Shara perched on the branch at the top of the tall tree and rolled her eyes. No doubt about it – that was a very large group of Tailcoats and their groupies. And they were headed right for the same mountain she was.

Had her source sold the same information to them he’d sold to her? She wouldn’t put it past the rat. Anything for money. Probably got a License to Count or something from them for his trouble.

“Well, Shara, what are you going to do now?” she asked herself, looking first down at the ground far below, then over the tops of the other trees to the side of the mountain everybody seemed to be interested in today. “Race the Tailcoats and risk getting caught? Or, play it safe, look the other way and head home? Empty handed.”

As if a sign, a wildly colored butterfly, the commoners’ symbol of Chaos, flitted about directly in front of her. It danced to an invisible tune in the air, darting in seemingly random directions, and then directly towards her face.

Shara instinctively tried to shoo the insect away, which caused her balance to shift, her left foot slipping off the smooth bark, and she tilted dangerously backwards. Practiced reflexes grabbed the branch beside her right foot as gravity swung her over the side, and she let the momentum pull her down and around until her feet touched down on another branch.

Holding on to the branch she’d just left with her gloved right hand, Shara let out the breath she’d sucked in and looked back at the butterfly. If she’d planned that, it never would’ve gone so well. “All skill. That’s it,” she whispered to herself and carefully rebalanced herself. A slight glare at the butterfly, though she didn’t shoo it again, and her attention went back to the mountain.

She couldn’t just leave. She’d been working on this score for months. She had the location of the enclave, intel on a secret entrance, and now a perfect distraction. Assuming the Tailcoats didn’t catch up to her and cut her into little pieces.

“Just got to be faster. Smarter,” she whispered and glanced at the butterfly again. “Luckier.”

Okay, the Tailcoats were lining the only real path to the mountain like one of those many-legged insects – what were they called? Sensorpeeds or something – but that wasn’t the only way in. No, she needed to go…there!

Shara turned her attention to the far side of the mountain. If her intel was good, and if the Tailcoats didn’t have the same information, then there was some kind of old mule path up the back side of the rocks. Back when her grandparents were young, or so the info went, the Tinks in this secret enclave used the mule trail to move their forbidden goods into the hideaway.

Forbidden…and incredibly valuable to the right bidder.

“Wait, if the mule trail is so secret, how did my source find out about it?” Shara asked, then shook her head to banish the question. Too many questions made her hesitate. She needed to follow her gut. Move on instinct. That was how she’d always succeeded before, and this wasn’t going to be any different.

“Other than the months of planning I’ve put into this heist,” she muttered to herself. “I’m doomed,” she said with another shake of her head, then looked down at the ground far below again.

Her left hand found the fine chain hanging around her neck and she pulled it until the small stopwatch slipped out of the top of her tunic. Her gaze lingered on the engraved butterfly on the back of the watch, but she shook off the blossoming questions that always came up when she looked at it, and put her thumb over the plunger. Then, she hesitated, eyes going to the line of groupies, and more importantly, the group of tuxedo-wearing psychos at the front.

If she turned it on long enough to get down, would they be able to sense it from that far away? And, even if they did, would they get to her before she slipped away?

Yes, yes they absolutely would. All it would take is one of those bastards to already be in the Trance and they’d know exactly where she was the second she pushed the plunger. Worse, with how fast they moved, they might straight up get to the bottom of the tree before she did. Faster than a galloping horse when they wanted to be.

No, it wasn’t worth the risk.

“Time to do this the old-fashioned way,” she said, one last look at the engraving before slipping the stopwatch back into the neck of her tunic, and planned her route down the trunk. It couldn’t be that tough. That branch right there…then that one across there, then sidle around to…there. “Got it.”

With the route set, she moved on to making sure her equipment was secure. The bandolier over her shoulder and cinched at her waist held everything she needed to deal with anybody she’d meet inside the enclave, and she double-checked the straps to make sure it was tight to her chest. A touch uncomfortable, but better than losing the expensive tools. The large pocket on her right thigh held some very illegal alchemicals in case she needed a distraction, though they’d also draw a whole lot of attention if they fell out by accident, but it was good and closed. The pocket on her left leg, meanwhile, held only some folded bags. Cheap, by comparison, and absolutely essential to carry her loot out.

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Everything was good.

Satisfied and ready to go, Shara reached out and grabbed the first branch in her plan…which promptly snapped. Gravity pulled her forward like an overeager lover as her right hand slipped off the branch she’d already released, and she pitched forward.

Panic flushed through her body, one boot sliding off the slippery bark in the opposite direction she was falling until she jerked her leg back and the top of that foot touched the branch. Grabbing onto that sensation for all she was worth, Shara flexed her ankle, squeezing the branch between the top of one foot and the sole of the other as she pivoted with the branch as the fulcrum point.

Out, her body extending as she went and her pony-tail streaming behind her, the world flipped and Shara whipped down around the branch at stomach-tossing speed until just as suddenly she was right-side-up again. Eyes wide, she carefully looked around while she stood, perfectly balanced, atop the branch.

“No problem…” she breathed out through unmoving lips, careful not to move a single muscle lest she start the wild ride all over…

The same butterfly lander on her nose, the slight addition of weight throwing off the equilibrium, and painfully slowly she began to tilt backwards.

“Of course,” she mumbled, but didn’t wait for gravity to have its way with her again. Bending at the waist, her butt dropped straight down, and she caught the branch on the way by in both hands. Unhooking her foot at the same time she bent her knee and crouched, the momentum swinging her around until she pushed off, launching herself at another nearby tree trunk.

This trunk, narrow in comparison to the tree she’d been on, stretched from earth to sky at a steep angle, but was generously naked of other branches, and Shara hooked her elbow around it as she passed.

“Oof,” she grunted as she halted the momentum of her upper body with a jerk, but her legs kept going, spinning her around the tree while gravity reminded her it wasn’t her choice when it was done with her. Corkscrewing around the tree, once, then twice, Shara finally pulled her legs in and tucked her whole body against the tree to gently slide the rest of the way down to the ground.

With her feet firmly on the forest floor, she pried her arms loose and took a shaky step back to look waaaaaaaay up to where she’d come from.

“Stupid butterfly,” she mumbled. “At least the worst is over with though.”

“Would you look at this,” a man’s voice said from behind her, and Shara froze. “Women falling out of the sky. You know that’s not natural.”

“You. Don’t move,” another voice said, this one sounding younger.

“Turn around and get on your knees,” the first one said at the same time.

Shara let her hands slowly drop then paused and twisted her head every so slightly to catch a glimpse of the two men behind her.

Tailcoat groupies. Regulars. Of course. At least it wasn’t actual Tailcoats.

“Which is it?” she asked. “Don’t move or get on the ground?”

“Get on the ground,” the first said.

“Don’t move,” the younger said at the same time.

Shara peeked again while they looked at each other, neither with their swords drawn.

“I’ve been doing this longer,” the first voice said. “Protocol is for her to get on the ground.”

“But we don’t want her to try anything funny,” the younger one argued back.

Options? She could run. No way they’d be able to keep up with her, but if they alerted the Tailcoats, that was the end of her day. Let them take her? Same result as the first option, and it wasn’t a good one.

That just left fighting. Not exactly her preference, but she was no slouch either. Her aunt had made sure of that. Time to make the constant drilling worth it.

“Look, I’m telling you she needs to get down and…” the first said, then choked off as Shara spun and darted straight towards them, leaves kicking up as she ran.

She closed the distance between them in three quick strides then cut to the side, using the younger groupie to break the other’s line of site on her while she dropped low and pivoted in a tight circle. Out and around came her right leg to slam into the younger groupie’s shins and sweep him off his feet, grabbing a handful of the abundant leaves at the same time and hurling them up into the air where the man’s head had just been.

“What the…?” the older groupie said, stepping back and raising his hands defensively at the sudden debris in the air while his partner’s skull came down on a knobby root with an unpleasant thwack. “You can’t…!”

Shara interrupted him with a fist to the throat, cutting off his words, but she hadn’t put enough strength into it, and he just stumbled back gasping until his foot caught something and he tumbled to his back.

Hands on his neck, the man rolled onto his side and gasped for air.

She could’ve killed him with the blow, crushed his windpipe like her aunt had taught her, but she’d hesitated. Held back.

“I don’t want to be a killer,” she said, crouching down beside the man while he looked up at her with wild eyes. “I don’t want to be like you. On the other hand, I can’t just let you go tell your friends about me,” she added and pulled a small dart out of her special bandolier. “This might sting,” she said, and jabbed the dart, quick as a viper, into the back of the man’s hand.

The poison went to work almost immediately, his eyes rolling back into his head and his arms going limp to fall to the ground beside him.

Just to be sure, Shara likewise went over and jabbed the younger groupie as well. He was bleeding from the crack his noggin had given the old root, but unless it was much worse than it looked, he’d wake up. Maybe a bit of a headache, but he’d wake up.

Shara glanced at the two used darts between her fingers. Definitely a headache. And, as a little bonus, everything for a good half day before they got poisoned would be foggy. They wouldn’t remember her face, even if they remembered she was there at all.

That taken care of, she carefully stored the used darts, she couldn’t leave them for the Tailcoats to find, and started for the backside of the mountain. She could practically taste the wealth waiting for her inside the enclave. She’d get in, grab what she could carry, get back to her horse tied near the main road, then get far, far away before the Tailcoats ever even knew she was there.

Shara stopped dead – that sounded dangerously like a plan.

“Damnit,” she said, and started off again.