You see, most thieves steal for gold. Boring. Gold is heavy, it clinks, it gets you caught. I steal for the glitter in a mark’s eye right before they realize it’s gone. The sharp intake of breath. The way a proud noble’s face crumples when they pat an empty pocket where a signet ring—passed down for seven generations—used to sit.

Here’s a short piece written from , capturing her cunning, confident, and playful yet dangerous persona. They think they know me. The whispers in the taverns, the wanted posters with my smile sketched just wrong, the stories mothers tell to keep their children from wandering too close to the Whispering Woods.

I am Sapphire Fox. And a fox, my dear hunter, is never what she seems.