The way Twilight’s hoofsteps echoed over themselves, she could have sworn her spirit was dancing.

The music came from a party a few blocks away, or the bars, or everywhere. It wandered aimlessly through the streets, trailing Twilight and Caramel but never quite confronting them. Distance twisted it, augmented and diminished it. All sharps and flats and no melody. This kind of music belonged in a dance hall ten years ago. They were just now hearing the echo.

Twilight tried to step with the music for a bit, but failed. The echo threw her out of time. Her shadow danced all out of proportion, like the drunken shadow of Fred Astaire.

“You like jazz?” Caramel asked.

“Yes, I guess,” Twilight said. “Got us through the war.”

“Got some fond memories of dancing.”

“Me too.”

The tune ended abruptly. The band must have packed up and gone home.

The allure of the empty stage was too much. Silence gave way to the muffled sound of somepony vomiting. The sound hit like a splash cymbal stinger square across Twilight’s face. She scrunched up her nose and pretended to smell it. “Somepony has to clean all that up.”

“I always thought puke was biodegradable. Like how shit can be fertilizer.”

“It’s still important to keep the town clean. Ponies will use that alley during the day. It’s gross.”

“Do ponies get cutie marks for public maintenance? Cleaning up puke?” He chuckled and listened again for the sound of retching. He knew just when to let silence do the talking.

The lull of these early morning hours made Twilight feel important, like the night was waiting patiently for her to speak. The perfect quiet, the diminuendo before the crescendo. The trained conversationalist.

She stopped in the middle of the street.

“What’s up?” asked Caramel.

“It’s so quiet,” she breathed.

“All the sensible ponies are in bed. It’s just us and the partiers now.”

“Shh.”

“Sorry, sorry.”

When Twilight closed her eyes, not even the evenly-placed streetlamps could interrupt her. The night was hers. The stars gazed into her, waiting their turn to speak. The dark spaces in between sucked her in. Caramel kicked a rock. It skittered onto the sidewalk and stopped.

Take it in, she thought. This will be the last moment of silence.

“All the sensible ponies are in bed,” she echoed. Left, right left right--march two three four spin two three four Caramel at her side four one two three four--V7 in the distance, the start to another five hours of swing. “That makes us partiers?”

Caramel smiled. “I suppose so.”

They passed a few ponies as they went along, smiling and bleary, and a few of the latter, smiling and bleary in an entirely different context. Two patrols, one Equestrian and one Crystallite, marched past them. Towards the town square.

“Are you a partier?” Twilight asked.

“Not really. It’s fun, but my genes gave me a bum liver and a trend towards addiction.”

“I completely understand.”

“Do you now?”

“Diplomats avoid drinking socially as a rule of hoof. Less holes for the news to exploit. I’m expected to drink as a part of certain cultural rituals, though.”

“That sounds like a good time,” Caramel replied with a broad, knowing smile. “Tell me about that.”

“Okay, well--for example, in the Griffonian province of Provintsiya it’s customary for visiting diplomats from a victorious country to drink the host under the table. It’s got something to do with demonstrating dominance. The host is a four hundred pound butterball of a local warlord, and his wings are as ceremonial to his griffonhood as his medals are to his heroism during the war.” Caramel snorted as Twilight added, “Griffon mead tastes, oh goodness, it tastes awful, lemme tell you!”

“Did you beat him?”

“Absolutely not. Gave up after the fourteenth mug. The warlord was used to being denied the rite because of his body, so he shrugged off my failure and ceremonially fell to the floor and vomited. The rest of the visit went well. Also, every New Year’s Eve the princesses have a ceremonial champagne toast.”

The moonlight glanced off Caramel’s smiling eyes. “I don’t think I’ve ever tried griffon mead before.”

“You don’t want to.”

“I don’t agree with that at all. We could be in Griffonia tomorrow if we took the high-speed trains.”

Twilight hesitated and buried her head into the flared collar of her army jacket. “There won’t be a ‘we’ soon, so it’s best to not think about it.”

“Right,” he nodded once to her and once to the alleyway. “Right, sorry.”

Twilight winced. The music picked up again--more jazz!--but the sounds of the tavern drowned it out. The conflicting rhythms made it hard to think.

In a faraway voice, Caramel started to hum in time with the music. “You’ll have to remind me where the door is.”

They turned a corner. No longer hidden by the rows of tall houses, Twilight’s castle towered like a pillar of light falling right from the moon itself.

“Around back. It’ll take us through the kitchen. We can grab some cereal or something.”

Twilight smiled as she opened the door and wiped her hooves on the little welcome mat. The hallway didn’t seem so long sometimes. On nights like this it felt cozy.

“Your dragon pal--is he awake?” Caramel asked as they walked.

“He’s never up past midnight. What kind of cereal do you like?”

When they reached the kitchen, Twilight wasted no time raiding the pantry. As she tore through the cupboards, Caramel set his billfold and keys on the counter. Boxes of cereal and a carton of milk floated behind her as she made her way through the tall corridors towards the basement. Caramel stayed a few paces behind and pushed the trailing bowls along. “Sure is a big place.”

“It’s a palace,” Twilight replied.

“Don’t you ever get lost?”

“I live here,” she laughed.

They walked on in silence until they reached a large blast door carved into the crystal. “This is it?” Caramel asked.

“Yeah. Listen, before we get down there and lose track of things, I just wanted to say thank you for doing this.”

“No problem at all,” Caramel nodded. “If this is our last one, we better do it right. We can’t stumble with the finish line in sight.”

“Yeah,” Twilight said slowly. “Couldn’t agree more.” She motioned towards the blast door. “If you wouldn’t mind helping with this.”

“Why’d you put this thing here?” Caramel grunted as he lifted the central lever.

Twilight twisted a dial, and the door swung open with a hiss. She stared down into the darkness. “Just in case,” she said.

It only took a few stairs for smooth crystal to end and hard concrete to begin. The cereal floated ahead of them now, the glow from Twilight’s telekinesis throwing thin light up the walls. At the bottom of the stairs, a set of fluorescent lights flickered on. Twilight shivered. The sun was somewhere far away from here.

“We won’t be in the lab proper,” Twilight informed him, “but we can take up the conference room.”

“This place has a conference room?”

Twilight nodded. “It’s not a big one.” She pushed a few buttons on a keypad next to the door. Tritones and green lights played across the pad. The door slid open, revealing another pair of doors. As Caramel stepped through the doorway, he noticed it was nearly as thick as the first one.

“What do you do down here?” he asked.

“During the war we tested chemical agents down here. Now it depends on the season. This month I’m analyzing rocks from my friend’s old rock farm. They soaked up so much radiation over the past decade that they started to glow.”

“I didn’t know rocks could do that.”

“That’s why we’re analyzing them.” Twilight paused, her hoof on the right door’s handle. “But we’re here to make a plan.” A box of cereal tapped Caramel on the back of his head as it floated past him. He took one last look around before following it inside.

They sat down on opposite side of a long wood table. To their right was a large whiteboard. To their left were five empty chairs on each side. The whole room was cool and quiet. Undisturbed. The brightly-colored cereal poured itself into a pair of bowls and settled down on the other side of the table.

Twilight grabbed hers without hesitation. “Study fuel,” she said with a smile.

Caramel stared at his bowl for a moment, then leaned back in his chair. The fluorescents above him felt oppressive. How far beneath the earth were they? A few meters? Twenty? Thirty? The walls felt like they had been here forever, white painted bedrock sitting dormant for millions of years until they had come along and set up shop.

Twilight noticed Caramel hadn’t touched his cereal. “Did you want a different kind?” she asked. “If you’d prefer skim milk, there’s some upstairs.”

All of a sudden the table intrigued him. The light on the lacquer veins of dark wood beneath it led his eyes to the other side of the room, then back to Twilight. “Remember back to when we first agreed to this partnership,” he said, “back at the Acres. What was the number I gave you? The number of bits we’d make? It was, forty thousand, right?”

“Yeah, twenty apice.”

Caramel nodded slowly, as if he were about to fall asleep. “Well, I was wrong. We’re probably gonna skate by with closer to thirteen.” The lights flickered once and started to drone. Caramel realized he could hear Twilight’s breathing from across the table. “I’m sorry.”

“Thirteen...” Twilight tapped her hoof against the table. “Well, thirteen just won’t cut it. Rarity needs every penny of that twenty thousand, and even then it still might not be enough.” Her brow furrowed, and she looked around for something to write with.

“Look, I can see you’re mad--”

“I’m not mad. I’m focusing.” She conjured a pencil and paper and starting scribbling calculations. “Thirteen’s just not going to cut it. We have to find another way.”

“Look, I’ve thought about this harder than you have. I’m telling you, there’s no other way.”

“What do you mean? We just have to find some other place to rob.” She looked up from her papers. “What, we can’t just find more banks to rob?”

“That’s not the problem. You’re a smart mare, Twilight. Think about it from a statistical point of view. The more jobs we pull, the more resources the government is gonna throw at us. So we gotta balance how many jobs we do. The lower that number, the better. But we still gotta hit our money goals, so we gotta look at what kinds of jobs we’re doing. A few isolated robberies with large payoffs would be a happy medium, except the larger the payoff the more dangerous it’ll usually be. So we gotta think about safety, too. You can’t spend money if you’re dead.”

A strange smile flitted across Twilight’s face. “You’re smarter than you look.”

“I’m not smart, I’m just good at what I do. Now up until now we’ve been keeping to the safe zone. Smaller jobs, smaller payoff, less danger. Tonight we gotta decide whether or not to leave.”

Twilight squinted into the lights. Soon enough she would turn them off again. Caramel would walk out the back door and never come back. The jobs would end. The fear and exhilaration she shared with Caramel would fade into the mess of her mind like an unsettling dream. She would wake up the next morning and forget the detail, one by one, until there was nothing left. The spin would stop. The dance would end. The hall would empty, and Twilight would be left alone again, with nothing to do but listen to the echo.

Unless.

She leveled her eyes at Caramel. “What if I knew of a perfect heist?”

“Well,” he started, “first you’d have to explain what exactly a perfect heist is.”

“What if there was a single job with a large payoff?” Twilight’s eyes glowed. Some payoff indeed.

“Odds are it’ll be too dangerous. We’re smart, Twilight, but we’re not good.”

“We don’t have to be good if we’re smart,” she said. “I think I know of a job. You might not like it, but it’s not any worse than the jobs we’ve already pulled. The only difference is that I already know every last detail about it.”

Caramel leaned across the table. “How’s that?”

“Because I approved it. I oversaw it. I constructed it.” Her eyes were wide now, her chest rising and falling with hot breaths. “Everything about this job has already been designed, built, and installed by my signature.”

Caramel cast a glance out the doorway, partly to make sure the castle’s other tenant wasn’t lingering on the stairs and partly to avoid the unsettling energy in Twilight’s eyes. “

“We’re gonna steal the crystal heart.”

The chairs squeaked. The lights buzzed. The faces on the cereal boxes smiled from the other side of the table. Twilight looked around the room. Where had the earth gone? She sat in a hole beneath the earth and plotted. Where had it all gone? The earth was cosmically tied to the burning sun, but down here night and day ceased to exist. Had the sun already risen?

“The heart’s victory tour will bring it through Ponyville in a few days’ time--”

“I know that,” he said.

“Then you also must know that I’m in charge of the event. I have intimate knowledge of every detail that could make or break a potential burglary.” She paused. “I also know that if the heart gets away, that’s my horn on the chopping block. I’m not here to ruin my career or start another war.”

“I tried war. Not interested in another one. Money is all I need.”

“Good. I think I have a plan, and I think it’s a good one. If we can pull this off, the Crystal Empire will have the heart, you’ll have the honor of being the stallion who saved it from the griffon thieves who tried to take it, and we’ll have five million bits.”

“Five million?”

“Five million bits, each. It’s not impossible. It just requires great minds and good timing and a plan. You’re impulsive, Caramel, and normally that works for you, but we can’t afford to wing this. I also can’t afford to do this without you.”

“What are you getting out of this?” Caramel asked. “Believe me, I’m all for it. Good for you for taking the initiative. But why?”

The lights and their buzzing--Twilight couldn’t stand it. She put her head on the desk. Her forehead burned against the cool wood. “We shouldn’t have given the tavern so much business. Give me a minute?”

Caramel stood up and walked around the table. “I think I do want some cereal after all.” He poured his bowl back into the box and ripped open another with his teeth before returning to his seat.

He took a bite and shook his head. “That’s good.” He waved his spoon at the slumped figure across from him. “That’s real good.”

Upstairs, Spike woke up.

He lifted his head from his drawing table and rubbed his eyes. Dragoon the Dragon stared back from the page, his arms raised above his head, sword ready to crash down on the wealth of empty page beneath him. Spike smiled and added a premonition of a ninja beneath his hero before setting the pen down again.

With a stretch and a groan he slipped out of his seat and headed down the hallway. Back in the old library the floor would have squeaked with every step. Now the walls were wider and the ceiling was higher, but he hardly made a sound.

On a whim he wandered past his bedroom and down the stairs. He went from corridor to corridor, opening doors at random, looking for a mess to clean up. Tonight there was nothing, so he made for the kitchen, recalling the smell of leftover smoked salmon. It smelled just as good in his imagination as it did when he cracked open the tupperware container and put it in the microwave.

After a minute of watching the fish spin on the turntable, he leaned his arms against the countertop and let his head droop between them. This was his favorite time of the day. In the dark and quiet, the castle truly felt like a castle.

The microwave beeped a single high note. Spike turned with a ravenous look in his eye and juggled the hot container to his seat. Just as he was about to take his first bite he noticed a billfold and a ring of keys sitting on the opposite side of the countertop.

Without looking away from it, he took a bite of the salmon. It would have tasted better if he hadn’t noticed. He took a few more cautious bites before curiosity got the better of him.

The keys were just keys, but the billfold looked packed. Spike glanced down each corridor leading to the kitchen before opening the billfold. right away he noticed bank statements where the bits should have been, all dated recently, all large deposits, all to some Zebrican bank whose name Spike couldn’t pronounce. In the front pockets were the business cards of shoe tanners and orange farmers and fashion designers and lots and lots of Apples. On the other side was a flap concealing a government ID card and an ultra-thin folding knife. Spike looked down each hallway again and wondered whether there was an Apple roaming the castle somewhere.

He finished the rest of the salmon, though his appetite left him hoping for something larger. The walk back to his bedroom took him past the basement blast door, which he noticed was open. He peeked down the staircase at the second blast door. It looked like a natural extension of the concrete, a white mass of stone sitting dormant for millions of years, unseen by sentient eyes until he came along.

He shrugged and went back upstairs. Dragoon needed more ninjas to kill.

Behind the blast walls, Twilight lifted her head and looked towards the door. Caramel stared at her expectantly from across the table, smacking his lips and sipping the last of the milk from his bowl.

“Sure you’re not gonna throw up?” he asked.

“Mm’good.” When she went down beneath the earth the spin seemed to subside. After all these years she realized she was used to it. Dependent on it. “I’m okay.”

“Y’know, if you wanna wait until you feel better--”

“No!” She bolted upright like a rifle being charged. “We have to plan this tonight.” Caramel kept his eyes on her as she moved to the whiteboard and uncapped all the markers at once. “We’ll have to line up a buyer as soon as possible. You’ll need to make some calls. You have contacts, I’m sure. Lead with something like, I’m Caramel Apple and my rate projection is set astronomically high!”

“Rate projection?”

“Let’s look at the larger picture. If we steal it, then we have supreme control over who it gets sold to and where it goes up until we physically give it up.” She jotted down a few large port cities on the east coast. “If you have contacts on the coasts, or up north close to the griffon border, we could scout for the best opportunities. We’ll have to make sure we find a group or individual who is competent enough to get it across the border, but not strong enough to keep hold of it when we bring the Crystallites down on him.”

“The Crystallites?”

“Yeah. We have to make sure whoever we give it to won’t have the connections to make the heart disappear quick enough.”

Caramel smacked his lips again. “I don’t think I understand where this plan is going, exactly.”

“Here, let me make a timeline!” Twilight kicked the whiteboard. It flipped around an unseen hinge built into the wall, exposing a second clean side. “We’ll take the heart, and then deliver it about ten hours later to whoever we decide to sell it to. That’ll give the militaries of the Crystal Empire and Equestria enough time to mobilize, though they’ll still be more or less in a state of disarray by the ten-hour mark. We can make the drop around that ten-hour mark, and then as soon as we’re back here in Ponyville we’ll anonymously inform the EQUIS about the heart’s whereabouts. That’ll be fifteen to twenty hours after we steal the heart, depending on where we have to go to, whether we can use high-speed rail lines or teleportation pads or something else--transportation is a semantic at this stage.” She beamed and kicked the whiteboard again. “Just like I said earlier, the buyer can’t be too powerful that they can make the heart disappear in five to ten hours. We’ll be in back in Ponyville with all the money by the time the weight of our militaries come down on the culprits. We’ll be breaking up a crime ring and saving Rarity all in one swoop!” She threw the markers back into their tray and turned around. “So, do you have a buyer in mind?”

Caramel chuckled slowly, mirthlessly. He stared at the whiteboard like a radio box broadcasting a declaration of war. “You wanna rat on our buyer?”

“Yes,” she said plainly, “that would be the most effective solution.”

“You know they’ll kill em. If we rat, the Crystallites are gonna bring their stony butts down on them, and no one survives.”

“I have faith that the military of the Crystal Empire will handle the information we give them in an appropriate way.”

“It’s one thing to sell the heart away and wash our hooves. If we pave the way for those Crystallites, if someone finds out--nopony in the business will ever trust me again.”

“With five million bits, will you really need all those connections?”

His hoof tapped a stilted two-beat against the tile. This was earth-shattering, yet the earth didn’t budge. It had swallowed him up long ago. “I think I know a few griffons who fit our bill. Why don’t we make a list and narrow it down?”

Twilight beamed. Two more markers floated towards the whiteboard. Caramel turned in his chair to stand up and bumped his leg against something underneath the desk. A small black bag covered with cracked strips of tape fell to the floor.

The air shook like they were inside a giant drum. Caramel fell backwards into a pool of sparks. Twilight stood on top of the desk, her horn on fire, eyes trained on the blast doors. Caramel shot to his hooves and lashed at his back, where bright red sparks dug into his back. “Gods!” he cursed, but he couldn’t hear it over the ringing.

“It’s okay!” Twilight shouted after a few seconds. The sparks sputtered out on the floor, leaving a trail of black marks leading back to the mouth of the bag. Overtones from the blast rang in their ears. “Everything’s okay! Everything is just fine.”

Flat ninths. Overtones. More cursing. Caramel squinted and nudged the bag with his hind leg. “What in the starless hells is in that bag?”

“The bag?” Twilight couldn’t help herself. She let out a laugh, all sharps and flats and no melody. She hopped off the table as Caramel picked it up, still smoldering. “I forgot that was still here. Caramel, I’m so sorry--” she stifled another laugh, “I’m really sorry.”

“What are these things?”

Twilight took the bag and emptied its contents onto the table. “These are old defense charms. They’re like grenades you prime with magic instead of pulling a pin.”

“How come it went off, then?”

“They’re old things. The magical bonds decay over time. Are you familiar with exponential decay?” She turned the bag over in her hooves. “The tape must be just as old. Gosh, I haven’t put any new charms down here since before the war ended.”

“Yeah.” Caramel put his head in his hooves and chuckled. In a few seconds they were both laughing hysterically. “I don’t suppose--I don’t suppose you have a bottle of whiskey taped under there too, do ya?” he teased. “Gods in heaven, we need some more of that! Twilight, Twilight, listen--we can’t do this without having another drink. There has to be some godly liquor in this castle. Whiskey, bourbon, vodka, gods above, warm beer! Twilight!”

“Another?” she wailed, clearly enjoying herself. “I can’t handle another!” As she spoke, her horn glowed, and a bottle of aged whiskey bottled before either of them were born appeared on the table, along with bitters, cherries, and iced glasses. “I just can’t!”

As they plotted, Twilight’s mind drifted back to the bag of charms. She imagined them in the dark, forgotten. Waiting.

The whiskey was done in an hour. So was the cereal. So were they.

As Twilight sealed the blast door and followed Caramel up the stairs, it dawned on her that she had forgotten the charms down there. In her state the earth seemed to pull her straight down through the concrete and into the earth beneath. She shrugged the feeling off and focused on getting up the stairs.

Together, she and Caramel retraced their steps through the castle, down the long corridors to the kitchen, where she threw all the empty boxes and bottles in the trash can. Caramel made a face as he picked up his keys and billfold. “Smells like meat,” he said.

“Must be the salmon in the fridge.”

“I didn’t eat any salmon. Did you?”

She smiled a strange, enigmatic way. “No.”

“I don’t want to think about it.” He pointed down the hallway. “Shall we?”

He left with a nod and a smile. The moon hung low in the sky behind him. The shadow he cast down the hallway was long and wide, but it disappeared as soon as Twilight closed the door behind him. She thought she heard retching noises coming from beyond the wall, but she couldn’t be sure. Now that she was alone she felt the weight of the entire castle hanging above her head. She almost heard it speak, though she was too drunk to hear.

Spike was waiting for her in the kitchen. He nodded down the hallway and asked, “Who was that guy?”

Twilight took a few deep breaths and poured herself a tall glass of water. “Government worker. He’s going to be assisting the, the transference of government funds for a new project.” She downed the whole thing in one gulp and smiled too brightly for the early hour.

“Are you alright? I know this government stuff is secret, so don’t tell me what you don’t have to tell me, but you look like you’re about to pass out.”

“Don’t be worried. I’ll be fine.”

“Is this because of the crystal heart? I know its visit is stressing you out. Is it okay?”

“Of course, Spike. It’s fine.” Twilight wondered if there would be a gun battle when she stole it. It would be a pretty lopsided one, but a possibility. “It’s just fine.”

“You’re worrying me, Twilight. I thought we made a promise not to seal the blast doors without telling me first.”

Gods, she did say that. Years and years ago. Why had he never brought it up until now? Hundreds of tons of crystal, all hanging above her head. “Spike, please. I’m sorry, you’re right, but tonight has been very taxing.” Twilight wondered if she would be allowed to use her magic if she got in a gun battle. Were there rules to gunfights?

“You really freaked me out, that’s all,” Spike mumbled.

“I’m sorry. I promise I won’t do it again.”

“Are you the one who's been robbing the banks?” he wanted to say.

Twilight stared into the vast and endless crystal silence and chugged another glass of water.

“That guy had something to do with the Crystal Heart, doesn’t he,” Spike went on. “I can feel it. I’m connected to it like the Crystalites are, ever since I saved it.” He waddled up to Twilight and grabbed her hoof. “You have to protect it, Twilight. It’s so important to the world. You have to protect it.”

Deep down, Twilight knew he was only trying to get through to her. The way his eyes sparkled with dragonfire--he burned with compassion.

She knew if it all fell down and crushed her, he would sink too. Now he was an accomplice by conviction. No matter what happened, no matter what she did, no matter where the dance took her, he would suffer. He would suffer and burn. He would stir the ashes and fill her urn and wonder if he could have done something to stop it.

“I love you,” she squeaked, and marched away.

As she collapsed into her bed, her mind turned to the aged whiskey in her belly, in her veins, in her brain. She imagined the bottle sitting in a cellar somewhere, aging. Waiting.

The spin crept up on her, until she could have sworn her spirit was dancing.