I reached out and tried the silver chased handle of the huge oak door before me and grinned invisibly under my mask when it turned smoothly in my grip looks like one treasury guard is going to be looking for a new job I thought to myself before I quickly slipped into the shadows beyond the portal and swung it closed behind me.

Darting along the corridor beyond I took a sharp left then a hard right just as the map I had memorised said I should. I was moving quickly but, thanks to some training by a true expert and a lot of practical experience, I had learned to walk with catlike grace. The smooth stone brick walls didn't even echo as I nearly sprinted down the passageway.

Normally I would be more cautious obviously. You can't become a successful thief without proper caution but here and now I just didn't have time. The whole plan was laid out to the second and if I wasn't inside the vault before the ticksteel doors automatically locked at midnight the whole thing would be ruined.

My heart was hammering in my chest and my palms were sweating but it didn't feel unpleasant, quite the opposite. All I could feel was burning fire and living lightning in my veins, even after all these years that feeling never went away.

If you can understand that, wonderful! If you can't... well that's probably for the best its part of growing up in a repressive domineering and overbearing family. Most people find situations like a heist or sword fight terrifying but having spent the first two decades of my life nodding and smiling like a good little doll I was revelling in finally being free. And on top of that I got a chance to fix some of Prasus’ more glaring social problems. Doing good and having fun doing it I mean what’s not to like?

And here was a fine opportunity, nobles hated having their fancy toys stolen and there was an Abyss of one here. If what we had heard was right the duchess Margovia (who’s mansion I was currently half a mile and several disabled security systems into) had acquired a piece of ticksteel called an “Aetheria resonance and magnetic ionosphere disruptor” I didn't have a clue what it did but with a name like that I didn't much care; it just sounded expensive.

With my thoughts happily occupied with stealing riches from the nobles, helping out the downtrodden peasants and adding something new to my trophy case I padded through one final shadow filled room and arrived at the treasure vault's outer doors.

I looked at them then smiled to myself and raised my mace, the burnished copper of its flanges gleamed even with only one sister hanging in the heavens tonight.

I spun it in my grip expertly (I had made it after all if I'm not an expert who was?) and pried the end of the large heavy oblong pommel. Inside rows of spikes, spirals and spigots gleamed dully. I pulled out the correct lock pick and set to work, I was still a novice of course but the outer door didn't have a very good lock. You must remember that nobles are the stingiest people you will ever meet, they never spend any money that they don't have to, most peasants are surprised by this not realising that it is the reason these peoples became nobles in the first place.

I have no doubt in fact that the duchess only invested in her new inner vault door, a piece of indestructible unpickable ticksteel worth a cool thousand gold Lire, because of the recent crime wave (which I could only claim partial credit for). She would never go to the cost of installing two and after some circumspect questioning of a maid who had previously worked there (when she applied to our house) I found out she had left the outer door in place because its patina suited her wall hangings. Deduce from this some measure of the one I was about to steal from.

Anyway within a few seconds the door swung open and I silently slithered inside... or that's what I would like to say. Honesty compels me to admit that really I waddled in, tripped over and banged my shin rather loudly on an inordinately large and hard vase in the room beyond. I grabbed it before it hit the ground but still the sound of disturbed porcelain seemed to echo.

My heart now truly racing I decided to throw an amount of caution to the wind (I had learned however never to throw it all away) and bolted across the next room like a hare, then the next, then the next, I knew I was running short on time when I finally found my destination, a wide open marble foyer at the very end; a hugely bulky brass door frame twice as wide as I was tall that just screamed “Vault Door”. I dashed across the white tiled colonnade and slid the last few metres through the vault door on my knees even as I heard the ticksteel in the walls come alive around me. A half second later the vault door slammed shut like a guillotine.

Standing beyond the door I panted hard for a moment then pulled myself together and looked around at the inner vault. It was a titanic room perfectly circular with a domed glass ceiling and a large gallery that ran all the way around its width and it was on this gallery that I stood, the entire scene was half concealed in darkness lit only faintly by the light of the solitary sister that hung that night in the heavens no torches shone on walls or candles on sills in the darkened vault. Craning my neck up to stargaze for a brief second and I was satisfied to note that the sister was in precisely the right place I was just in time. Finally I took a few steps forwards and with a deep breath I leant over the golden balustrade and stared down at my prize.

At the centre of the vault was a circular sunken area carpeted in black and white tiles and in the very centre of this expanse was a huge glass viewing case.... and a strange one at that It looked rather like a twisted pyramid, four sided but as if it had melted and been spun on its axis as it did so bunching and twisting in on itself to form strange knobbly lines out of the Ever-Glass that it was forged from but this wasn't what I noticed, what I noticed was sat on a cushion dimly visible within the contrivance of purple tinted glass. A long bronze tube covered in tiny dials and with a hinged hatch at one end around the fitted edges of which shone a soft blue light barely stronger than the moonlight but which I could still somehow feel on my skin from across the room.

Looking at the device I allowed myself a small smile, it matched the blueprints I had stolen the previous night perfectly. This was my target; the aether disruptor.

I could have strolled right over the central plinth and grabbed it... but since the floor was pressure wired this would have been a really stupid thing to do.

Instead I scampered along the gallery until I found a couple of bookcases, us nobles stick them everywhere even I don't know why we do it, it’s just what we do. Also we tend to fill the shelves with blank volumes, old notepads, cookbooks and out of date almanacks that we’ve had rebound in leather rather than actual real books, I mean who just has thousands of leather bound books lying around their house...?

Anyway I grabbed the huge heavy bookshelf and clambered up it using the shelves like rungs on a ladder until I stood quite happily on the top, the high ceiling still some seven or eight metres above me at this point as I flourished my mace once again. Aiming its head carefully at the distant plinth I slammed my hand down on the hidden trigger.

The flanges on my maces head shook then snapped upwards forming four equidistance spikes then the entire head shot off the maces handle and flew across the room trailing a long black cable. It landed perfectly, wrapping itself around a ghastly gilt cherub on the opposite wall, I tugged the line a few times but it held fast.

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

I breathed deeply, rolled my shoulders, stretched my arms... and leapt off the bookshelf, clicking the switch again as I did so.

I plummeted towards the floor for a long terrifying second wondering if my mace had failed, if I was going to plummet. Then the internal motor caught and my arm felt like it was being ripped from its socket as I was drawn through the air, hurtling towards the case well above the (possibly) lethal floor.

I would love to claim I landed perfectly however I am again forced to admit that I actually slammed face first into the case (my hard mask making the damage infinitely worse), this was made all the more embarrassing my mace then suddenly detaching from its cherub and nearly slamming into the floor, only a lightning fast trigger pull drew it back into its handle again.

Saying some words that a woman of my breeding really shouldn't know I scrambled down from the glass safe placing my feet carefully only on the edges of the single white tile that the case itself sat on. The blueprints I stole had assured me that the plinths tile was not wired. I stopped to curse my clumsiness and pulled off my mask, stupid I know but it was heavy and I felt sure I had broken my nose.

Luckily my bones were still intact and as you have been so very patient I will tell you about my newish mask; the face I became known for (to several people for good reasons and to millions of people for very bad reasons, there is no justice). It was a traditional full face Prasian carnival mask in many ways sporting thin pursed lips, rounded cheeks and a pointed chin but unlike a normal mask which was sculpted from porcelain mine was carved (rather crudely I admit) from quartz. Yup you read that right, quartz. Which was a real pain to get let me tell you, you ever had to explain to a noblewoman why you want about two kilograms of rough quartz?

It only covered the front half of my face allowing my (if I may say so) extremely fine silver-white hair to trail out behind me. The milky white quartz had another benefit but that one will take a little while to demonstrate.

Anyway after ensuring I wouldn't have to explain away a broken nose to my family I slipped my mask back on and examined the pyramid pedestal for a moment. It took me two crabwise shuffling circuits to find what I was looking for but after less than a minute I did, a tiny brass lock bar set into the bottom of one of the pyramids four faces.

Luckily the Baroness was rather unintelligent and hadn't thought to keep the blueprints for her safe in a different office to those of her vault. With a whistle and a grin I deftly extended my mace's lockpicks again and set to work on the tiny metal bar. As I said before I'm not that good with the old pins and picks... but with the blueprints for the lock sitting snugly in my head I didn't need to be.

And so after a mere handful of seconds I was tugging gently on the hinge pin of the lock and watching as the glass door swung silently outwards, inside the aether disruptor glittered invitingly like a pearl within an oyster.

I reached out.

There was a scream of metal on metal a distant sound of rushing steam and with a single heartbeat huge steel walls had shot out of the ground around the case blocking it from view behind impregnable steel. I stood and gawped at the defences for a moment wondering briefly (with the absent mindedness of shock) whether I should come back and try to steal it again tomorrow. Then common sense kicked me in the ribs and yelled that I’d been made at exactly the same time as I heard slow mocking clapping.

Nothing good ever follows mocking clapping.

I turned around and saw Duchess Loren Ashford herself, she was standing in the gallery behind me nearly glowing in a long dress of silver and gold (literal silver and gold. The “in” theme that season was clothes made from bars of precious metal with chain links to hold them together). The elevated position, the element of surprise, the glowing gown of gold, all of these things should have made her intimidating but instead I remember thinking that she looked... ratty. Her posturing did nothing to change the fact. Her nose was long and hooked, her teeth jutted noticeably out of her mouth, her eyes were tiny and beady and her entire face was scrunched up in a mixture of rage and avarice leading to the overall impression of a rat that had been presented with an unexpected bill. Her light brown hair didn't help it either being a shade that could only be called mousy.

Also she was tiny and looked like a stiff breeze could knock her over but the pair of furnace-knights flanking her were a different story. Each looked to be at least two metres tall and that was before they had strapped on their vast ticksteel suits of powered plate mail. If you included the boiler, flying pendants and huge pauldrons then they were problem pushing four metres at least and both clutched to their chests a claymore sword of razor sharp steel that was easily as long as I was tall.

Obviously the smartest thing would have been for the duchess to have her knights charge me with their machine enhanced strength and oversized swords, in the close confines of the vault I wouldn't have had a chance (sans magic). But equally obviously anyone who mockingly claps can never resist a good monologue.

“Ah our little thief,” she bowed and waved an arm. “Welcome to my humble abode.”

I had sighed and remembered those exact same words dripping like poison from a certain Baron’s mouth only a few cycles before. The arrogant aristocracy did so like that turn of phrase; I think they thought it made them sound cunning and sinister. I thought it made them sound like... well a word I was not supposed to know or understand.

“It's a lovely place,” I retorted. “Slightly too much metal for my taste though.” I hiked my thumb over my shoulder to indicate the blast shutter behind me.

The duchess squinted at me obviously unhappy that I was making jokes now but she rallied magnificently. “I am very nearly impressed that you had the gall to attack MY home, luckily I was prepared,” she smiled widely. “For you see some of the lesser families of my house are officers in the watch and they informed me when the designer of my new vault suffered a sudden burglary, when they told me the designs for my security system had been stolen I knew instantly that you would be coming here to steal my aether disruptor and so I cunningly laid this inescapable trap for you!” She stopped talking and preened, actually preened! She half turned away and raised a hand to her chin posing and obviously thinking she looked intelligent and dashing. I thought she looked like a dog waiting for a treat.

After a few seconds, during which time I suspect her guards were trying not to laugh, I raised a hand with fake meekness. “Is there something wrong with your neck?” I asked as innocently as possible.

The duchess’s head snapped back around and she glared at me and that glare made up for the pathetic posturing. Her eyes were like a snake’s, dead inside and full of... not even hate just an icy dispassionate desire for death.

“The Arch-Doge will be ever so happy when I present him with your head,” she spat, “he might even promote me to the senate, you have been making his guards look very foolish after all,” she sighed dreamily. “I will be able to add another wing to my mansion at least.”

“That’s all that matters to you isn’t it?” I snapped. “What can I get, what can I have, what can he give me, you and your kind are bleeding this city dry to feed your own vanity and that despots lust for power.”

“Stupid fool!” she bellowed any pretence of civility gone. “The city only exists to benefit the nobility, we created it and we command it! The commoners only live here so they may serve us!”

“W... The nobles are supposed to serve as an example not a warning they should be the best of the best, those at the bottom should look up with admiration not hate they should aspire not loathe.” I retorted, and yes before you ask, all the florid prose I was spouting had a very good reason I just needed her distracted for a few more seconds.

“Huh an idealist,” the duchess stopped moving and stared at me for a few seconds, her features screwed up with the effort of thought. “It will be interesting to find out who you are.” She raised a hand and the knights stepped forwards.

“Who I am doesn’t matter what I do, what I symbolise that's what matters!” Yes again I was hamming it up but I had just seen a flash of colour that told me I wouldn't need too much longer.

“You really are naive,” she muttered and she brought her arm down, as one the two furnace-knights lumbered forwards their armour screaming as their boilers coughed out vast clouds of smoke. “Soon you will do nothing but rot and symbolise nothing but failure. You were a fool to think you could rob me alone.”

I admit it, I laughed, sometimes life just hands you a perfect moment, so I adopted a suitable swaggering pose and smiled (which was obscured by my mask unfortunately) up at the duchess. “Whoever said I was alone?”

And then the ceiling exploded.