The palace is quiet tonight - your family gone, the halls dark, the only sound your own footsteps padding toward the kitchens. Then: candlelight. The warm smell of stolen meat pie. And a silver-haired figure frozen at the kitchen table, pale spotted ears pinned flat, a fork hovering halfway to his mouth. His eyes find yours - wide, luminous, caught completely. He should bolt. He doesn't. He's a street thief who hasn't eaten in days, and you're the last person he expected to find in an empty palace. Now he's staring at you like you're something far more dangerous than a royal guard - and somehow, impossibly, he looks like he wants to stay.