“Faster.”  A mere centimetre from my left cheek, a lonely dagger stabbed through the air. I stepped backwards, clad in my black dress that was pushed outwards at the bottom as I twirled around in the dark forest, only illuminated by a single magical light source around my neck. I picked up both sides of my dress in one go, lifted them upwards and curtsied, still walking backwards as Hannah was now aiming for my forehead.

Once again, she didn´t reach her target, but rather overshot and gave me enough room to dance underneath the dagger to the side. For a short while, I observed a squirrel ridden by fears in the canopy above us, until the next stab forced me to twirl around more.

“Faster.” I said once more, quite ecstatic as this felt more like dancing in the moonlight than anything else. Nobody was here, except Hannah and I, honing her skills as much as I could.

“I can´t” Hannah exclaimed as I jumped upwards when she slashed from the side. My hands reached towards a nearby branch and grabbed it tightly. Here, I was strangely thankful for my shortness, because that also meant a lower weight.

“You can, especially when you stop acting like a one-legged pirate and lift up your left foot properly.” I said, pulling myself up onto the branch as she tried to stab my feet and looked down on her, steading myself using the tree trunk on my left. “Go to bed, you must feel exhausted.” I said and jumped off the branch backwards while holding the hem of my dress down.

“I´m not exhausted.” She claimed, but her shoulders going up and down rapidly told a vastly different story.

“You are. And I need to go.” I said and began strolling back to where we started, naturally not without evading her last thrust and disarming her in one go. She could only sigh but didn´t follow me right away.

“What, too impressed?” I asked playfully and turned around to look at her, still standing in the middle of our private forest.

“We need to go there.” She pointed in a completely different direction I was heading, which made me stop in my tracks. Grumpy, I started following her as she walked away from me and indeed soon found the place where we started. I quickly collected the two daggers with their scabbard and secured both of them to my thighs. Next, I swung the cape around my shoulders and closed it in the front.

“How do I look?” I asked, turning around to give her a full view of my attire.

“Like you want to sell some drugs.” She said laughingly, while I could only pout unhappily in return.

“Do you want some?” I asked after a short pause and had to smile as she realized I meant it for real.

“No … thanks.” I shrugged, picked up the map and compass to my feet and began to walk north. After waving to Hannah a few seconds later, I started to sprint away from her through the small forest in the middle of the city. Following the needle, I quickly reached the borders of our estate and climbed over the fence.

After that, I had to tone it down a little as there were still a few people on the streets and I … didn´t look exactly unsuspicious with my long cape and a hood, large enough to cover most of my face if I looked down.

Despite having the worst wayfinding abilities possible, I still found my target. Well, it was hard to miss as it was pretty damn brightly illuminated. Bright spotlights even shone into the sky, lighting my way the whole time.

Yes, it was a party. And I wasn´t invited, at least under my real name … which was entirely understandable as I could smell the drugs even on the street nearby. Well, even the nobles liked to indulge in various pleasures after all. I even heard from Tom there was an orgy in one of the rooms … which I would definitely avoid at all costs. At first, though, I didn´t enter the mansion but rather steered to a completely unsuspicious black carriage … with a red, smudged smiley face on it. Going closer, I could even smell the goat blood on it as if we were some kind of death cult.

…

We kind of were a death cult, weren’t we?

Anyways, I swiftly opened the door and hopped into the carriage without any care. Inside, Tom waited for me, holding two masks in his hands. I smiled wildly and gave him his cape, while he gave me one of the masks without saying any word.

“So … your eyes.” He commented after noticing my very red pupils. I only shrugged in return and secured the mask onto my face tightly. After an approving nod from Tom, I was sure that only my eyes could be seen and maybe my blonde hair as well, but that wasn´t a real issue. My real issue was my voice because it was quite childish and unique in that regard.

Shortly afterwards, I hopped out of the carriage again, followed by Tom who took the slower route as he didn´t want to slip out on the ground. Together, we walked side by side towards the entrance where our capes already caused quite an uproar.

I mean, we basically stole from the richest men alive and still had the balls to auction everything off under their nose. While we were obviously invited to this slightly illegal party, nobody expected us to actually show up as it was quite risky. Everyone wanted to know who we were, and some even wanted to have our heads, presented on their plates.

Just as we passed the gate, one of the guards snapped out of their trance and approached us fast.

“Good sirs …” As soon as he was within a metre or so, he stopped in our way while we simply continued to walk onwards, seemingly without care. “… we cannot let you go inside …”

Tom and I distanced ourselves from each other, going around the guard using different paths. The guard, completely helpless, touched his sabre on his hips to underline his position. “We need to check your weapo-“

As my hands were always near my hips, their way towards one of my daggers relatively short. The cape covered everything, including how I unsheathed it as I was right next to him. A millisecond afterwards, I already lifted up my right hand to slash at the guard’s throat faster than he could react.

He probably even didn´t see the dagger once. He could only see a rising cape and then felt how his throat was slit open.

Rattling, he held his wound he sank on his knees while we simply walked onwards. I breathed in the beautiful scent of fresh blood as Tom turned around while walking and looked at the guard.

“Yes, we do have weapons.” He commented drily and paid no heed as the guard collapsed completely. I observed the other guard’s reactions carefully, but none seemed to be too willing to stand in our paths. I mean, they were mercenaries, hired just for this day. Asking them to die for this event was a little bit too much for them. And as they couldn’t even see what I did, none of them betted on the possibility of victory against the shorter one of Tom and me. Even if they could win against me, there was still Tom.

And he was very fearsome.

He could scream loudly, for example.

Thus, we could enter the estate without anyone blocking us further. The doors were already opened as we strolled through them in complete silence. It wasn’t just us who was deathly silent. It was everyone.

Playfully, Tom reached out from underneath his cape, revealing a black smoking underneath. His hands wandered to a waiters’ plate with two glasses on it. He handed me one of them, even though we wouldn’t drink anything at all. And thus, I simply let it fall to the ground where it shattered loudly.

At that point, everyone´s gaze was already focused on us, but it couldn´t hurt silencing even those that whispered to their peers.

“Good morning.” Tom said, seemingly enjoying the attention way too much. And thus, the silence returned once again as Tom and I strode through the main hallway, took the stairs up and then walked a bit further until we reached a room akin to an opera hall. It was brightly lit by a chandelier in the middle of it, hanging high above the first floor.

“This way please.” Said a waiter close by, sweating a bit too much in my opinion. He wore a black penguin suit, but the collar around his neck revealed his status very well. Tom nodded and so, we followed the slave to a cabin only for ourselves. He quickly excused himself after we replied to his questions if we needed something with nothing but silence.

Now alone, I checked the walls, ground and roof for any holes or similar, but as I couldn’t find any right away, I took a seat on a table opposite of Tom. While I  looked down on the ground floor filled with equally lavishly decorated table than we had. More than once, I noticed how others were staring, but they quickly returned back to whispering with their neighbours afterwards. None wanted to keep eye contact with me, even though the distance would make it very hard to make out my eye colour. Tom on the other hand kept looking back towards the door quite often, probably fearing an attack that never came.

I didn´t quite reckon with an attack at this point in the first place. It would make no sense for anyone on the ground floor to take a group of hoodlums with them, especially considering what this place was and who hosted this event. Only nobles or those wealthy enough to buy a pass into the noble district could be here. Nobody wanted to pay the extra cost of bringing a few more with them, especially because it was usually very safe. Most importantly, they all didn´t know we would come.

Those who did though, couldn’t risk tarnishing their reputation either. This event was hosted by one of the three criminal gangs which controlled large swaths of the underworld. And because we gave them a provision for selling our stuff, they wouldn’t attack us either. We were their cash cow … at laeast in their eyes.

After all, we didn´t announce yet that we would crush every single one of them until only we were left to control all the crime in this kingdom.