Painted Devils (Little Thieves, #2)

by Margaret Owen

“Hmm,” Helga hums, swinging her own lantern to study a mosaic in Felsengruft’s rite hall. “Yeah, this definitely looks like human sacrifice.”

“It’s not your fault,” I mumble. “I’m the one who started a cult.”

Little thieves tell themselves they take what they need to survive, and sometimes that’s true, and sometimes it’s a lie. Great thieves don’t fool themselves about their motives; they take things because they want them, end of story. The only lie they tell themselves is that there’s no difference between wanting something and deserving it.

“I can be upset and still think you deserve nice things.”

“Do you have a way to—to call your prefect boy?” “First of all: He is not my boy, he is a strong, independent young protractor,” I reply tartly.

I appreciate good interior design as much as the next scammer, but pass.

I think I understand, now, why they say you fall in love, because I don’t think I could climb out of this feeling even if I wanted to. What a beautiful trap I’ve built for myself. What a horror, what a delight, to find I’ve been caught.

He tells me about the time Lukas accidentally upended paste all over his own hair and decided the only remedy was to cut it off. How Hester is working on a special printing type that can be read by touch for blind readers like her. About his mother’s recent suitor, who endured a three-hour interrogation from the sisters Conrad before he was allowed to call upon Clara a second time. How, once a year, they all travel to Rabenheim to visit their father’s grave on his birthday. I drift off, hearing the warmth, the love, in Emeric’s voice, and wonder if any of my siblings will ever speak of me that way.

“I have a wife, probably,” Ragne yowls. “Would you like another?”

This past week has proven something terribly inconvenient and just as terribly undeniable. I like solving problems. Or rather, I like solving problems for good people by causing problems for bad people.

I am a thief, a liar, a daughter, a sister, trouble, wanted. And my name is Vanja Ros.

And as ever, to the awful girls: You are wanted as you are.