I pull the hood back from my face, checking my appearance in the mirror of this abandoned backstage theater powder room. To be entirely honest... it's abandoned until later today. The early morning means the only breathing creatures found in this building is a snoring actress who passed out in the night with a bottle in her hand, a few rats pattering around, and dust bunnies cleaning up large clocks and bookshelves and other large item displays. The little grey creatures with large ears disperse with near silent chattering from cats who snuck in the same open window as I.

I'm learning not to underestimate the intelligence of cats, and if I am a bit more amiable to them because of certain larger cats... no one will ever know. And if I snuck them a few leftover meatsticks from the closed food stand... Flash never needs to know.

If only I could talk, that internal, infernal voice comments with a hint of devious indignation.

You can. Just not in ways that matter beyond my head. Do you not enjoy being a tag-along to my wondrous life?

Shut up.

But the illustrious wonder! You are the observer of such greatness, you only need enjoy my majesty. A smirk tips my lips as I study my vastly changed appearance in the theater mirror.

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Shut. Up, he hisses again, and I realize why he pestered me so all these years. This is quite fun.

The Cynic groans in my head. I have created me. And I do not like it.

The smirk on my face grows broader. Dark highlights on my nose takes it from thin and slightly crooked to straight and a little wide. Brown powder on my cheekbones makes them less angular and more rounded. A bit of a lightening cream along my hairline and down to my nose creates a wider forehead and a powder mixture makes my hair less blue-black and a more normal reddish-brown. The Mage changed my eyes from black to a nondescript dark brown.

I appear to be a middle-aged man who imbibes a few more mint julep cakes than is healthy. While not particularly wealthy, the silken doublet stuffed with fake theater fat made of stuffing and leather plus genuine dragon-hide boots—a certain dragon is going to be an ornery cuss when I see her again—with a steel toe lends the appearance of a merchant or working class man with a little coin to spare, but not enough to be stupidly spending his earnings where he has no business being.

Which is exactly what I want.

Most don’t understand how the best assassins aren’t always the best fighters. The best assassins are those you never see coming. A child could beat Master Purple in almost any form of combat... but you never knew where or who he was. As such, he was the most dangerous assassin in the underground, besides the Black, despite his name never being infamously known as widely as my own.

I shake the thoughts from my brain. It’s time to get to work.