Sifra watched the fox-girl make her bargain. Desperation clung to her like frost. Not yet breaking, but close to cracking. Her mana was frayed, her body stripped of armor and dignity, left to bargain from skin and spark alone.

It would've been sad, if it hadn't been so charming. Mortals were always so proud of their machines. Their clever tricks and tools. Their need to wrap themselves in metal just to feel powerful. But this one… she had teeth. The kind that didn't need armor. The kind that bit even when the hunt was already lost.

Sifra hovered in the still air, her wings beating slow and steady. She watched the way Akiko held herself, all rigid defiance over brittle weariness. There was something familiar in it. Something old.

Treasure, the fox had promised. But treasure was just a word. Sifra had watched empires fall over words like that. Still. The idea amused her.

She drifted lower, the glow of her wings catching the dull light like a half-remembered flame. Escape, after all, wasn't about treasure. It was about motion. Chaos. The delightful little jolt that came when stasis broke open and something new got a chance to run.

Akiko was trouble. Sifra could feel it in her pulse. And trouble, real, blooming trouble, was better than gold.

"Just get me out of here," Akiko said. Simple. Direct.

Sifra hummed, old instinct stirring beneath her skin. She took in the room. Metal bones, sterile light, weak-tasting mana coiled in the corners like dust. This world built its prisons with angles and welds. Cold cages for warm things.

Magic here was sluggish. Drowsy. Like winter breath. But it listened.

Sifra raised her hand and drew a glyph through the air, more memory than spell. The weave curled over the blinking red eye in the corner. The room now showed only stillness. A lie with clean edges.

"No peeping," she said, tone lilting.

The fox arched an eyebrow. "Not bad. But the door's still locked."

Sifra grinned. "Ah yes. The mundane part."

She floated toward the panel, perched lightly on its edge. The buttons blinked at her, stupid little things. She mimicked what she'd seen the mercenaries do, fingers dancing, half-mocking. And when nothing happened, she sighed.

"Mortals and their boxes. You'd think they'd learn to build doors that speak."

"Do something," Akiko snapped. "Unless your plan is to leave me here while you improvise."

Sifra's smile sharpened. "Tempting."

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

She closed her eyes, reaching not with fingers but with presence. Her magic slid into the circuitry like frost into stone. It didn't fit. But it fractured the silence. Bent the edge.

Click.

The door unlocked.

Sifra opened her eyes.

"Ta-da," she said, wings flaring wide. "The fox is free."

Akiko stepped toward the open frame, cautious even in victory. Her glance down was half-suspicion, half-reluctant admiration.

"I'm not sure if I should be impressed or worried."

"Both," Sifra said, already darting into the hallway like a streak of old light. "Now let's see if you're as good at running as you are at begging."

They moved, light and breathless, boots barely brushing the grated floor. The corridor stretched ahead. There was something almost charming about the way Akiko moved. All sharp focus and borrowed quiet, like a creature pretending to be shadow. She was trying so hard to vanish into the metal.

Mortals in this world were heavy things. Bound by machinery, by gravity, by fear. They built lives from noise and wires, dragged by mass and memory. Sifra had watched them for a long time. Long enough to pity them. But this one? She carried her weight like a blade.

Akiko pressed to the wall and scanned the empty corridor. "Keep quiet and stay close."

Sifra hovered beside her, wings whispering in the dark. "Oh, I'm very quiet," she said, her grin blooming like a dangerous flower. "The quietest. Like a shadow."

"Shadows don't talk," Akiko muttered.

Sifra tsked. "Yours would, if it had better company."

She darted ahead, letting the silence stretch. The air here was stale and cold, but laced with the faintest threads of mana. Thin, strained, barely enough to taste. She pivoted mid-air and pointed down a branching hall. "That way. The hum's different. Machinery, I think."

Akiko paused. Calculating. Sifra could almost hear the mental wheels turning.

Then the fox nodded and moved, her steps as close to silent as her form allowed. Sifra followed, flitting just behind her shoulder.

These were the moments she liked best. The in-between spaces. Not flight, not battle. The pause before action, when mortals became stories in motion. They didn't know they were being watched. That made it honest.

The hum grew stronger as they reached a security door. Two guards stood in front, their postures bored but alert. Their weapons rested loose across their chests.

Sifra brightened. "What's the plan, foxy?"

Akiko didn't break stride. "Can you distract them?"

Sifra grinned, baring too many teeth. "Oh, can I."

She vanished into the dark, weaving her fingers through the air. Not a roar this time. Not fire. Something smaller. Quieter. A whisper of form just out of sight. A shadow with footsteps, cast where no figure walked.

Down the hall, the illusion flickered.

"What the hell was that?" one guard barked, snapping toward the movement.

"Go check it," the other said, already raising his weapon.

Sifra watched the first stalk away. Her illusion rippled again, vanishing into the corridor bend.

"Half the problem solved," she said cheerfully, reappearing beside Akiko.

The fox didn't look impressed. "Half a distraction isn't much help."

Sifra shrugged, landing on a flickering ceiling light. "You mortals always want the whole cake. Sometimes you settle for the crumbs."

Below her, Akiko moved. A flash of motion, low and fast. One sharp sweep to the legs, a strike to the head, and the remaining guard hit the floor with a soft grunt.

"Efficient," Sifra said, fluttering down beside her. "If a little lacking in flair."

Akiko ignored the jab. She stepped over the body and knelt by the keypad. "Can you get this open?"

Sifra placed a hand over her heart, scandalized. "Doubt? From my favorite thief? How tragic."

She danced over the panel, her fingers moving with flickering rhythm. Mana trickled from her skin, slow but sufficient. The system sputtered once. Then the door hissed open.

She turned with a wink. "After you, shadow fox."

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