This didn't go according to plan.

It was supposed to be a quick in and out. Get the jewel and go.

It was never going to be easy. I knew that. Robbing the fae never worked out well for any mortal, but I had hoped it would be easier for me. I wasn't just any mortal after all. However difficult I had expected it to be, I'd hoped to at least get to the jewel. Instead, I was apprehended by a wild girl with fire in her eyes and a big, sharp knife.

"Hi," I said, suspecting that my wide smile looked more like a baring of teeth. I had never been good at smiling.

She glared at me with big, green eyes. A halo of bright, blue, corkscrew curls surrounded a delicate face. "Don't. Move."

"Look," I said, lies on my tongue and deception in my gaze. I eased into a more relaxed stance hoping I looked at least semi-friendly. "I think there has been a misunderstanding? I was just out for a walk."

She tensed with the knife as I moved my hand slowly to brush my hair back and reveal a pointed ear. "See?" I said. "I'm fae—not an enemy."

She scoffed and let one hand release the knife to return the gesture. This was it: my chance to escape. But what I saw next wiped all schemes from my mind. Her ears were rounded. Not pointed like my own—inherited from a fae father despite having a mortal mother—they were round.

And that could mean only one thing: She was human.

"See here, thief," she said, shaking her knife at my face. I recoiled slightly. "I don't care that you're fae. I don't even care about your questionable life choices. I have one job. One. Job. And that is to protect that jewel."

I ignored the insult to my livelihood and asked one question. "Why the blue hair?"

Of course, I knew why she had blue hair—I myself possessed a blend of shimmering raven black and a deep scarlet that sometimes turned maroon (depending on my mood). Fae were life and death and colours and everything in between. They were beautiful and ugly and the sun and the stars.

This girl—whoever she was—may not be fae by blood but was by nature. Enchanting her hair blue probably made her feel less of an outsider.

But her confusion at my question was exactly what I needed.

I hit her wrist, her grip loosening on her blade. Stealing it from her with deft hands—thief hands—, I knocked her out with a hard hit to the temple—feeling a stab of remorse. I caught her before she hit the ground.

Stepping over her limp form, I smiled when my eyes alighted upon the jewel in front of me.

As I left, jewel in my pocket and the girl's knife in my hand, I couldn't help hoping I meet her again.

The hair was cool.

Plus, I stole her knife.