Little Thieves (Little Thieves, #1)

by Margaret Owen

Once upon a time, there was a girl as cunning as the fox in winter, as hungry as the wolf at first frost, and cold as the icy wind that kept them at each other’s throats. Her name was not Gisele, nor was it Marthe, nor even Pfennigeist. My name was—is—Vanja. And this is the story of how I got caught.

Little thieves steal gold, and great ones steal kingdoms, but only one goes to the gallows.

All in all, he gives the impression of a collection of billiard cues that unionized to solve crimes.

In the world I knew, there were three reasons a person would be wanted: for profit, pleasure, or power. If you could satisfy only one, they used you. Two, they saw you. Three, they served you.

“You’re what happens when an encyclopedia wishes on a star to be a real boy, if that encyclopedia was also an absolute prick.”

No matter how many cards I lay between myself and the rest of the world, no matter how many lies I tell, how many lives I steal, it will never be enough. I will never escape the ghost in the mirror. I will never escape her, because I am haunted by myself.

I am not coming out of this night grudgingly liking the smug bastard. I refuse on yet another principle (which is: There’s only room in this town for one smug bastard. That smug bastard is me). Gisele gasps,

“Are…” Gisele looks almost afraid. “Are you a god?” “If I were, Adalbrecht would be a stain on a floor somewhere,” I retort.

I don’t know what’s worse: that he’s slipped into my heart like a knife, or that I like the feel of him there.