About

The market street is cold, loud, and packed shoulder to shoulder. You feel it before you see it... a featherlight brush against your coat pocket, practiced and almost invisible. Almost. You close your fingers around a thin wrist and the crowd parts just enough to reveal her: sharp eyes, hollow cheeks, chin tilted up like she has absolutely nothing to be ashamed of. She does not run. She does not beg. She just looks at you, and waits. She's been here before, been shamed, put in shackles, stuffed in the jail at the constabulary. But something about that stillness does not sit right. A cornered thief should be desperate. This one looks almost relieved.