ spiel.”

It was a nice little speech, but I didn’t buy it for an instant. Mostly because about the only thing I knew with absolute certainty about Strumming was that she would lie at the drop of a hat. It was a lot easier for her to pretend she wanted to be my friend when she could just blame any of her nastier choices on some mysterious, never-seen bosses who were forcing her hoof. As long as she was trying to drag me back to Equestria, she was my enemy—even if she was ‘just following orders.’

In any case, if I was going to be launching a daring breakout plan later tonight, I needed plenty of energy to pull it off. I stared down at all the delicious food, trying to decide what I wanted to eat first. In the end, I went with trying a little bit of everything. All of it tasted even better than it looked.

By the time I’d torn through about half of my meal, I’d sated the worst of my hunger. I wasn’t planning on letting any of the food go to waste, but now I was slowing down and actually savoring it. Maybe slowing down was what finally allowed me to realize that there was something off about the whole scenario.

Strumming wasn’t stealing any of my food.

Every time I’d eaten in front of her before, she’d snatched something off of my plate. Even if she’d had a bag of chips sitting in front of her, she’d still grab a bit of my food just on principle. But now I had an absolutely amazing meal sitting in front of me and Strumming wasn’t even looking at it. On top of that, she’d delivered the food herself. All my other meals had been handled by embassy staffers.

It didn’t take long to piece together a rather nasty possibility: maybe there was a very good reason she didn’t want to touch my food. Strumming knew that taking me from the embassy to the ship would be the most dangerous part of the entire operation, so any way of keeping me docile was worth looking into. Something like dousing my dinner in sleeping potion so I’d be fast asleep during my best chance to escape.

The more I thought about it, the more certain I was. Strumming had cut down my breakfast and arranged a lunch she knew I wouldn’t like to make sure I’d be extra-hungry for dinner, then prepped up a special high quality meal that would tempt me to eat every single bite and get as much of some kind of sleeping potion into my system as possible.

I slowly pushed the tray away. “I’m full.”

The spy frowned very faintly at that. “You sure you don’t want any more? I hate to see good food go to waste. It’s practically sacrilege.”

I locked eyes with her, searching for any sign that might give away her intentions. “You could always eat the rest of it yourself.”

Strumming held my gaze for a short time, then chuckled and shook her head. “Thanks for the offer, but I just ate. Totally stuffed.”

I didn’t buy that for a second. “Or maybe there’s some other reason you don’t want to eat my food. Like that you slipped some sleeping drugs into it so you’d have an easier time getting me back to Equestria.”

She briefly tried to keep her face flat and unemotional, but she couldn’t stop herself from grinning. “Smart. You know, you’d make a pretty good EIS agent. Sure, you’re criminally naïve right now, but that’s just a matter of experience. Maybe once you get things sorted with Celestia we could give that a whirl. I’ll even take you as my apprentice.”

It was probably purely psychological, but the instant she confirmed that my food had been dosed I started feeling sleepier. I peeled my lips back from my teeth and defiantly snarled at her. “What are you gonna do now? Force-feed me the rest of it?”

“Nah.” She picked up the tray and set aside. “Force-feeding somepony is really hard to do and leaves behind a huge mess. Besides, I’m pretty sure the princess would rip into us if we left any bruises on you that weren’t absolutely necessary. You’ve already gotten a pretty good dose. Think I’ll save the rest of the food. It is too good to waste, and once we’re back on the ship, some tasty food that doubles as a sleep aid will be pretty handy.”

I hastily stifled a yawn. “Get out.”

“Yeah, okay.” She stood, but threw out one last parting shot before heading for the door. “I know you probably don’t see it that way, but it’s nothing personal. I have a job to do. Even if I don’t always like it, I’m not gonna do it half-assed. Get comfy, and I’ll come back for you once you’re snoozing.”

As soon as she shut the door, I ran to the toilet and tried to induce vomiting. It might already be too late; Strumming almost certainly would’ve picked out something my body would absorb pretty rapidly. No sense in dosing me with something I might be able to beat just by throwing up. Not to mention that if I could beat the poison that easily, she wouldn’t have left me alone and unsupervised.

Dammit! I’d spent all day getting ready for my escape, and now I might’ve been foiled before I even got a chance to try.

No, I couldn’t afford to think that way. That’s what she wanted me to do. Just resign myself to being a good little prisoner and take a nice long nap that wouldn’t end until I was back in Equestria. No way in Tartarus would I do that.

I rubbed my bleary eyes and splashed some cold water on my face. I’d only gotten half a dose of the sleeping potion. I could beat it and still get away from her. All I had to do was stay awake.

Stay. Awake.

Staaay ... awaaa...

... ke.

I slowly blinked my eyes open as I realized what had happened. I wasn’t in my cell at the embassy anymore, I was somewhere else. Somewhere with a wooden floor. I could hear the gentle drumming of rain falling on the roof. I could feel the entire place moving around with a slow, steady sway.

Oh horseapples!

A panic-induced jolt of adrenaline pushed back the sleep-induced haze. A quick check of my hoof confirmed that my ace-in-the-hole was still there. With that settled, I tried to get a better idea of my surroundings. I wasn’t in any sort of proper room: the floor was solid, but the roof and sides were made out of canvas. Strumming was sitting on a small bench across from me, and there were a couple of her embassy guards in here as well. And now that I was thinking a bit more clearly, I realized the place was swaying less like a ship on the waves and more like a wagon trotting along the streets.

Okay. I’d made it. I might have fallen asleep, but at least I’d woken up in time.

“She’s awake,” one of the Guards grunted to Strumming. No, not a Guard. He might be wearing armor, but I’d been around enough of the Royal Guards to know the difference between a Guard and a pony wearing armor. Something about how they carried themselves and their general attitude. If I had to guess, I would say that the stallion was one of Strumming’s EIS buddies. “Should’ve given her more of the stuff once she was out.”

Strumming sighed and rolled her eyes. “Sleep potions aren’t perfect knockout drugs that’ll keep someone out for as long as you want.”

The EIS goon grunted. “Should we dose her again?”

Strumming frowned down at me for a bit, then shook her head. “I already gave her a shot with a bit more once she was out. Dosage on sleeping meds can be a bit tricky, especially since if we’re mixing delivery methods. I really don’t wanna risk overdosing her. You wanna be the one to explain to the princess that we accidently put her student down for the long sleep?”

“Point,” the other spy conceded. “We’ve got her chained up and ringed anyway. Not to mention she’s probably still too drowsy to form a coherent sentence.”

I didn’t like the way he was talking about me like I wasn’t even there, so I decided to do my best to prove him wrong. My head felt like it weighed about twice as much as it was supposed to, but I still managed to lift it up and focus a bleary-eyed glare at Strumming. “Buck you, nag.”

Strumming grinned and nudged her co-worker. “I’d say that qualifies as a coherent sentence. We’ve got ‘buck’ for the predicate, ‘you’ for the subject, and even an insult for the vocative.” She leaned down off the bench so she could get a better look at me. “Good morning, sunshine. And it’s after midnight, so yes, it is technically morning now. How you feeling?”

I said the first thing that came to mind. “You drugged me.”

“Only a little.” Strumming gave me a gentle pat on the head. “Relax, it was for your own good. I know you, bacon-mane. You were gonna try something when we did the whole prisoner transport thing. It wouldn’t have worked, but it probably would’ve made things get a little messier and harder on you.” She pursed her lips and tapped her chin. “Not to mention attempting escape is never good when you’re fighting to prove your innocence. It’s stupid, but a lotta folks still believe that only the guilty try to run.”

I groaned and stretched, or at least stretched as much as I could. There was only so far I could reach when my legs were all in chains, and those chains went through another iron loop in the floor. Being chained up wouldn’t make getting away any easier, but the chains wouldn’t be too much of a problem if the rest of my escape plan actually worked.

Speaking of which, I needed to have a better idea of where exactly I was. Right now all I knew was that I was in a covered wagon, and presumably still somewhere in Freeport. I rather doubted Strumming would let me poke my head out for a couple minutes to get my bearings, so I needed to figure out what was going on a bit more subtly.

Strumming had mentioned that it was after midnight, so it was pretty safe to assume that it was at some point in the wee hours of the morning. That figured, if her plan was to get me out of Freeport without any inconvenient witnesses. Plus it was raining outside, which would only further encourage all the locals to stay indoors. Not to mention it would make my pyromancy a bit less effective.

I didn’t think I would find out much more just by passive observation, so it was time to dig a little deeper. I turned to Strumming as best I could while chained up. “You know the Council’s gonna have someone watching the docks, even on a miserable night like this. No, especially on a night like this, ‘cause it’s perfect weather for doing something nefarious.”

“Yeah, probably,” she conceded with a shrug. “But the main docks are the ones with the most watchers on them. We’re leaving out of one of the smuggler docks that cater to all the business that Freeport officially has to ban but unofficially allows. Trust me, the condottieri who watch that area are very good at becoming selectively blind when you slip them a couple coins. That’s why taxes are so low here; government officials are expected to supplement their income with bribes.” She quietly scoffed to herself. “Y’know, it probably says something about Freeport that we’ll have an easier time getting past the guards if we say you’re a slave than if we told them the truth.”

Great. So much for hoping there would be helpful bystanders. If we were in one of the seedier parts of Freeport, nopony would lift a hoof to help a runaway slave. However, I did spot one flaw with her cover. “Everypony knows slavery is illegal in Equestria.”

“It’s officially illegal in Freeport too,” Strumming countered. “Lots of things are illegal. It doesn’t mean ponies stop doing them; just that they try not to get caught.”

Urgh, she always had an answer for everything. I didn’t want to make my move yet, I didn’t have enough information. Whether this was the only wagon in the convoy, or there were a couple more loads of soldiers marching along with us. Which part of Freeport we were in. How far we were from the docks. Whether Kukri and Puzzle were in the convoy with us. Whether they’d grabbed my golems off the Venture and were bringing them along as evidence. Lotta stuff like that. But there was no way Strumming would give me any of that information, and I couldn’t find it out as long as I was stuck underneath a covered wagon. There was nothing for it but to make my move and hope that all the unknowns wouldn’t be stacked up too far against me.

“Hey, Strumming.” The spy directed a politely curious glance my way. “Did you know there’s a really big flaw in all the security you’ve got on me?”

An amused little smirk crossed her lips. “Oh is there? Fascinating. Well, don’t leave me hanging in suspense, bacon-mane. What is it?”

“It’s one of those really simple baseline assumptions nopony would think twice about.” In hindsight, it was probably a bit stupid to let her know exactly how I was going to escape, but after being locked up by her for so long, I wanted to see the look on her face when she realized I’d beaten her. “You see, suppression rings are pretty amazing at suppressing a unicorn’s magic. The problem is, they only suppress unicorn magic.”

“And you’re a unicorn.” She shrugged. “Not seeing where you’re going with this.”

I chuckled, shifting my hooves around. “It’s pretty simple, really. I’m surprised such an oh-so-experienced spy like you didn’t think about it in advance. But fine, I’ll give you a little hint since you’re so clueless. Tell me what you know about my mother.” While she did that, I carefully reached down and retrieved the rock I’d wedged between my hoof and shoe; the same one I’d picked up in the gardens yesterday.

Strumming rolled her eyes, but played along. “Scarlet Runeseeker, Archmagus of the Northern March. Parents were merchants working in the caribou freeholds, and she immigrated back to Equestria once she was accepted into Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns. Met and married Firstlight Shimmer after she entered the magus corps, ultimately resulting in their only child, a certain bacon-headed unicorn.” A teasing tone entered her voice as she continued. “She managed to climb the ranks through the corps pretty quickly, mostly by picking her career over you. It also helps that she’s Equestria’s leading expert in...” Her eyes widened in shock as the truth finally hit her. “...in non-equine magic.”

I grinned triumphantly—maybe it had hurt my chances of getting away, but it was almost worth it just to see the look on Strumming’s face. “Got it.”

I reached down and pulled out the stone I’d wedged between my hoof and shoe; the same one I grabbed from the gardens yesterday. The stone I’d hidden from the doctor sent to check on me, and then spent hours painstakingly carving two intricate runes into. Without any proper tools I’d been forced to use my horn for the job, which made for painfully slow going. Especially since it was really hard to watch what I was doing while I worked, and carving a runestone was incredibly delicate. Still, I was reasonably confident that I’d gotten it right, and if it went horribly wrong and blew up in my face, I could at least take solace in the fact that Strumming would get caught in the blast too.

I activated the runestone. The instant its magic hit the suppression ring, the metal rusted and decayed as if it had spent a century abandoned in the elements. The same thing happened to my chains, and both of the guards sitting closest to me had their armor go from parade ground polished to looking old and battered. Alas, Strumming seemed to be outside the spell’s area of effect.

I smacked the suppression ring as hard as I could without hurting myself in the process; the last thing I needed was to hurt my horn in the process of knocking off the ring. That would put me right back to square one. Thankfully my spell had done exactly what I was hoping it would, and my horn ring crumbled into powder as soon as I hit it. I grinned as I felt my unicorn magic come flooding back to me an instant later.

I couldn’t stay in a small wagon with Strumming and half a dozen guards. It was a pretty safe bet that she or somepony else had a backup ring on them, and if they got that one on me, that would be it for my escape. I didn’t want to risk a close-quarters brawl, so before Strumming or anypony else in the wagon could try to grab me, I teleported out of there. Jumping too far when I didn’t know what was out there could end very badly for me, so I made it a short jump ten feet to the side.

I wound up staggering on the edge of a bridge, with one of my hindlegs dangling out over empty space. I nearly slipped and tumbled over the edge as I tried to get a better grip on the rain-slick stones, but eventually managed to get all four of my hooves firmly planted.

I should’ve guessed at where we might be. Freeport kept all the dirty business off the main island, so Strumming had been taking me to one of the other isles which held the less reputable parts of the city. And just my luck, I’d hopped out of the wagon right when we were halfway across the bridge. There were no buildings I could dive behind for cover, nor any dark alleyways I could slip into in order to shake my pursuers. Just a long, slightly curved stretch of bridge, with more than a mile between me and the nearest dry land.

Damn. I couldn’t have picked a worse place for my breakout.

I could try teleporting to the shore, but I’d never jumped that far before. And late at night with it pouring down rain the shoreline was nothing but a distant blur. Even if I made the teleport, I had no idea where I would end up. I might wind up dropping myself into the hooves of somepony worse than the EIS, or I might end up with one of my legs fused into the pavement.

I looked over the edge of the bridge. The drop down to the water was way too far for my liking—they’d built the bridges high enough to let ships pass underneath them. It might be survivable, especially with the rain breaking up the water’s surface tension, but I wasn’t all that eager to put that theory to the test by jumping for it.

My other options weren’t looking all that great, though. Strumming’s wagon came to an abrupt halt, and now that I was free, I could see another one behind it, and one in front. Great, three wagons full of EIS goons. Twenty-to-one odds didn’t exactly favor me.

Strumming stalked out of the wagon, the rest of her guards following along behind her. They quickly adopted a crescent formation which left me with nowhere to run and my back against the edge of the bridge. Strumming held the center of the group, slowly walking towards me, her voice carefully even. “Easy, Sunset. Nopony’s gonna hurt you unless you leave us no choice in the matter. Nice job on the escape—seriously, I bet Celestia’ll be proud when she hears about it. Upset that you busted out of our custody, sure, but also kinda proud that you got away from us. Guess you really did learn a lot from her.”

“More than you know.” Though rune magic was actually one of the few things I hadn’t picked up from her. That had been my own self-studying, plus a few basics I’d learned from my mother back before I moved into the palace. I’d actually studied it for a while as part of one of those stupid kid things. Like my mother might suddenly stop ignoring me if I showed her that I’d read her book about runecasting. At least I’d gotten something good out of the experience.

“Probably, yeah.” Strumming shrugged. “Our files on what you learned from Celestia aren’t anywhere near as complete as I’d like. Not to mention the sheer volume of it is more than a little intimidating.” She grinned and stretched her wings out. “Then again, I’ve got a few tricks up my sleeve that you haven’t seen yet, not to mention a bunch of buddies backing me up. So ... I guess it’s just a question of whether your tricks are better than mine.”

I could try teleporting out of the half-circle of guardponies closing in on me, but that would just buy me a couple seconds before they ran me down again. I could just keep teleporting, but I was pretty sure I would run out of magic before all the guards after me would get tired.

Running was out, then. That left fighting. Except this time I wasn’t up against a bunch of poorly equipped and undisciplined pirates who would give up as soon as somepony put up a decent fight. Strumming and her forces keep coming after me as long as they were physically capable of combat. The only way I would knock any of them out of the fight would be by hurting them. Badly. I didn’t think I was capable of doing that. Not to mention that some of them probably had training in dealing with powerful rogue unicorns. Strumming had implied as much when she captured me, and it certainly made sense to bring in some experts.

So we had a standoff, at least until Strumming and her friends decided it was worth the risk of dogpiling me. They would win, but now that I had my magic back I would make them pay for it. And if they really believed I’d gone bad they were probably a bit scared of me; I could definitely kill a couple of them before they subdued me. I wasn’t sure I could bring myself to hurt them like that, but I saw no reason to let them know I was bluffing.

Alright, fine. I could work with this. I just needed to play for time and hope that eventually somepony saw something going on and reported it. Too bad it was in the dead of a cold, wet, miserable night. Anypony out and about at this hour probably wouldn’t be in a rush to report a scuffle to the nearest condottieri. Maybe once the sun was up I’d get some help, but I doubted I could hold them off for that long.

Strumming took another step forward. “You gave it a good shot, Sunset. A damned good one. I’m genuinely impressed. But this is as far as you go. Now come on, let’s get in out of the rain before our manes are ruined. We can have some chips and hot chocolate, talk about stuff. I won’t even chain or ring you again, as long as you promise to cooperate.”

There was no way I could accept that offer—she’d probably just drug my food again. However, I didn’t have a good escape plan. Or any plan at all.

And that’s when a particularly insane idea popped into my head. The spell itself was a raw formula I’d never properly tested, let alone used in combat conditions. And if something went wrong with it, I’d probably end up dead. But if the alternative was voluntarily going back into Strumming’s custody...

Buck it. It’s not like any of my plans before this one had been especially sane.

I giggled, mostly on account of nerves. “You know, when I told Celestia I wanted to get wings one day, this wasn’t what either of us had in mind.”

I jumped off the edge of the bridge.

As I started to fall, I leeched as much heat out of the surrounding air as I could manage. It was pouring down rain, so getting enough water to make ice wasn’t an issue. After that, it was simply a matter of putting into the shape I wanted, and then attaching it to my back.

I finally had my wings.

Sure, I couldn’t flap them and fly away like they were the real things, but it was more than enough to turn my plummet into a nice, gentle glide. It was a bit tricky to figure out the balance, but I’d done a little reading and observed plenty of pegasi in flight. It was a long way from perfect, but I was doing well enough to stay pointed towards dry land and avoid crashing into anything.

I was feeling pretty good about myself, right up until I saw Strumming flying after me and gaining fast.

Oh. Right. Pegasus. She had a lifetime of experience at flying. A couple of the guards also followed behind her.

There was no way I could outmaneuver her when I was barely managing to glide in a straight line, so I had to find some other way to stop her from catching up. Leeching out all the heat I needed to make my ice wings left me with plenty stored up, so I sent it all flying in her direction. I kept it dispersed enough that I wouldn’t burn a hole through her head or something, but a few first and second-degree burns would do wonders for discouraging her pursuit.

What I hadn’t considered was the rain. A wider area for the spell gave all the moisture in the air more to work with, and my fire spell turned into a big cloud of steam before it got halfway to Strumming. It still slowed her down a bit as she banked wide around the boiling hot fog cloud I’d left in my wake, but it had been little more than an inconvenience. It actually caused more problems for the rest of her friends than it did for her.

I did notice one other effect of shooting out fire behind myself: it sped me up a bit. I suppose I should’ve expected it: for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. That gave me a couple new ideas, though. Just needed to work out the details of how I would use them.

Strumming was closing in on me, waving the rest of her forces back as she did so. I guess she wanted to handle me herself, or perhaps she just didn’t want to wait for the rest of them to catch up—most of them were moving a bit slower due to their armor. I couldn’t help but wonder if Strumming was taking me on alone because of pride, or if she was concerned that her pet soldiers might not be able to force me down without hurting me. Maybe both; she was a complicated mare.

Rather than make my move against her right away, I watched and waited. I’d only get one shot at taking her by surprise, so I needed to make it count. The problem was that Strumming knew I’d be trying to discourage her, so she was being very cautious with her approach. She’d start dodging the instant I threw a spell at her.

Still, she wasn’t going to just hang back and let me go wherever I pleased. She stayed well above me, an even bigger advantage than normal since I could only glide. Whenever she wanted to, she could dive bomb onto me and take me down. She was probably just waiting until we got closer to the shore before she made her move.

There were just two problems with her tactics, and neither of those were blatant mistakes on her part. First, she was assuming that hostile spells were the only way I could threaten her. Not unreasonable, considering I was a highly accomplished spellcaster who didn’t have any hoof-to-hoof combat training. Second, she assumed that I had no way of gaining altitude.

I angled my wings upwards, then hurled a concentrated jet of fire straight downwards. I shot up like a rocket, heading straight for Strumming’s exposed underbelly. Once again, I’d managed to catch her by surprise. She quickly broke off to the side, keeping a close watch on my horn so she could avoid the next spell I tossed her way.

Which is why she got caught completely by surprise when I punched her in the face instead.

That’s the thing about ponies who’ve been trained to fight a magus: all that training tells them to expect the mage to attack with magic.

It wasn’t a very good punch by most standards; it probably hurt my hoof more than her face. It didn’t really accomplish much other than ringing her bells for a second. However, that was more than enough time to use all the cold I’d been building up and put a thin coating of ice on her wings. Not enough to really hurt her, but it did rather ruin her ability to fly for a bit. I almost felt sorry for when she belly-flopped into the ocean. Almost.

I didn’t have much time to savor my victory. The shoreline was coming up pretty quickly, and while I’d started getting the hang of gliding, I didn’t have the slightest idea of how to handle landing. Plus I still had the rest of the flying soldiers after me, minus Strumming and one of the guards who’d gone to pick her up. Thankfully I was already a fair bit ahead of them, and I’d bought a bit more lead time with my fire-boosted flight. Not to mention that after my takedown of Strumming, the rest of the EIS thugs were hanging quite a bit further back. I guess nopony wanted to risk getting so close that they wouldn’t have time to dodge my next spell.

That didn’t mean they were just sitting back and letting me do whatever I wanted. They were staying a safe distance back, but they were also slowly spreading out. At first I just assumed they were making it harder for me to hit more than one of them with a spell, but a few moments later I realized they were moving to flank me. No doubt from there they would start cutting off my escape routes and herding me to wherever they wanted me to go. Probably somewhere with no witnesses.

I threw more fire out behind myself, creating a new fog bank. Hopefully that would buy me a little more time to break contact with them. A quick look over my shoulder confirmed that the fog bank had blocked their line of sight to me. It wouldn’t take them long to go around, over, or through it, but hopefully by the time they did I would be far enough away that they would have a hard time finding me. For good measure, I also tossed a simple veil over myself. The heavy rain would make maintaining a proper invisibility spell impossible, but in the middle of a dark night I didn’t exactly need a perfect spell.

Unfortunately the burst of fire I’d thrown out also added more momentum to my already dangerous speed. I would have used another burst of flames, this time directed straight forward to kill my forward momentum, but I hesitated when I saw the beach. There were houses all along the shoreline, and I didn’t want to risk frying someone’s home just to slow myself down a bit. Especially when the owners were probably sound asleep in bed and might not wake up in time to get out.

Instead, I tried to pull a couple wide, banking turns to bleed off all my momentum. Unfortunately, that’s when the luck that had been keeping me aloft finally ran out. I don’t know if it was an errant gust of wind of if I’d misjudged what angle I was at, but all of a sudden I was going into an out of control spin and plummeting towards the ground. I desperately tried to regain control, or at least make sure I didn’t hit anything that would kill me. Hopefully, the beach’s muddy sand would make for a slightly less painful landing than concrete. When I was near the ground, I quickly wrapped my ice wings around myself and braced for impact.

I quickly regretted that idea. The wings took most of the impact, but I still smacked into them. Hard.

I hadn’t fused the two wings together, so the left wing broke into a few big sheets as the right one came down on it, along with the rest of me. Cracks spiderwebbed all the way up until it buckled under me, and I half-rolled, half-flopped the rest of the way to a halt. At some point the right wing cracked as well and smacked me right in the chin—I was lucky I’d clenched my teeth, or I could have bitten my tongue off.

By the time I finally stopped, my whole body hurt. Ice fragments had cut me in a dozen different places, my shoulders ached from the impact, and worst of all, the half-healed wound along my ribs from the fight with Mome had opened back up. I groaned and tried to pull myself back up to my hooves, but my body didn’t want to do anything. Instead I just lay on the beach, gasping for breath. I knew I needed to push through the pain and keep moving because the EIS troops weren’t that far behind me, but I just couldn’t get up. All I wanted to do was just lie down and rest for a little bit. Not long, just enough time for it to stop hurting so much...

No! That was the sleeping potion getting to me again. I had to get up and keep moving, no matter how much it hurt. I slowly dug my hooves into muddy sand of the beach, hauling my weary body out of the sand. Once I got up and got moving, the pain wasn’t as bad. Or at least that’s what I told myself.

But where was I supposed to go? I was hurting way too much to get far if I tried to run for it, so I had to find somewhere to hide before the pegasus guards had eyes on me again. I guess I could’ve tried pounding on doors and begging somepony to let me in, but I didn’t like my odds of finding a random stranger who was willing to help me. Freeport isn’t exactly known for charity.

I stumbled off the beach, looking for anything that could help me get away. At least my veiling spell had survived the crash, though I could feel it starting to unravel. I wasn’t in any condition to cast it again, so I would have to rely on mundane cover. Except in my current state, I couldn’t move quickly, and I didn’t really know much about sneaking around without using spells, but I had to try.

Once I got into the streets I ducked down a narrow alley. With the rain cutting visibility, I might have a chance to shake my pursuers. Plus it would keep me from leaving behind a blood trail for anypony to follow. Once my brain was feeling a bit less scrambled from the crash, I quickly froze the top layer of blood on the worst of my wounds. Not as good as a bandage, but I didn’t have materials to make any, or the time to properly apply them. I suppose I could have tried cauterizing the injury, but I was feeling shaky enough that I didn’t want to risk overdoing it.

I staggered half a block before I spotted somepony looking out his window, admiring the view of the city on a rainy night. I knew it was probably pointless, but I was desperate. “H-help ... me...”

The stallion took one look at me, then hastily shut his window and turned out the light. Dammit. Nopony in Freeport would risk their own neck to save mine.

So there I was, soaking wet, in a ton of pain, exhausted, and with no hope of escaping from the EIS once they found me. Even with the rain cutting down visibility and hiding any signs of my trail, it wouldn’t take them long to pin me down. Once they did, I had no hope of stopping them from just grabbing me by the tail and dragging me back to Celestia.

And that’s when I saw the graveyard.