Part 1: Envy

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She darts round the city, fast as quicksilver; her eyes narrowed, her lips thin and tight. On her back she bears a heavy, bulging sack filled with stolen treasures, loot that she once couldn't resist. But now she has spied something better. She always does. Her mud green eyes lock on a target. A gold and pearl necklace lies draped on a table; now, she will stop at nothing to call it her own. As fast as you can blink she is up to the top of the window, her ragged dress rippling in the wind, her dark hair blowing wild like a madman's. Hastily she leaps to the table, snatches the locket and dives down onto the ground below.

She moves like a back-alley cat, her ribs showing through her tight rags, her spindly legs moving as fast as light. In the glow of the moon her skin seems almost translucent, glaring with a spectral gleam. Up at a top window, a tired face appears, searching for a gold and pearl necklace. They look out onto the street below and nothing besides the dark, looming shapes of the buildings in the city. The thief is already far away.

She jumps from window ledge to rooftop, leaping so high she almost flies. Every step is silent; not even a bat would hear them.

She comes to a towering cement wall with the tiniest crack running through the middle. Barely audible, the palest whisper of a laugh escapes her pursed lips. A skinny, dirty hand rises to the wall and it topples like it is made out of dust. Then, with one step, she is gone. Envy disappears into the shadows of the night.

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