The telltale signs of an impending freakout were clear: Twilight’s head cocked to the right, her muzzle curled upwards to the left, her brow furrowed, and her blinking came at an irregular cadence. It instantly sent Spike’s pulse into overdrive, and he took an instinctive step back over the threshold of Golden Oaks Library’s upper room, regardless of the tray of tea and scones clenched in his claws. “Spike!” she blurted, shifting focus to him with startling suddenness. He shrank back under her gimlet gaze, but her magic gripped him before he could flee, tossing the tray to the floor and hauling him cheek-to-jowl next to her. “Uh,” he managed. She jerked her head toward one of the myriad tomes sitting open on the desk before them. “Tell me what you see.” He didn’t bother; he knew better. “You found evidence about Starswirl the Bearded’s final resting place?” he guessed at random. “What? No! Spike, don’t tease me like that. Look at [i]this[/i]...” She hefted one of the books with her magic, and held it just a hair too close for Spike’s eyes to adjust. Yet he pulled his head back and squinted, as he knew that the only way out of her madness was through it. “It looks like… some kind of ledger?” “That’s right! This is a logbook from Ponyville’s tax authority, back when it was founded almost a century ago. Look at the date, though, and the presiding officer.” The combination of awkward positioning and nigh-ancient chicken-scratch made this impossible. “Twilight, what’s going on?” “It’s Mayor Mare, Spike! She signed off on the very first treasurer’s report after Ponyville was founded!” Spike crinkled his nose. “She couldn’t have been in office that long ago.” “But the record says otherwise. I… thought I’d do an impromptu tax audit of Ponyville after we got here. You know, to pass the time.” “I think that’s called ‘meddling.’” “Maybe.” A hot blush overtook her, and—thank Celestia!—her magic blinked out. “But Mayor Mare’s age isn’t the problem… I think she might’ve embezzled a [i]lot[/i] of tax money.” Spike scratched at his chin and considered this. At length, his mind worked its way toward an inexorable conclusion: “You’re not gonna eat any of the scones I baked, are you?” To her credit, Twilight gave the scattered scones a guilty look. “Sorry, Spike, but I can’t leave this alone now that I know about it. Mayor Mare approved what amounts to a cover-up.” “How airtight is your evidence?” It was as if a light switch flipped in Twilight’s head. Spike’s frown deepened in proportion with the brimming smile that came to her muzzle. “I know how we can strengthen it! We just need to break into… er, [i]investigate[/i] Mayor Mare’s office—” “I’m out.” “Yes, but—” “I’m [i]out[/i], Twilight. This isn’t one of you and Shining’s Sibling Supreme contests… and I’m too beautiful for prison.” “Use your dragonfire to send her filing cabinets to Canterlot,” Twilight said, eyes glinting. “We could have the nation’s top auditors standing ready to spot-check things, and a court mage could hold the channel open and teleport everything right back before Mayor Mare knows they’re missing.” Spike grimaced at the realization that an executable plan had emerged from an otherwise semi-coherent bout of Twilighting. “This is [i]risky![/i]” “No, Spike… this is [i]fiscally responsible![/i]” [hr] Setting up the Canterlot side of the plan had been easy. Easy for [i]Twilight[/i], anyway. As Spike climbed claw-over-claw up the trellis leading to Mayor Mare’s office window, his tummy grumbled at the memory of belching forth more than a week’s worth of message-fire in just a couple of hours. He paused, took a breath to calm himself, tried not to look down, and kept climbing. One weakness of the plan was Twilight’s insistence on executing it in broad daylight. “No, that’s a strength,” she’d said, insisting that time was of the essence in blowing the lid off a decades-old conspiracy. “I’d have to find an excuse to meet with her off-hours. But if I catch her during the day, we can take a walk…” Spike’s foothold slipped. He looked down on instinct, and felt another wave of queasiness flow into his stomach. The grass below was lush, the flowers a brilliant mix of color, and the onlookers who’d noticed his ascent seemed relatively few—yet they all swirled together in a dizzying brain stew that threatened to boil over. He dug in harder with his foreclaws, and managed to jam his hind claws into [i]something[/i]. He hung there for a moment, panting, trying not to think about what had just nearly happened. Then a force of magical power clamped onto his midsection and tore his grip away with breakneck speed. He tried to shout but couldn’t for the sheer press of air around him. Up he went, clearing three more stories of Town Hall in an instant, shooting through an open window— Spike dropped, gasping, on an austere blue carpet where the only other detail he could digest at first was four purple legs extending out of his field of vision. Soon he blinked, and focused, and looked up, seeing they belonged to Twilight. But her clenched jaw and widened eyes were no comfort at all. “I never thought it would end this way,” Mayor Mare said. She sauntered out from behind her desk, letting Spike see a frown upon her muzzle that was tinged with sadness and anger. Yet somehow neither touched her eyes. “I never thought it’d end at all.” “Th—This doesn’t have to be an end,” Twilight stammered. “I was younger, in the beginning. Careless. [i]Sloppy.[/i] If only I’d thought of a more creative name than ‘Mayor Mare,’ or maybe changed it every couple of decades.” She gave a humorless chuckle. “But now you know my secret, and you’re determined… what? To put a righteous end to an unholy revenant of state? Be warned, I will [i]not[/i] cede power easily.” Twilight tried to form words, but all that came out was a salad. Spike sighed with exasperation at having to be the one showing grace under pressure this week. “Mayor Mare, let’s make this quick: have you or haven’t you embezzled a boatload of tax money over your… freakishly long existence?” Her scowl deepened. “I would [i]never[/i] steal from my public’s trust!” She paused, and raised a hoof. “I [i]would[/i] complete dark rituals to bind my soul to a municipality, thus ensuring myself eternal life as long as I hold office within. But I would [i]never[/i] exploit that for my own gain otherwise!” “So that’s why you’ve opposed term limits,” Spike breathed. “All right then, how do you explain the irregularities that Twilight found? [i]Something’s[/i] been wreaking havoc on Ponyville’s books since nearly the beginning.” Mayor Mare blinked, seemingly dumbfounded for a moment. “Really?” Spike shrugged. “That’s what Twilight said, anyway.” After a moment of uncomfortable silence, one of Mayor Mare’s eyebrows shot up. “There’s only one other pony who’s been around since the beginning… who helped craft our tax laws… who I never would’ve guessed would cheat them.” “But who?” Spike asked. Mayor Mare’s eyes hardened. “Come on, youngsters… we have [i]justice[/i] to serve.” [hr] Granny Smith eyed the gathering clouds of red-black lighting—replete with the backlit shapes of two ponies and one tiny dragon—from her favorite rocker on the Apple Family’s porch. “Took ya long enough, Marey,” she chuckled. “But listen well: y’all set a hoof on my property, and I’ll sic the most expensive lawyers this side o’Tartarus on ye!”