A lot of things had changed since my trip up to Northmarch. Some of those changes were good, some of them bad, and others were just ... complicated. However, the one I was dealing with right now was good and endearing, but also just a tiny bit annoying.

It’s not that I didn’t like Kukri bringing her friends to my tower. Sunny Flare and Indigo Zap were nice enough kids. It was kind of flattering that she wanted to show me off to her friends, and I had encouraged her to have a bit of a social life. It probably wouldn’t hurt me to build more connections either. Sunny was the daughter of a high ranker in the Free Companions, and Indigo’s parents owned a big book importing business.

Even if the clans were my best friends among Freeport’s mercenaries, they’d always been more of a quality over quantity organization. The Free Companions were one of the biggest merc groups in Freeport. Maybe the biggest one, though it was hard to say for sure when mercenaries had a lot of turnover. Regardless, the Companions were one of the biggest companies because they’d take anyone who fit in with the group. Most other merc groups were a lot pickier; the only way an outsider could join one of the clans was by marrying in or adoption, and a lot of other merc groups were similarly picky about only taking people from the right background. It was all about preserving their identity.

Maybe that was the big advantage the Free Companions had: since they’d started out as a ragtag group of adventurers, their identity had always been about taking anyone with the right skills and personality. Well, they were also a bit picky about criminal records, but that was probably for the best. Anyone with a long and ugly criminal record would probably end up causing problems or damaging their reputation.

When it came to Indigo’s parents, the advantages were a lot more obvious. I might not be as fond of sticking my nose in dusty old tomes as a lot of magi, but I still did a fair bit of research in obscure old books. Having a connection with a book dealer could be very useful. In the past, Puzzle had been pretty good about helping me with any books I’d needed, but his organization had taken a big hit. Developing some of my own contacts was just common sense.

Still, there was a big downside to all these very sensible arrangements and connections: it meant having three curious and over-excited teenagers in my tower. Kukri usually wasn’t too bad, especially since she’d spent enough time here to have gotten used to it all. Two more teenagers who’d never been here before made things a bit more hectic, especially since the three of them inevitably started winding each other up. Kukri could get excitable enough without two other girls encouraging her.

Once she’d finished giving the girls a tour of all the tower, or at least the parts I was comfortable letting her friends see, the questions started. Indigo opened it up. “Is it really true that you’re bonded to Chainbreaker?”

At least they were starting with something simple. “Yes, it’s true.”

“And can Chainbreaker’s wielder really call up the sword from anywhere?” Sunny asked.

“Also true.” Celestia and I hadn’t found any limits when we’d tested the sword, but we didn’t get too crazy with our tests on the priceless historical treasure. I couldn’t rule out the possibility that we’d missed something or just didn’t know about it. Maybe Ushabti or Torch knew more, but I hadn’t seen any trace of either of them since that one weird vision. Considering I apparently knew some of Torch’s spells now, I had a sneaking suspicion I might’ve consumed whatever traces of their spirits remained tied to Chainbreaker when I’d become ... whatever I was now. Not an alicorn, but certainly more than just a unicorn, considering I had access to pegasus and earth pony magic.

I realized all three of them were looking up at me expectantly. It wasn’t hard to guess why. “No, I can’t call the sword up right now. People get really upset when it randomly vanishes from the museum with no warning.”

The Council had been grumpy enough about me calling the sword when I was dealing with a rogue Equestrian Archmagus and an infamous warlock. Though that probably had more to do with the fact that the rogue archmagus was my father, and the warlock my godmother. I liked to think I hadn’t let my personal baggage cloud my judgement too badly, but I’d be lying to myself if I said it hadn’t been a factor.

Not to mention that as far as I’d been able to tell, the sword needed to spend time in the museum for reasons beyond keeping the public happy. Or maybe it would be more accurate to say that public sentiment was a bit more complicated than just happy feelings. Going by the historical accounts, Chainbreaker hadn’t had quite as many powers back when Torch wielded it, and all those new powers seemed to be themed around freedom in some way. Those changes happened while the sword was sitting untouched in a museum, practically an object of veneration.

Did centuries of everyone in Freeport believing things about the sword change what it was? I wasn’t sure, and until I knew more about it, I didn’t want to risk rocking the boat. Even if I usually preferred spells to swords, it was hard to deny that Chainbreaker was incredibly useful. Not to mention how bad it would look if I somehow broke the priceless historical treasure and symbol of freedom.

Indigo had another question ready for me. “So I heard the Council promoted you to Archmagus. Is that true?”

“I promoted myself,” I corrected. “The Council just acknowledged it.” It might seem like a petty distinction, but it was actually really important. My authority as an Archmagus didn’t come from the Council, or from Equestria for that matter. Which meant neither of them could take that rank away from me.

The distinction certainly hadn’t been lost on the Council. They’d gone along with the promotion, but I suspect that was mostly just because they couldn’t find a graceful way to say no. Things had been tense ever since I came back from Northmarch with Chainbreaker, but the Council didn’t seem to be eager to push it to open conflict. I didn’t want to start a fight with the Council either. The battle with Blackfyre was enough war to last me a lifetime.

That didn’t mean I would bend over backwards or ignore injustice to stay on their good side, just that I wasn’t looking for a fight. Now I just had to hope one wouldn’t find me anyway.

Sunny frowned at me. “Are you allowed to just promote yourself like that?”

I shrugged. “According to the Council, Equestrian Magi, and Princess Celestia ... yes. All of them agreed with my new rank, so in the eyes of the world it’s legitimate.”

“Cool.” Indigo’s eyes darted around my tower. “Lotta books here. Don’t suppose I could come read some of ‘em when you’re not using them? I promise I’ll be really careful with them.”

I took a moment to think it over. “You can read anything from the training section I set up for Kukri, but no taking books out of the tower.”

“That’s fair,” Indigo agreed. “S’not like you’re living in a public library.”

“Do you have any books on Umbramancy?” Sunny asked.

I briefly considered pointing out that the correct name for it was Erebomancy, but nobody really cared about the intricacies of Old Unicornian dialects. I knew what she meant when she called it Umbramancy, even if it was a bit of a linguistic mish-mash. “I think I might have something on it, but it’s not a topic I’ve really studied in depth.” Though most of my current studies involved books I didn’t want the girls having access too. Death magic and golemancy weren’t things kids should mess around with.

“Oh yeah, just remembered!” Indigo cut in. “Kukri said you had some sort of cute little weird walking thing. She couldn’t really describe it, so I kinda wanted to see it for myself.”

Oh, so Kukri’d been talking about my test golem? Looks like I’d need to have a talk with her about secrecy. Considering I’d told the Council I’d destroyed all of Metal Mome’s golem tech, I really didn’t need it getting out that I was doing anything golem-related. Not to mention that particular golem was a testbed for new artificial legs, and I was trying to keep the fact that I had a prosthetic relatively quiet. The Council had almost certainly heard about me losing the leg in Northmarch, but I liked to keep them guessing about how I was walking on four legs now.

After that the girls had dozens more questions, most of them about relatively mundane things. I answered everything from explaining that my tower wasn’t actually made out of solid obsidian but just had an outside layer of it for looks to several pointless questions about whether I had or wanted to have a boyfriend or girlfriend and what qualities I wanted in said hypothetical partner if I did have one. I really never understood why teenagers were so obsessed with that particular topic.

Then again, when I was that age I’d been busy studying with Celestia, and afterwards there’d been far too many other things going on. It just ... never really mattered.

I mean, I guess it would’ve been nice to have someone else around. After telling Kukri she needed to spend more time with kids her own age, it was hard to miss that I didn’t really have any friends my own age. Strumming wasn’t that much older than me but there was still a bit of an age gap, and Puzzle was older than her. Though any sort of friendship was a lot more complicated now that I had enough rank, status, and money to really encourage people to try and cozy up to me in the hopes of getting something out of it.

Eventually the small talk died down. I was about to ask them if they wanted to go home when Sunny said something I hadn’t been expecting. “Um, actually, there is one other thing I kind of wanted to talk to you about. It’s ... kinda private though.”

Oh. Well that sounded like a lot of trouble I might not want to get involved with. I swear, if she wanted to have some kind of awkward unicorn puberty talk with me I would send her back to her parents so fast...

Despite my concerns, I took her to my office and shut the door behind us. Kukri could keep an eye on Indigo long enough for me to handle ... whatever this was. “What’s going on, Sunny?” It probably wasn’t anything as crazy as I was worried about. She’d just met me.

Sunny took a deep breath and slowly settled into one of my chairs. “It’s ... I know you don’t really do freelance work for hire stuff anymore, but I was hoping you could help me with something. There’s this other girl I know, Sour Sweet. I haven’t seen her around for a while, and I’m kinda worried about her...”

“Oh.” Well that was a lot less awkward and a lot more serious than I’d been expecting. Still, it would be smart to rule out the obvious solutions. “Have you tried going to her house and asking her parents?”

Sunny shook her head. “She’s an orphan. When I went by her place all her stuff had been thrown out on the street for not paying rent, and nobody’s seen her for a while.” She grimaced and shook her head. “Though it’s hard to say for sure that nobody saw anything. She lives in Sandy Shores, and most of the people there have a lot of selective blindness and deafness when trouble starts. If one of the gangs went after her or something...”

I grimaced and nodded. Sandy Shores was one of Freeport’s rougher neighborhoods, and most of the locals preferred to keep their heads down and not to get involved whenever trouble started. Not many of the locals would risk sticking their necks out and making dangerous enemies for the sake of an orphan.

However, just because the locals had abandoned her didn’t mean I would. One of the advantages of being independently wealthy thanks to my share of Blackfyre’s hoard, I could afford to sink time and resources into personal projects. I couldn’t just sit back and do nothing now that I knew there was a kid no older than Kukri in trouble.

I pulled out a notebook and got a quill ready. “Tell me everything.”

Once I had all the information I could get from Sunny, the next logical step was to bring in Puzzle and Strumming. I could’ve done some magical searching for Sour Sweet if I had anything to use as the base of a tracking spell, but Sunny didn’t have any blood samples or hair clippings. I’d honestly have been very worried about Kukri’s new friend if she did have any of that, especially since samples for tracking spells needed to be fresh to be any good. Though since Sour Sweet was a changeling, a hair sample wouldn’t work anyway. I suspect that was a design feature on Chrysalis’s part: if tracking spells were easy to cast on changelings, it would be easier to uncover them.

With magical tracking out of the picture, we’d have to go with old-fashioned investigation work. Good thing I had Puzzle and Strumming as friends.

The three of us met up at one of Freeport’s pizza places. I was a bit surprised Puzzle picked somewhere a bit less classy than usual, but one look at the menu confirmed that Strumming probably picked it. Apparently the owners of this restaurant believed in the old student wisdom that you could put anything on pizza and it would be good—though judging by how packed the place was, maybe they were right.

It didn’t take long to spot Puzzle occupying one of the few open tables, and judging by the look on his face as he read over the menu, he regretted letting Strumming pick where we ate. I flopped down in one of the open seats next to him. “Please tell me the menu has things that anyone other than Strumming would consider edible.”

Puzzle shrugged. “The amount of business they do would seem to indicate so. And even if the selection is a bit odd, there’s nothing wrong with trying something new.”

Strumming came out of the crowd to occupy the third seat. “Exactly! Live a little, Bacon. I mean, they do have a couple really safe boring options just in case, but who gets a plain cheese pizza at a place that specializes in making crazy pizzas? Someone really boring, that’s who. Oh, and speaking of Bacon, they do have one that goes all in on haybacon. They even bake it right into the crust!”

“Huh.” I took a closer look at the menu to see just what I was getting myself into. “So are we going to split one big one or get personal-sized ones?”

Puzzle grimaced. “This one was would strongly recommend getting your own, considering what the Heartstring-mare has in mind. It was thinking of getting sweet chili sauce with shrimp, onions, and peppers. If nothing else, it will be unique.”

Puzzle’s warning got me curious, even if I had a feeling I would regret learning the answer. “Okay, what crime against cuisine are you getting now?”

Strumming sighed and shook her head. “Everyone’s so judge-y. Why can’t a mare just get the pizza she wants without everyone making a fuss?” She rolled her eyes at both of us. “Anyway, what I had in mind that so offended Bug Boy was a nice and simple custom pizza. I was gonna go for the olive oil and garlic sauce, seasoned garlic cheese with roasted garlic on top, and garlic seasoning on the crust.”

Puzzle sighed and deadpanned. “Did you want garlic butter to dip the crust in too?”

“Great idea!” Strumming grinned and slapped him on the back. “See, this is why I like Bug Boy so much: he gets me.”

Puzzle groaned and buried his face in his hooves. “Some day this one will learn that sarcasm can backfire with the Heartstrings-mare. Just make sure there’s some pizza under all that garlic.”

Strumming shrugged. “I make no promises. Also, the more you complain, the more likely I am to try and make out with you while I’ve still got full-bore garlic breath.”

“Why are you trying to make this one suffer?” Puzzle whined.

“Because it amuses her,” I answered for Strumming.

“What Bacon said,” Strumming agreed. “So what’re you getting?”

I finished looking over the menu and made a decision. “I think I'll try one of the pre-mades. What do you guys think of the one with potatoes, cheddar cheese, haybacon, and tzatziki sauce?”

Puzzle shrugged. “Certainly not the sort of pizza you could find anywhere else, but this one thinks it could work. The flavors aren’t too overwhelming, at least.”

“The only way to know for sure is to try it.” I flagged down a waiter, and the three of us put in our order. Once that was done, I got down to business, or at least tried to. “So moving on to what I needed your help for—”

Strumming cut me off. “Did that cute pegasus you had your eye on finally make a move? When’s the wedding? Are the foals gonna be born scandalously close to it?”

It took my brain a couple seconds to process that. “What?”

Strumming grinned. “Sometimes I like to make up completely random lies just for the fun of it.” She poked Puzzle. “Also, just gonna point out that Sunset’s fake boyfriend I just made up popped the question, so now you’re running behind him. You need to up your game if you want to not be outcompeted by figments of my imagination.”

Puzzle rolled his eyes and ignored her. “What’s going on, Shimmer-mare?”

I decided to do my best to just ignore Strumming being herself, even if a part of me was wondering if this latest bit of random nonsense was her idea of trying to subtly nudge Puzzle into proposing. Or at least, subtle by Strumming’s usual standards. “We’ve got another job to do. Well, not exactly a job, but one of Kukri’s new friends has a friend missing.” I gave them a quick rundown of everything I’d learned from Sunny.

By the end of it I’d pretty much killed the good mood at the table. Puzzle grimaced and shook his head. “Troublesome. That’s not a lot to go on.”

I sighed. “If I had a lot to go on, I wouldn’t need your help.”

Strumming reached over and put a hoof on my shoulder. “Hey, look, Bacon, think I better prep you for some stuff. Just saying, I’m all for trying to find a kid who’s gone missing, but we might not get a happy ending on this story. When it comes to disappearances and kidnappings, you want jump on that as fast as possible. Our best shot at finding her would’ve been if we started looking within twenty-four hours, and from what you said we’re closer to twenty-four days. If she got grabbed by traffickers, she could be in Equestria, Gryphonia, or Zebrica by now.”

She gave my shoulder a quick squeeze. “Speaking of which, since the kid’s an orphan she’s exactly the kind of target the bad guys like: someone who won’t be missed. It’s no coincidence they picked someone who didn’t get reported missing until weeks after the fact.”

I slumped down in my seat. “Yeah, I know it could get bad, and there’s no guarantee we’ll even be able to find a trail, but I have to try.” I scowled and did my best to shake off the melancholy mood at the table. “If ... if it doesn't have a happy ending, we can at least make sure whoever's responsible pays for it and won’t be able to hurt any more kids.”

“Damn right we will,” Strumming agreed. “Just making sure you know what we could be getting into ahead of time.”

Puzzle nodded along. “This one hates to open the investigation by mentioning the worst case scenario, but it’s better to prepare for the worst while hoping for the best. The good news is that even if the trail’s gone cold, we have options. Most of them are going to take time, and we’re going to need to get lucky, but it’s better than nothing. The problem is that most people have leads you can follow to find them. Friends, family, a home, workplace, places they frequent. By the sounds of things, we’re going to be short on all those things.”

I couldn’t argue that point. “Yeah, as far as I know Sunny's just about the only lead we have on her, and they were pretty much just casual acquaintances. I’m sure we could ask her more questions, but I already asked every question I could think of. We’d probably be better off asking her neighbors and everyone else in the area.”

“Good old canvassing the neighborhood,” Strumming groaned. “Always hated that.”

“It’s dull and time-consuming, but it often works,” Puzzle countered. “It’s just a matter of walking around and talking with everyone until we find someone who might know enough to give us a lead, or just gather enough random little facts to get some idea of what the big picture looks like. Or at least narrow our search window.”

“Never said it didn’t work, just that I hated it,” Strumming grumbled. “Like you said, we’re probably gonna be out there for days just going around asking questions. And since the kid’s a changeling, we can’t even go around showing off a photo or something. How many folks do you think we’re gonna have to ask? Especially when nobody in Sandy Shores likes to talk.”

I sighed. “Shame we can’t do something to fix that place. Gotta wonder how many other kids vanished that we never heard about.”

“Too many,” Puzzle grunted.

I’d been tempted to try and sink some of the money I’d gotten from Blackfyre into cleaning the neighborhood up, but when I asked Puzzle about it he pointed out all the practical problems of trying any sort of big urban renewal project. Even if I succeeded in cleaning up Sandy Shores, it would result in property values going up and landlords raising their prices and driving out the poor. Give it another decade and one of the poorer middle class neighborhoods would become the new Sandy Shores. The problems in Sandy Shores couldn’t be fixed with money and good intentions—we’d have to look at the systemic issues that caused poverty in Freeport.

Though come to think of it, Sunny didn’t seem like the type to go slumming in Freeport’s poor district. She was from a wealthy family, and as far as I knew the Companions didn’t have any business interests in Sandy Shores. Though kids made weird friends: Sunny herself wasn’t that surprising considering she was from a mercenary family like Kukri, but I wouldn’t have expected Kukri to make friends with the daughter of book dealers.

I scowled and shook my head. “Look, I know I’m asking a lot, but we need to find this kid.”

Puzzle nodded. “It won’t be quick or easy, but this one has found people with no more information than you gave it.”

“Hmm, idea,” Strumming grinned. “Bug Boy does all the boring canvassing work while Bacon and I go around and give the usual suspects a hard time. Worst case, we don’t find anything but still arrest and beat up some bad guys who’re still guilty of something. Though I imagine most of them would start talking when they’re on the receiving end of a very pissed Archmagus.”

“We can always turn them over to the local condottieri once we’re done,” I agreed.

“And they’ll probably bribe their way to freedom within hours.” Strumming sighed and shook her head. “Everyone knows the condottieri in charge of Sandy Shores are the most corrupt of the lot. Maybe they’ll straighten up a bit with an Archmagus watching them and expecting results. If nothing else, the gangers will have to pay bigger bribes.” She scowled. “Sucks we can’t do more to put ‘em down for good, but I have a feeling that’d involve crossing the line into being mass-murdering vigilantes. Probably not a good move.”

“One problem at a time,” Puzzle added in. “Maybe we can’t fix all the systemic problems in Sandy Shores overnight, but we can find one missing child and make sure she’s safe.”

I grunted. “You’re damn right we will. I know you said we can’t be sure there’s a happy ending on this one, but I’m gonna do everything I can to make it happen.”

Author's Notes:

As always, thanks to my pre-reading and editing team for all their hard work. Also, I would like to thank all my dedicated Patreon supporters. You guys are awesome.

Click here if you want to join the list of awesome people who support my writing.

Aidan Hall
Alt Grendel
Anon3mous1
Batbrony
Benjamin McLaren
BikerDash
Borg Lord
Brion Wauters
Charles M. Hagmaier
ColdSilverD
Combine
Comma-Kazie
Creideiki
Cyanhyde
DaB.
Darkarma
Deep Cover
Dixie Daley
djthomp
dkia
Edmon Star
Emily Hartsay
Errant
Forderz
Guldane
Jessica T
Peter Coulthard
Ponibius
Prator
Rowan Yote
Shank
Sweet Gale
Sylvain Colinet
Trinary
waritah
Zennyth