Jiang wished he could have said he reacted with calm composure, but that would have been a lie.

As it was, he barely had the presence of mind to snatch the comb from the drawer as he flailed backward and scrambled to his feet before lunging toward the door. Behind him, the merchant bellowed in rage and stumbled out of bed in pursuit. His wife, woken by the commotion, shrieked at the sight of the dark figure in their bedroom, adding to the chaos.

He took the stairs in a desperate, uncontrolled tumble, half-sliding down the splintery banister, any thoughts of stealth well and truly abandoned. He was halfway across the stone floor to the promised freedom of the back door when a shape emerged from the gloom by the counter.

They collided with a jarring, painful crash.

Jiang hit the floor hard, the unexpected impact knocking the air from his lungs in a pained gasp. He was tangled in a mess of flailing limbs and the sharp scent of street dust. His first instinct was pure animal reflex: threat. He shoved the other person away, scrambling backward on the grimy stone and fumbling for the hilt of his sword.

He got to one knee, blade half-drawn, and found himself facing the crouched figure of his… opponent? It took a moment for his brain to catch up and realise that instead of a city guard ready to cart him off to jail, it was a girl, wiry and fierce, clutching a short, sharp dagger and a half-full sack.

She looked just about as panicked as he felt.

Not a guard. Another thief.

Jiang could see the same realisation dawning in her eyes, and they simply stared at each other for a frozen moment.

The spell was broken by a furious roar from the top of the stairs. The merchant was coming down, his heavy footsteps thudding like hammer blows. Without a word, the girl scrambled to her feet and lunged for the back door, a fraction of a second behind Jiang himself.

He yanked the door open, the little brass bell ringing frantically, and they spilled out into the cold night air of the alley.

They ran, boots slapping against the slick cobblestones. Jiang's cultivator-enhanced speed quickly put him in the lead, his longer strides more powerful than hers. He rounded the first corner, the mouth of the alley and the relative safety of the wider street just ahead. He was about to burst out into the open when a hand shot out and seized the back of his cloak, yanking him off balance.

He stumbled, spinning into the grimy brick wall of a leaning tenement. "What are you doing?" he hissed, but the girl just pressed a finger to her lips, her eyes wide with urgency. She pointed toward the street. A moment later, two city guards ran past the alley's entrance and toward the shop, their lanterns casting wild, swinging beams of light. They hadn't been seen.

She gave him no time to process the close call. With a sharp tug on his sleeve, she pulled him deeper into the city's guts, into a narrow passage he hadn't even registered as an opening. It was a twisting maze of shadows and the stench of refuse. He followed her lead, trusting her knowledge of the terrain over his own speed. She came to a halt in a small, enclosed yard that seemed to be a dead end, then took a running start at the wall. Her movements were fluid and confident, finding what on closer inspection seemed like deliberately placed handholds to scale the wall.

Jiang watched for a second, then followed, relying more on his own raw strength than perfectly replicating her path to haul himself up onto the slick, tiled roof. By the time he got up there, the girl was already on the next roof over, moving swiftly and clearly not caring if he was able to keep up. Jiang hesitated for a moment before following.

He didn't know who she was—beyond a thief, obviously—but clearly she knew how to evade the city guard, and right now, that was all Jiang cared about. He was confident enough if things got violent; even if she was an expert with that dagger of hers, the reach of his sword combined with his physical abilities should keep things at least even enough that he could escape.

That said, it might not even matter—for all his cultivator-enhanced speed and balance, Jiang found himself struggling to keep up. He was faster on the straightaways, able to clear the gaps between buildings with powerful, Qi-fueled leaps, but she knew the terrain. She would dart down a steep roof to a lower level or use a jutting drainpipe as a handhold to swing around a corner, forcing him into clumsy, hurried scrambles to follow.

Eventually, the shouts of the guards grew fainter below, swallowed by the endless murmur of the city. After several more minutes of breathless running, the girl finally skidded to a halt in the deep shadow of a massive stone chimney. She leaned against the cold brick, chest heaving as she sucked in deep, ragged gulps of air.

Jiang landed a few feet away, his own lungs burning, and crouched low, scanning their surroundings. For a moment, neither of them spoke; the only sounds their own harsh breathing and the distant city hum.

"Alright," the girl finally gasped, pushing herself upright but not turning to face him yet. "I think… I think we lost them." She risked a peek around the edge of the chimney stack before slumping back against it.

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

She finally turned to him, her eyes narrowed with suspicion in the dim moonlight. Her hand was still clenched around the hilt of her dagger. "Okay," she said, her voice a low, accusatory hiss. "Who are you, and what were you doing in there?"

Jiang shot her an incredulous look, not feeling threatened at all. "I was sightseeing and got lost," he deadpanned. "Why, what were you doing?"

The girl snorted despite herself, though she tried to cover it up by scowling harder a moment later. It just made her look vaguely like she needed to sneeze—though at least she seemed a little more relaxed. "Oh great, you're a 'funny guy'."

Jiang didn't appreciate the air quotes.

"Well then, funny guy, care to explain why you felt the need to ruin my perfect plan?" She scowled again, and this time the expression looked more genuine. "Gods, what a mess. My entire haul for the week, ruined."

Jiang didn't intend to take criticism from someone who'd screwed up his plan. Hell, a few more minutes and he probably would have gotten away clean. "Perfect plan? What perfect plan, making a bunch of noise and waking everybody up? I don't think you could have set that bell off any faster if you'd tried!"

The girl sputtered, an indignant hiss that was almost lost to the wind whipping across the rooftops. "My plan was flawless! It would have been, anyway, if your plan hadn't been so monumentally stupid it broke the laws of reality and somehow contaminated mine!" She jabbed a finger in his direction, her other hand still resting on her dagger. "If you hadn't unbarred the back door, I wouldn't have accidentally opened it faster than I expected, so when you think about it, technically, you set off the bell."

Jiang stared at her, the sheer, willful absurdity of the accusation leaving him speechless for a moment. He knew she was lying. She had to know he knew she was lying. And yet, she delivered the line with such theatrical outrage that a small, traitorous part of him was almost impressed.

"Besides," she pressed on, clearly taking his silence as an opening, "when we were running, you were about to run right into the City Watch. So really, I saved you. You're welcome."

Jiang barely knew where to begin. "It wouldn't have been a problem if they hadn't been alerted to a crime in the first place," he snapped, the words sharp with frustration. "I could have just walked right past them, and they would have been none the wiser."

That earned him a genuine, pitying scoff. "Oh, you must be new." She shook her head, a stray strand of dark hair whipping across her face. "The Watch in this district would've stopped you for the fun of it. Shaken you down for coin, maybe roughed you up a bit just to break the monotony of their patrol. You'd have spent the night in a cell for 'vagrancy'."

That… well, he couldn't really refute that, considering how the city guard had acted when he'd asked for directions. Of course, even if the guards had tried to stop him, he could have just flashed his Qi and they would have backed down—but explaining that to this random thief was a risk he had no intention of taking. The fewer people who knew his face—and his capabilities—the better. He settled for a noncommittal grunt.

"Anyway," she said, her tone shifting as she clearly took his lack of response as a victory, "what were you doing upstairs anyway? Why risk all this for a comb?"

Jiang opened his mouth to tell her to mind her own business, but paused. "How did you know I was looking for a comb?" he asked suspiciously, hand dropping to his pocket where he'd stashed the—

It wasn't there.

His eyes snapped to her, narrowing. She held up the jade comb, squinting at it performatively with a smug expression on her face, letting it catch a faint glint of moonlight. He lunged, his cultivator-enhanced reflexes making the motion a blur. He was faster than she could have expected, his fingers closing around the comb and yanking it from her grasp before she could react.

"None of your business," he snapped, shoving it deep into his tunic.

The girl didn't seem offended, just vaguely impressed. She ignored his glower, her attention shifting. "Alright, fine. Be that way." With a casual flick of her wrist, she produced his coin pouch. "But seriously, why steal anything when you're carrying this kind of weight?"

Jiang stared as she untied the leather thong and peered inside, her eyes widening in the gloom. He snatched that back too, the heavy clink of the silver coins a jarring sound in the quiet.

"Silver?" she breathed, her voice a mix of awe and accusation. "Where the hell did you get that much silver? And… you have that much money and you're stealing combs?" A split second of calculation flickered through her eyes. "You know," she said casually, shifting her weight a little on the tiles of the roof, "you ruined a perfectly good night's work for me. You owe me. And, you know, now that I think about it… I'd say that a pouchfull of silver just about covers the damages."

He glared at her, one hand clutching the pouch tightly and the other dropping to the hilt of his sword. "I don't owe you anything."

Her eyes flickered down and she took a careful step back, covering the defensive motion with a dramatic sigh. "Fine. Can't blame a girl for trying, right?"

Jiang kept his expression even. He hadn't forgotten how easily she'd taken the pouch from him the first time and wasn't so arrogant as to assume that he'd be able to notice her doing it again, even now that he was paying attention. Better to avoid stepping into grabbing range at all.

"But since you've thoroughly ruined my night, the least you can do is not get us both caught. Come on. I know a place we can lie low."

The sudden quick shift to a friendly offer didn't give him any confidence at all—and yet, Jiang found himself following her after a moment's pause. Sure, she was a thief, unpredictable, and had already proven she was capable of lifting his belongings from right under his nose.

But for all that, and ignoring the blunder that had started this whole mess, she clearly knew this city. She knew its rhythms, its hiding spots, its escape routes. That was knowledge he desperately needed, especially if he was going to be taking on jobs for the Broker.

Besides, she couldn't be leading him into an ambush—or, at least, not a planned one, considering no one could have predicted their meeting. Jiang was confident enough in at least escaping a conflict, and in this particular case, the potential rewards outweighed the risks.

After all, he wasn't blind to how the Broker's generosity was an attempt to foster goodwill and bind him to the mysterious man's cause. Jiang doubted the Broker could do anything to force him to stay in the city or anything—but getting another source of information could only be a good thing.

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