In reality, it didn't really matter whether Mossy betrayed me or not - that was the beauty of the plan. Sure, if she went all-in trying to sell our cause, the plan would be a lot more effective. But things would work alright even if she tried to stab me in the back. It wasn't the most elegant or complex plan, but it was probably my first ever scheme with good contingency planning. Whenever masterminding a plan, the two most important contingencies to plan for are:

What if my confederate/insider betrays me?

What if my enemy/opponent has knowledge about my plan?

Obviously, there are other considerations, such as: what if my ally betrays me? However, this is a lot rarer than the spatbacks would have you believe. Of the two contingencies, betrayal by a confederate is by far the easiest to plan for, assuming your confederate only knows what they need to know (another important principle of covert schemes). However, it's also possible to account for your enemy's knowledge by controlling the flow of information. To do this, you need only make sure the most readily available 'facts' paint the scenario you wish your enemy to act upon and that your enemy wishes to be true, such that they will discount real information if it conflicts. For instance, if your enemy thinks you're a scoundrel and a criminal, don't dissuade her of the notion. No, double down on the idea - but I digress.

Mr. Hianchi was uncertain about his part in Operation: Comeuppance, mostly because he didn't know he was my pawn in the scheme. All he knew was that I'd given him a good offer coupled with an odd request.

"Vix… Vix, honey, you aren't a courier. This is an awfully expensive book for you to run," he said. He chewed at his mustache, perhaps second-guessing his decision. I was relying upon the fact that he clearly valued my translation services. Sure, I delivered his books around the district (and even a bit beyond) on occasion, too, but never one as expensive as Baulaire's Rarefied Reagents.

If I'd had a few kronettas to spare - which, to be clear, I definitely did not - I might have just bought the book myself and had it delivered as a libre ex makkina, as the Old Turans might say. But, alas, a Scamp like me had to make sure somebody else wanted to borrow an expensive book and was willing to pay a few octavos for it. Fortunately, Mailyn occasionally worked as a messenger girl for Yakopo do Boulanio, who ran an apothecarial shop in the southwest of the district. She told him about the amazing forty percent discount that The Learned Gentleman was offering on loans, and he jumped at the opportunity to peruse Baulaire's for a month. Of course, Mr. Hianchi was only offering a twenty percent discount (begrudgingly, and at my request), and the three of us had to cover the additional octavo in savings, which was a lot for three Scamps to cover. Such was the cost of our covert operation - six and two-thirds tollos apiece and a few favors burned.

Another valuable lesson in espionage: favors are worth more than gold. And gold is worth exactly as much as gold. Assign your priorities accordingly.

Mr. Hianchi parted with the book with about as much reticence as I expected. I had to give a good tug to disengage his miserly fingers from the tome. To be fair to him, it was a fine tome - perhaps thirty years old, but in excellent condition. Baulaire's was a specialist volume, useful only to a consummate apothecary or a wealthy bibliophile. The cover was a sleek blue leather, soft with age and sweet with the scent of old paper rather than the tang of recently-treated leather and bleached pulp, inlaid with gold foil and printed in copperplate with an ink so dark the letters seemed to swallow the light. It was a beautiful book, befitting its literally rarefied subject.

Baulaire, of course, wrote many other, more accessible, more affordable tomes on medicinal alchemy, but I needed the book to be valuable for my plan, and Baulaire's had value. The increasing volume and diversity of imports from the Turan continents meant some old and exotic preparations were once again becoming commercially viable, and this meant Baulaire's, two centuries out of date, had coe full-circle and was once again cutting-edge. I didn't know this at the time, obviously, but I knew the book was valuable because Aldo told me. He'd overheard one of Pa Akraszovic's fences say as much and mention the tome by name. Knowing this, I got Mailyn to name drop the tome to give Mr. Boulanio the idea to borrow it. Then we saw that he received a discount flier… young Vix had plans within plans, my friends.

Mr. Hianchi finally let the finding slip through his ink-stained fingers. "Well… are you just going to salivate over the book or are you going to deliver it?"

I swallowed the instinct to point out that he'd been the one delaying me. "Of course! Right away, Mr. Hianchi!"

I slid the book into the back of my satchel, slid Prinsette Jacintas Edventyr into the front, and made my way out of the shop, hitting the cobblestone streets of Little Gionika in stride and accelerating up to a jog before I was even at the corner. And then Tizzie Drake sprung her trap.

I was accosted almost immediately, a younger Scamp tugging at my satchel and trying to get at the contents. I pivoted on my heel and pushed him back with a kick - I had a top-form front kick and he didn't stand a chance, whooshing as the wind pushed out of him and falling on his rear in the street, right on top of a pile of horse manure. With a laugh, I was off, jogging down the long lane toward Apiary Way. The road proceeded in the direction of Alhred Park before turning southwest toward the Nation's Pool, but I was far from my goal when more eagle-eyed conspirators spotted me.

"I see her!" somebody shouted. Looking back, I had no fewer than three tails sprinting after me. I wondered briefly how many Scamps Tizzie had managed to recruit into her service - she'd said it was a dozen, but I suspect it was about half that. I wouldn't expect anything short of Tizzie marshalling all her forces to entrapping the horrible thief, Vix Altorelli.

They were quite intent on getting their hands on my 'stolen' delivery, too. Gabriella Decimo was even on the rooftops, running down the balustrade in a fleet-footed sprint that managed to pace me as I ran down on the open street. She reached an alleyway and leapt across the gulf between three-story buildings without an instant of hesitation. How in the world had somebody like Tizzie recruited a girl with skills like that?

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

"Nice try!" I shouted as a boy darted into my path and tried to body-check me. It was like they knew where I was going. Curious, that - almost like somebody had given them inside information. I might not have sprinted down balustrades for fun, but I was plenty agile. I vaulted over the boy, knocking his head with my satchel as I passed. I giggled as he cursed and stumbled to a stop in the alleyway behind me.

Off I went. And there, at the end of the alleyway, was my target: good old Aldo. Who, I suppose, was neither good nor old. Aldo waited, ensconced in shadow, and at the last possible second, he popped back into our world of form and color to snag the satchel from me and take off down the road perpendicular to my own sprint. One of Tizzie's kids whooped, thinking one of his fellows had nabbed the satchel from me, only to curse when he realized I wasn't going to let them get the tome so easily.

"She ain't got the book! Her friend's got it!" the boy shouted from behind me.

Aldo waved the satchel, hooting and laughing as he made off down the avenue, depositing a decoy book nearby as he did so. Of course, Mossy Lakes was nearby, too, and she spotted what the boy hadn't seen, the little traitor.

"No he hasn't - Vix still got the real book!"

I didn't have the real book, but I wasn't about to let them know that. I lifted the dingy lavender volume of my decoy deliberately, stuffed it under my arm, and took off once again. Somebody landed behind me, their footsteps close and fast approaching. With a glance back, I saw that it was Gabriella. The girl had leapt down from a second floor roof like it was nothing - she had an impressive kinesomantic talent for somebody not fully awakened. Most people would be lucky to sprain both ankles and suffer a fracture or two if they did that, but Gabriella was in perfect form and gaining on me, amber eyes focused on the decoy book. She made a dive for it.

She was faster than me, but her reflexes weren't better. I turned the book with a shrug of my shoulder and she wound up punching the thing instead of grabbing it. The book flew out from under my arm in a lazy ark, fluttering through the air and skittering across the street, barely avoiding being crushed under a carriage wheel. Bystanders and pedestrians shouted at us in several languages as no fewer than four Scamps ran after A History of Floria's Sewers: Collected Poems. It had cost me a tollo and most of the pages were better off employed as privy wipes than poetic pontifications. They were welcome to it.

"I… I don't think this is it," Mossy said. "Aldo must have took it!"

"She's getting away!" one of the boys shouted.

"She hasn't got the book, though," Gabriella replied.

"You got a better idea?" Mossy asked. Apparently, Gabriella Decimo did not, because she was right there with the others now pursuing me down Constanza Road.

Indeed, I could see Aldo up ahead being pursued by three more Scamps. He'd doubled back toward Apiary Lane and come out a block ahead of us, having failed to lose any of his pursuers. They were close on his heels, Aldo barely managing to stay a step ahead. Two of us against seven pursuers - it wasn't looking good…

Of course, there weren't only two of us. Mailyn sprang out from the nearby pavilion, dashing past a gaggle of surprised coach drivers gossiping around the streetside fountain. "Aldo! Toss it here!" Mailyn shouted.

Aldo did so, my satchel turning end over end as it arced through the air. Mailyn nabbed it by the strap and sprinted back past the coach drivers. "Bloody scamps," one of them muttered as five of the seven Scamps shot after her, trailing in a line as their shoes scuffed down the damp cobblestones.

I sprinted up to Aldo and helped him up - he'd pretended to fall a lot worse than he actually had when one of the younger Scamps body-checked him on the way past. And, as I helped him up, Aldo slipped me the real Baulaire's book. As for what Mailyn was escaping with in my satchel? My copy of Prinsette Jacinta, I'm afraid. Only two Scamps were left to witness the handoff. Unfortunately, one of them was Gabriella Decimo, and the other was Mossy Lakes.

"Damn! Vix still has it!" Gabriella shouted - most of the others were already too far away to hear her.

I stuck my tongue out at her and took off, daring her to pursue me. She did, of course, with Mossy not too far behind. I'd long prided myself on being fleet of foot, and here Gabriella, a year my junior, was easily catching up on me while Mossy kept pace. Maybe I'd gone a bit soft from all those hours comfortably translating in Mr. Hianchi's shop. Or maybe I was just tired. Yes, that's probably it.

In any case, I didn't have to be faster than them. I just had to be trickier. I swung around a lamppost to hang a sharp right turn and shot off up a slanting stone wall. Gabriella followed me right up the wall and Mossy kept pace down on street level. Then Mossy twisted her body and… yep. She threw a bloody rock at me. I yelped in surprise, dipping to avoid the rock and losing my balance. I stumbled along for a few more steps and might have regained my footing, but Gabriella tugged at the book just then. Rather than tumble two meters down into an alleyway, I took a leap of faith and stumbled into a roll, losing my hold on the book as I braced myself. The poor, beautiful tome flew through the air, thankfully landing atop a pile of moldering newsletters rather than scuffing against the slick stone of the streets or landing in a puddle.

I scrambled to retrieve it just as Gabriella did. "Hey! Hey, it's over here!" she shouted. She took a big, looping swing at me, which I blocked with my shoulder. I stomped on her foot and made to headbutt her - I wouldn't have really smashed her face with my forehead, but she didn't know that. When she flinched, I yanked the book away, pushed her down, and took off down the nearby alleyway.

I was close to Apothecaria Novela, my destination, so very close. I had the book and only one pursuer. She was a capable pursuer, no doubt, but she was tiring faster than I was. I sprinted down the alleyway, golden daylight opening before me as I approached its end. For a moment, doubt flared in my mind. For a moment, I thought something horrible and unexpected was going to happen.

Then Tizzie Drake rounded the corner and decked me with a body check, sending me sprawling back, stunned and gasping for breath. Triumph was written all over her expression as she swaggered forward and yanked Baulaire's Rarefied Reagents from my trembling fingers.

"Well lookie here," she chuckled. Her grin faltered as she flipped through the first few pages. "Is… is this a medicine book?"

Just then, shouting could be heard from the courtyard just beyond our alleyway. "Help! Help! Scoundrels! Thieves! They've stolen my uncle's book!" Opellia shouted.

There was a clamor, the sound of a dozen guards clad in Gionian barding charging into action. Tizzie turned to run, but I tripped her with a tug on the ankle. In an instant, the alleyway was blocked by men with spears and crossbows, the guards from the Sons of the Winter Rose company, their expressions every bit as icy as their eponymous flower.

"You're in a lot of trouble, girl," their sergeant grumbled, yanking the book from Tizzie's hands.

Operation successful!