“I serve one worse than you.” Dusk grimaced as Trixie jerked under her brush—she hadn't meant to say that out loud, and she certainly hadn't meant for it to sound like it did, but that made it no less true. She had been one of the few ponies who had been willing to serve the Lunar diarch, and she'd had to put up with Luna's mercurial moods and slow adjustments to modern society. More than once, she'd trudged to her bed at the end of the day with every intention of handing in her resignation to the seneschal the next morning . . . but she never had. She never could.