Little Thieves

You’re what happens when an encyclopedia wishes on a star to be a real boy, if that encyclopedia was also an absolute prick.

In the world I knew, there were three reasons a person could be wanted: for profit, pleasure, or power. If you could satisfy only one, they used you. Two, they saw you. Three, they served you.

Once upon a time, there was a girl as cunning as the fox in winter, as hungry as the wolf at first frost, and as cold as the icy wind that kept them at each other's throats. Her name was not Gisele, nor was it Marthe, nor even Pfennigeist. My name was -is- Vanja. And this is the story of how I got caught.

To the gremlin girls, I would like to tell you something inspiring, but the truth is, when life closes a door for us, it doesn’t always open a window. The good news is: That’s what bricks are for.

Just because you can survive without someone doesn't mean they're unwanted.

I've read fairy tales, of course, and listened to plaintive love songs, but I never understood why anyone would wake up after a hundred years and marry the prince who broke into their bedroom for a kiss. Or dance with a stranger once and decide to spend the rest of their lives together. I always felt a baffled kind of melancholy when others raptured over love at first sight, like maybe something was wrong with me, maybe I didn't know how to love someone at all. I didn't know it wasn't just me.

I am his puzzle and he is my lock, and it's an arms race to solve the other first. But somewhere in all the knots and twists and trapdoors, he turned to an arsonist, leaving his embers in my veins, smoke on my tongue, a fire burning softly in my heart. And it will not die easy.

I can't say if you're a good person or not. But the more I know of you, the more I understand that the world keeps making you choose between survival and martyrdom. No one should fault you for wanting to live.

-I cannot tell you how many principles of knife safety you are violating right now. -Where's your sense of adventure? -When it comes to stab wounds? On indefinite sabbatical.

There's a saying in the Blessed Empire: Little thieves steal gold, and great ones steal Kingdoms, but only one goes to the gallows. I'm not sure I agree. I've little interest in kingdoms, but even less in dancing with the hangman. And I've gotten very good - great, you might even say - at stealing gold.

I see myself for what I am: a scared girl, alone in a cruel world, abandoned by family and friend, who would rather turn herself to bloodstained stone than let anyone get close enough to leave another scar. A girl who would rather die than serve anyone ever again. Even myself.

But I'm learning the bitter difference between independence and self-exile.

It was selfish. It was ugly. And it was true.

Some part of me has always looked for how I brought these things on myself. (...) And if I could figure out where I went wrong, they wouldn't call me stupid or throw things or strike me. There had to be a reason for it. That made it something I could control. Something I could hope to stop. It's the worst kind of relief for someone to say it was never in my control.

There’s just so much I could be stealing right now if I didn’t have social obligations with the man who tried to poison me earlier in the week. And if it weren’t for the curse. And, I suppose, the law, though really we all know my concern for that is cosmetic at best.

- Sometimes you just have to throw spatzle at the wall and see what sticks. - You absolutely do not. That is how you get ruined spatzle.

I think there are lives that make it easy to be good. Or what most people call good. When you have wealth, status, family, it's easy to be a saint, it costs you nothing.

And this is the story of how I am caught.

I am one of the little thieves, and he will send me to the gallows himself.

No puedo pedirte que me eligas, eligas esto, nos eligas, Te quedes, pero quiero estar contigo y no permitiré que ese miedo a perderte me domine. Si quieres que te persiga, lo haré. Si quieres que te encuentre, lo haré. Si me aceptas, te elegiré a ti todas las veces.