As the doorknob rattled, Lock dropped to the floor and rolled under the bed before she knew what she was doing. At two feet from frame to floor, there was just enough space for her. There were skirts around the bottom, but they were thin and didn’t reach the floor. Anypony who looked under the bed would see her immediately.

She was shaking and breathing loudly, not helped by the dust in the tight space. Lock clamped her mouth shut with a hoof, but that just made her breathe loudly through her nose. Breathe slow, breathe deep, she told herself. Breathe slow, breathe deep. She forced herself to take a long, deliberate breath through her nose. Quiet. Good. Breathe slow, breathe deep. Breathe sl-

Click. The door slid open.

Breathe slow breathe deep breathe slow breathe deep-

Somepony walked into the room. From the sleek, shiny feathering trailing their fetlocks, Lock guessed that they were a batpony. The texture of the fur didn’t look quite like that of one of the more common tribes. She strained her ears, but couldn’t hear any angry muttering.

The pony opened the wardrobe. Against her will, Lock’s breathing sped up. Metal clinked as the pony slid hangers around. It didn’t look like she was reaching to the second row back, though. After a moment, the pony tossed something on the bed. It shook the frame just enough to release a little dust from the bottom. The motes drifted lazily down and settled on Lock’s fur, on her muzzle, in her nostrils, in her eyes. Her breathing caught as a few specks of dust raced up her sinuses and she started blinking like mad in an attempt to clear her eyes. More movement. The dust was further stirred up from the wind as a pile of cloth fell to the floor. Was the pony changing clothes? Why? If dinner was done, maybe they were changing uniforms.

If dinner was done, how long was it before the sacrifice was due to happen?

Lock’s mind raced. Dinner wasn’t quite done, right? The owners of the house would spend some time chatting about whatever inane things rich ponies chatted about. This servant was just up here before dinner was done done to prepare. Couldn’t get the sacrifice’s blood on their nice uniform. Right? Lock prayed to whoever was listening that it was. More dust settled on her nose.

The pony reached down and grabbed the clothes on the floor. Lock managed to pick out a batpony’s fangs. More rustling in the wardrobe, then the batpony shut the doors. A single one of Lock’s nerves loosened; the batpony hadn’t noticed the missing gate key. Without further ado, the batpony left the room. Although she listened closely, Lock didn’t pick out the telltale rattle of a key being turned.

Lock breathed in and dust tickled her nose. She couldn’t help it; she pulled her hooves from her mouth and coughed. Which meant she inhaled more dust. Hacking, she crawled out from under the bed and shakily got to her feet. She didn’t even try to stop it and instead just hoped the batpony wouldn’t hear it. When the door didn’t open, Lock assumed it was safe to cough her lungs out.

She didn’t have much time. Dinner was almost over and ponies would be moving around the house soon. But she had the key. She just needed to get back to the library and get the unicorn out. Almost there.

Lock slowly opened the door and cautiously looked right. Nothing. She looked left. The batpony was several dozen yards away, heading down the hall at a slow, easy pace and, from the casual swishing of her tail, didn’t seem the least bit suspicious or tense. Lock ran over what she could remember of the floorplan in her head. She probably couldn’t reach the staircase before the batpony, not in these unfamiliar corridors. But maybe she could climb down the dumbwaiter shaft, at least to the third floor. It all depended on whether the top was open and what floor it was on. Okay. A plan, at least. Holding her breath, Lock crept into the hall and inched the door shut behind her. It didn’t squeak and the click it made as it closed was almost inaudible. Lock released her breath in relief.

As she did so, a bit of dust tickled her nose. Before she could hold it back, Lock sneezed.

Lock and the batpony both froze. Lock broke off first, running in the opposite direction down the hall, painfully aware of the sounds her hooves were making on the floor. She wasn’t sure whether the second set was her own echoes or the batpony following her. She scampered around a corner before she heard any response from the batpony. The hall was unfamiliar. The batpony would find her in seconds in the house. It was familiar territory to h-

In the house.

Where was the lightwell? To her- left. Lock scrambled that way. Yes! The window of the lightwell was just ahead of her. Lock bolted, opened the window, and climbed out onto the ledge. She closed the window as best she could — unfortunately, that was still a few inches open — and dropped off the ledge, hooking her hooves over it. There weren’t any ways out of that garden and nowhere to hide down there.

Earth pony strength was focused in legs, not hooves, and Lock’s fetlocks began to throb. She bit her lip to keep her focus. She listened. The clip-clop of the batpony’s hooves emanated from the open window, slowly getting louder. They stopped. A second later, the dull whulmp as the window was closed. Lock didn’t move, although her hooves started burning. She kept listening, but with the window closed, it was pointless. Was it safe? Had the batpony left? Had she noticed Lock climbing out the window in the first place? After about ten seconds, Lock wiggled a rear hoof into a crack and did a chin-up.

The batpony was walking away from the window, less than ten feet from it.

Lock quickly dropped out of sight again. So quickly her hooves slipped off the ledge. She fell. Her reflexes scrabbled at the wall whooshing past. She couldn’t get a grip on the third-story ledge; her hoof bounced off and hit her painfully on the muzzle. She barely managed to latch onto the second-story ledge; her front legs felt like they were going to get ripped from their sockets. Her rear hooves dangled in space, then she braced herself against the wall and hoisted herself up. Her foot slipped a little; one large stone popped out of its place. It fell. The grass did nothing to muffle its impact and the lightwell channeled the noise like a trumpet.

Lock froze, praying nopony would notice. She focused all her attention on listening. And high above her, she heard a window being opened.

Awkwardly standing on her rear hooves, Lock jammed herself into frame, trying to stay out of sight from above. She held her breath, but her heart was pounding so loudly, it had to be audible throughout the house. It was definitely drowning out any noise the batpony was making.

Hours ticked by, but Lock knew they were only seconds. Her lungs felt ready to burst from holding her breath. She knew the batpony couldn’t hear her, but what if what if what if. She glanced under her leg through the window. Nopony. Still struggling to keep herself in the frame, Lock delicately worked her tools out, jimmied the window open, and slid back inside.

She was found out, even if the batpony didn’t know where she was. The batpony had heard her and followed and knew somepony was in the house. Lock had maybe a minute, two if she was lucky, before the batpony alerted her masters of an intruder. Then it was only a matter of time before they went to the ritual chamber, found the unicorn missing, searched and actually found her, and then all of Lock’s work would be for nothing. And she didn’t even know where she was in relation to the library, so she had to find that before the family did. Why was she here, again?

Because you’re a decent pony who couldn’t let another die.

Son of a frigging…

Okay. Looking at the front door, the library was on the left side of the house, right? Lock thought about it a bit. Yeah, that was right. She’d gone halfway around the house at the top before she’d found the key. When she was running from the batpony, she’d turned a corner and the lightwell was on her left. So… she was on the right side- the correct side of the house. Finally, a stroke of luck. All she had to do was head outward.

Hopefully.

Lock tiptoed outward. Although she kept her ears up and swiveling, she couldn’t hear anything out of the ordinary. Not yet, anyway. Not even anypony coming down (or up) a staircase. She sighed in relief when she reached a long hallway, pulled open a door, and saw a window. She glanced left and… Wasn’t that one of the busts she’d seen first coming out of the ritual chamber? Yeah, it had that same austere look about it. Lock picked up her pace a little, approached it- Yes, she’d definitely seen this statue before. She recognized that corner. Although she took care to look before she leaped, quickly went left, then right, straight a little, and hallelujah the door she opened on her right was to the empty library!

Well, not quite empty. The unicorn was there, up at the window she’d come in from, and seemed to be telekinetically tossing stuff from a bag out of it. Lock climbed up the shelves — half-noisily, so she wouldn’t spook the unicorn — and approached her. The unicorn grunted and a… skull?… hurtled out the window. “Hey,” said the unicorn, sounding much improved.

“Hey.” Lock pointed at the bag. “What’s that?”

“It’s, uh-” The unicorn shifted her weight guiltily. “You were gone a while, and I figured, the ponies here need all this stuff in that room for… whatever, so if they don’t have it, they can’t use it, even if they’d come back and runebound me again, so I’ve, uh, been pitching it over the fence through the window.” She grinned nervously; her horn glowed and a fragment of pyrite soared to the other side of the street.

Lock blinked, then grinned. “Good thinking.” She nudged the unicorn aside and leaned out the window. It’d be an easy drop for her, but- “I’m assuming you’re not up to jumping out?” There weren’t even any second-story windows in the library. A pity.

“Uh, what?” The unicorn chuckled nervously. “No, I, I’m not jumping two stories down. Don’t you have a rope?” She looked hopefully at Lock’s bag.

“No.”

One of the unicorn’s ears went down and she tilted her head. “What kind of thief doesn’t have a rope?”

“The kind that doesn’t expect to rescue ponies.”

The unicorn snapped her mouth shut and nodded jerkily.

That was cruel.

Lock brushed the thought aside. “Listen, I know the way out from here. Kind of. And we need to move fast, because I think dinner’s done and ponies are moving through the house again.”

The unicorn’s pupils shrank and she nodded.

“Follow me.” Lock jumped down to the floor of the library. The unicorn climbed down a ladder — a bit shakily, but not slowly. Lock poked her muzzle out through the door. Left: nopony. Right: nopony. If she remembered correctly: right, around the corner, right again, and there ought to be a staircase down to the entry hall at the end of the next corridor. She gestured to the unicorn, and together they tiptoed down the hall.

But right before they turned the corner, Lock heard hoofsteps.

“Backupbackupbackup,” whispered Lock, backpedaling and shoving the unicorn as quietly as she could. The unicorn closed her mouth and stumbled back. The hoofsteps got closer.

Behind her, Lock heard a door open. “In here,” whispered the unicorn. Lock didn’t look twice and scrambled in after the unicorn, shutting the door as quickly as she could. She breathed a sigh of relief.

She turned to survey the room. A glitzy sitting room with overstuffed chairs and couches, two stories, the top floor nothing more than a balcony going all the way around the room. A spiral staircase connected the upper and lower levels about halfway across the room. Lock and the unicorn were on the second story.

And standing right in front of them, a feather duster in her mouth, was a shocked pegasus caught mid-cleaning.

Lock and the unicorn stared at the pegasus.

The pegasus stared at Lock and the unicorn.

Then the duster fell to the floor and she shrieked, “Someone’s freed the sacrifice! She’s out! Sh-”

Lock reacted instinctively, blindly lashing out with a hoof. It smashed into the pegasus’s muzzle. She took several steps back and blinked twice. Her eyes rolled back into her head and she collapsed.

Doing her best to keep her heart under control, Lock hissed at the unicorn, “Come on. We’ve got to go before-”

Unfamiliar voices echoed through the house. “Did you hear that?” “The sacrifice is escaping!” “North sitting room, now!”

“Come on.” Lock easily vaulted over the railing to the ground floor. She turned around to see the unicorn scrambling down the staircase. The second the unicorn was down, Lock took off across the room for another door. Was it her imagination, or could she hear hooves coming at them from outside?

Lock ran through the door and into a hallway, heard a yell, and kept running into the door on the opposite wall. A long dining room, big and flamboyant with one of those needlessly huge tables. Lock didn’t spare a second to look at it, but spied a door on the other side of the room. She made for it like a missile. The sound of a door slamming and some pained gasps told her the unicorn was still following her. No screams, so she wasn’t hurt. Probably.

“Where are we going?” gasped the unicorn in confusion.

“I don’t know! That way!” yelled Lock, and kept running.

She was about halfway across the room when she heard the door behind her shatter. She glanced over her shoulder. A big earth pony — a big one, half her size again — was bearing down on them. The fear gave Lock wings and she redoubled her speed towards the door. Luckily, it opened inward; Lock and the unicorn crashed through into a kitchen. The unicorn stumbled and fell against one of the island counters. Lock slammed the door shut and cast her eyes over the kitchen, looking for something to block it.

There, right next to the door: a big magically-powered icebox or fridge or whatever it was called. She could move it. Lock threw all her weight on it. No, she couldn’t move it. Another slam. Nothing. The thing was heavy. “Hey! Help me with this,” Lock grunted at the unicorn, who was still getting to her feet.

The unicorn blinked in incomprehension. “I- I don’t- What-” But then she got it. An aura surrounded the icebox and it suddenly became about a ton lighter. Lock easily slid it in front of the door. Not a second too soon; something slammed onto the other side of the door. The icebox rattled, but didn’t fall. A snarl. Wham. Wham. Wham. No effect.

Lock hung her head, gasping for air as blood screamed through her veins. “Okay,” she gasped. “I think- I know- where we are. The entry hall’s- not far- so if- we can-”

“They’re in the kitchen!” somepony yelled on the other side of the blocked door. “Get to the exit to the hall now!”

“Move!” Lock bellowed at the unicorn. She ran for the other door. She’d laid her hoof on the handle when she heard loud footsteps on the floor outside. Her mind went into overdrive. She took in the situation in a few instants. Handle: long, thin, turned. Hinges: outside, door opened outward. Not good. She whirled around, looking for- Knife block on the counter. She snatched up a knife in her teeth and plunged it into the wood below the handle, pushing it deeper with a hoof. The end was blunted, but that wasn’t going to stop an earth pony hopped up on adrenaline. Lock grabbed another knife. This one was better, much sharper and pointier.

Outside, the footsteps reached the door. The handle began turning, but it bumped into the knife. “What?” somepony said. As the handle jiggled again, Lock drove her new knife into the door above the handle. It couldn’t turn in either direction, now. Muffled curses as the handle kept rattling and the knives kept stopping it.

Whump. Another hit on the other side of the icebox. It might’ve been Lock’s imagination. But she thought she saw it move an inch.

Lock spun in place, looking desperately for a way out. The unicorn was still standing near the icebox, looking wide, small-pupiled eyes at nothing and hyperventilating. “-oh Celestia oh Celestia oh Celestia-” No help from her. Something kept digging at Lock’s unconscious, telling her she was missing something. Something impor-

The dumbwaiter. Wasn’t that supposed to be in here?

Bang bang bang. “You open up this door,” somepony shrieked from the other side of the knifed door, “or when we’re through with you, you’ll beg for death!”

Deep breath in. Deep breath out. Her heart was still racing, but Lock slowed down enough to eye the kitchen more closely. Then she spotted it: the dumbwaiter door. Down to the cellar and out through the exit she’d seen earlier. Easy. Which meant it wasn’t going to go that way, but it’d buy them a few minutes. Lock bypassed the niceties of lockpicking and simply destroyed the lock with a solid kick. Luckily, the door was thin and weak.

The unicorn was still in shock. “-oh Celestia oh Celestia oh-”

“Hey!” Lock smacked her across the chin, a bit harder than she intended. But the unicorn focused on her. “We’re going down the dumbwaiter shaft,” she whispered. She pointed at the open door. “Can you climb?”

“I-” The unicorn looked at the shaft. Her ears twitched. She nodded. “Yeah. I think so.”

Wham. The icebox rattled. It definitely budged.

“Follow me.” Lock rattled a light gem into ignition, tossed it into the shaft, and climbed in. She slid down a few feet, then waited for the unicorn to follow. Her movements were shaky and nervous, but once she’d braced herself, the unicorn didn’t fall. “It’s not that hard,” Lock whispered up. She dropped another few feet. “Just keep yo-”

Splinters, a crash. One of the doors had broken. The unicorn yelped and instinctively pulled her legs in.

And fell.

Before Lock knew what was happening, the full weight of the unicorn was on her. Her hooves slipped. Her head and body banged against the wall as she dropped down the shaft. She landed hard on the bottom, crushed between the unicorn and her bag. Where the unicorn’s body and hooves didn’t dig into her ribs, the loot in her bag did. Pain rolled up her legs, across her ribs, down her spine. She groaned.

“Oh- Oh Celestia!” gasped the unicorn. “I’m so sorouch!” She twitched, and a hoof whistled past Lock’s eye.

A colorful array of expletives jumped into Lock’s head. Why, why, why? Why had she had to react just then? If she’d just stayed calm, everything would be fine. Her stuff would still be intact, they’d be out of the shaft by now, probably halfway to the exit. Lock prepared to tell the unicorn exactly what she felt.

Be quiet. Making her feel worse is exactly what you don’t need right now.

Lock compromised by moaning, “Happens.” She blinked a few times, trying to get the stars out of her eyes. It didn’t really work. The light gem she’d dropped had been crushed beneath her and they were cloaked in darkness.

The unicorn rustled around, awkwardly trodding on Lock’s limbs. “Sorry!” she squeaked. “I’m- trying to-” She groaned in pain. “-get off you.”

Lock opened her mouth to respond.

Don’t.

Lock closed her mouth. She managed to pull in her legs and give the unicorn enough space to stand on solid ground, at least on two feet. Lock pushed herself up, and soon she was on two legs as well. Her head was still throbbing as she patted around the walls. She found the door to the wine cellar and opened it. Still dark. She and the unicorn did an awkward sort of dance to twist around each other, and soon Lock was outside the shaft and had clicked the lights on.

The unicorn climbed out of the dumbwaiter, her breathing finally slowing, and Lock wanted nothing more than to collapse on the floor, curl up into a ball, and sleep. She ached all over, her heart was racing faster than it had ever been, and she could almost feel herself shutting down.

“I think they went down the dumbwaiter! Somepony check the cellar!”

But that wasn’t really an option.

Lock peered inside the frame of the dumbwaiter door. Right next to the lock was a small gem, winking at her. She glanced at the door; a similar gem glistened on the bolt. She recognized them as a way of making sure the dumbwaiter couldn’t move if the door was open. Lock brought her hoof down, shattering the gem on the door. No one was riding the car down anytime soon.

She reached into her bag and cringed at the jewel dust in there. All of her light gems and the crystals from the ritual chamber had been shattered in the fall. She tentatively pulled out the largest chunk she could find. The tiny shard glowed fitfully; Lock tossed it aside in disgust. She rolled her twinging shoulder. She wasn’t going to do much climbing after that fall. She doubted she could even climb up the shelves in here for her shortcut.

The unicorn was panting, leaning against a shelf, and shakily mumbling a constant stream of obscenities. Lock laid a hoof on her shoulder. “Almost there,” she said.

“Uh-huh,” mumbled the unicorn. “Sure.”

“Really. Over in that corner-” Lock pointed. “-there’s an exit to the outside. We get there and run to the gate, screaming bloody murder.” Why the frig didn’t I unlock it first?

The unicorn’s breathing slowed and she ran a hoof through her mane. She took a deep breath and lifted her head. “Right,” she said, her voice steadier. “So-”

The door on the far side of the cellar banged open. “I know you’re in here!” somepony yelled.

“Down!” hissed Lock as she and the unicorn both hit the floor. “Follow me.” The two of them began crawling along the ground toward the outside exit.

“Look, you’re not getting out of here. Make it easy for yourselves and surrender.”

They came to a shelf that intersected with the wall. Lock reluctantly turned inward, towards the rest of the cellar. After a too-long aisle, a T-junction of shelves loomed before her. Lock tried to angle closer toward the exit, but another shelf prevented her from just doing a 180 around the one that had blocked them in the first place. Were these ponies just so crazy they even needed to make the wine deliverymares feel helpless and dependent on them?

“Last chance. Just shout if you want to give yourselves up.”

A four-way intersection. Lock decided to go straight. Her spirits were rising. This wasn’t so bad. Yet. And how fast could the pony search the cellar, anyway? It was just as much a maze for her as for the two of them.

“Fine. Have it your way.” Whump.

Lock twitched; why’d she have to tempt fate? “Hold on,” she whispered to the unicorn. She peered through a gap between barrels. The door to the hallway had been shut. A batpony — maybe even the same one she’d seen up above — was on the top of the steps, strapped into a repeating crossbow harness and fumbling with something on the wall.

Then every single light gem in the cellar winked out.