After dinner, Ayan waited for sounds in the hallway. Though Altiane and Leo were masters at moving quietly, she was tuned to their clothing. Poised at her door and listening, she could hear the slightest rustle of fabric. When she knew they were both awake, she opened the door and padded out to the kitchen as quietly as they had.

A stranger wouldn't know it look at her, but Ayan was dressed in her fanciest clothes. Of course, looking at her would have been difficult in the first place. But if they could look closely, they might have noticed that every inch of the black slacks and white shirt were actually covered in embroidery, black on black, and white on white. It was Ayan's special technique, that she had designed after her first failure stealing the princess's jewels. The clothes didn't make her invisible so much as they made her forgettable. They enveloped her in their plainness, making people see what they expected—usually a person in uniform. Ayan had used the same technique to disguise herself as Audeni Deneen, though that dress had sadly been destroyed.

"What are you doing up?" Altiane asked, though it was clear from Ayan's clothes what she intended.

"Leo said you were going to steal back Minty Hagen's flintlock. I want to help."

Altiane shook her head. "No. You've got too much at stake."

For the briefest of moments, Ayan wondered if her brother was jealous. But he had always wanted to be involved. It was Ayan who had to be convinced to become a thief. He also knew how to keep his face blank, so he gave nothing away, even to Ayan and Altiane. "She'd be perfect for getting the revolver off the wall." He said to Altiane. "I know you don't want to admit it, but you're getting older."

Altiane looked at first one sibling, and then the other, as if she expected foul play. But if she did, she said nothing more than, "Fine. Let's go."

On the way to the meeting point, Altiane and Leo briefed Ayan on the plan. The revolver, a beloved piece of Antaran history, had been taken out of the national museum, where Altiane worked, to decorate the home of Iten Kawbak, a member of the Florarovan council--the government the other country had installed over Antarand. With the Antaran royal family slowly gaining back power, the council members had to find new ways to demonstrate their strength. Altiane's group had decided to steal it back and return it to the museum. In Kawbak's name, of course.

Leo and Ayan came up he back way, through a hole that had been torn in the fence a few days prior. Getting it repaired was difficult with Messengers Day so close. Fortunately, one of the local police officers, her foster mother's friend Paho, had volunteered to watch the house. Leo nodded to him as he walked past, and then the siblings made a dash for the back door.

Paho had taught both Ayan and Leo to pick locks, though Leo had a slight magical edge, so he let Ayan in. Once inside, she closed and locked the door behind her and went looking for Kawbak's office. Ayan had never been in the house, of course, but Paho had searched for weak points the night the fence got broken. He'd drawn them a map.

She passed no one on the way to the office. Kawbak himself was back in Florarova for the holiday, and the whole place was operating with a skeleton crew. Hopefully, they would be distracted by Leo when he broke a window on the other side of the house. She found the office just as she heard the sound of smashing glass, and slipped inside as everyone else ran by.

Any surprise Ayan had that the office door wasn't locked dissipated the minute she entered. The room was empty. There were three pieces of furniture: a desk, a char, and a bookshelf. The desk had nothing on it. Ayan opened a drawer. Empty. Even some of the books seemed to be missing. "I guess he takes all his work home," she muttered.

The only other things in the room were some ugly pieces of wall art and, of course, the gun, in a holder, mounted to the wall above the desk. She looked up at it. "It's a pity it means so little to you," she told an imaginary Kawbak, and began to climb the shelf.

She wouldn't have called climbing the shelf easy, exactly, but, determined not to be outdone at anything by her brother, she had become rather good at scaling things as a child. Still, she wondered if Altiane could have done it faster. Then she reached the top and decided her height was to her advantage.

With her elbow against the wall, one foot on the top shelf, and one on the lower, Ayan reached out to grab the revolver. It took a moment for Ayan to wiggle it off its mount from her angle, and for a moment she thought she might lose her balance. But she steadied herself, shifted her weight, and prepared to make the climb down. Then, as she set her weight on the shelf below, it slid away from her foot. She dropped the gun to steady herself, and it would have made a sound hitting the ground, had it not landed in the pile of books that had made an even larger crash falling from the shelf. From the other side of the door, she heard a shout and footsteps running. With no time, Ayan aimed herself and dropped the rest of the way to the floor. Then she raced to the window and opened it, just as the door swung in.

Paho walked in and was about to speak when he did a double take when he realized who he was looking at. He squinted, and Ayan suspected his eyes were trying to decieve him that it was Altiane standing in the room, not her daughter. But Ayan didn't have time. She grabbed the revolver from the books and shoved it toward Paho, who hid it in his jacket, just in time for one of the staff members to burst through.

Ayan pointed to the window with a shaking hand. "I came in when I heard the noise!He pointed a gun at me! And then he jumped out the window!"

And the new person saw what they expected—a young member of the staff, terrified from the ordeal she had just been through. It didn't hurt that Ayan was actually terrified. Nor was the tremble in her hand fake. If she got caught, it would be the end of her.

Paho dove through the window, as if in pursuit, while the staff member came to comfort Ayan.

"Please just catch him," Ayan told the other person, curling in on herself, "Please." Then Paho cried out, and the staff member ran back out the door, seemingly in pursuit.

Ayan walked as quickly as she dared back to the back door. She paused once to let a couple of the staff members race by, and then slipped out the back door and through the hole in the fence.

They'd had a rendevous point, a place where they were going to package the revolver in a gift box, which Altiane would then "find" at the museum's door when she returned to retrieve her hat, which she had left there earlier. But Ayan had come too close to being caught with stolen goods already. She went home instead.

Ayan waited in her room, trying to calm herself by working on her new loom. When the door opened, she set down her project and peeked into the kitchen. Altiane and Leo were alone. "How did it go?" She asked nervously.

Altiane kicked her shoes off. "My boss is thrilled. Confused, but thrilled."

Leo rounded on her. "Where were you? Why didn't you meet us at the rondevous?"

Ayan opened her mouth, but Altiane answered for her. "Because she's smart. Maybe smarter than you." At that, both siblings shut their mouths and faced their foster mother, who looked the boy in the eye. "You came up with a good plan, Leo. But you almost wrecked it when you got her involved. If she'd been caught, this whole operation would have been swallowed by the tidal wave. Did you ever consider that if she gets caught again, they'll investigate us?"

Ayan had never heard Altiane be quite so biting with her or her brother. Leo opened and closed his mouth like a fish, and then went quietly to his bedroom.

"I'm sorry," Ayan said, "I messed everything up."

Altiane pulled out a chair and sat down across the table from her. "No one knew that bookshelf was weak. It would have been a mess even wihout you. But you should know better than to get involved in a scheme you weren't part of to begin with." She laid a hand on Ayan's. "And you two are going to have to find a way to put aside your fears of disappointing one another."

"You think he's afraid of disappointing me?"

"Ayan, he's taken care of you all his life. It was hard enough for him to let me take over. It had to invite a seven year old into a crime ring to convince him we were allies. But how can he compete with the Antaran princess?"

"But what if he's right?" Ayan whispered, "What if Audeni is just planning to use me?"

"And what if he's wrong? You and Leo have been running from people since your dad died. But at some point, you have to stop running from things and start moving toward them." Altiane stood and pushed in her chair. "And Ayan? Don't ask to come again. You're out of this now. You stay out of it."