USUPERD

Jade breathed in the market's stink, the rotten fruit and wet earth, resting thick and sweet at the back of her throat, that she felt her shoulders ease. The rain didn't touch her the same way it touched everyone else. It beat against the wooden stalls and turned the streets soft with mud, and she only watched what it did to the people. Merchants crowded under the roofs, voices raised over the downpour as water slipped down their necks.

Others moved quickly past with hoods low and eyes on the ground, hands wiping rain from their faces instead of holding on to what they carried. Coats hung loose on their shoulders as their bags swayed with every step. None of them looked up. Jade felt her pulse quicken. She liked people better when they weren't paying attention.

She pulled her hood lower and drifted to a cloth merchant stall, close enough to almost seem like a buyer. Her eyes wandered over the colourful fabrics, rolls of dyed wool hanging heavy and wet. She ran her fingers on them like she was actually considering it. Three coppers left in her pocket, rent on the room above Vivians was due in two days. She knew Vivian wasn't one to offer a second chance, not since the winter Jade had asked for extra time and paid by  scrubbing floors till her knuckles cracked. Bloody hell, she wasn't doing that again.

Her eyes hadn't been on the clothes, they weren't for the past ten minutes. They were on a man who stood three stalls away from her. Soft hands, soft boots, the kind of stranger who didn't belong in the ward and clearly didn't know it. Everything he had on him was wrong for the Low market. The fine wool of his coat, unstained by mud everyone else wore like a second skin. The way he stood, easy and unhurried, like he would never once worry someone else's hands would find their way into his pocket.

She was still figuring out how to play the situation, the best way to close the distance without getting his attention, when a shout cracked through the market noise behind her.

"You cheating dog, that grain's half rot and you know it!"

Heads turned immediately, including that of her soon to be prey, but he immediately returned to his bargain. Two merchants stood against each other a few stalls away. The first man matched forward angrily, shoving the other hard enough to send a crate of vegetables scattering across the wet stone. Voices rose fast, ugly and loud creating a chaotic atmosphere, the kind of fight that thrived on the cheers of the audience.

Within seconds half the market had drifted toward the noise, necks stretched, while some other merchants stood on crates for a better view, someone was already laughing and shouting for a bet on who'd throw the first real punch. Jade almost smiled. She hadn't asked for it, but she wasn't about to waste it either.

The fine gentleman's coin pouch hung loose at his belt, it was barely tied, swinging every time he leaned in to bargain over dried figs like the few coppers mattered to him. It wouldn't, at least not to him. But would matter enormously to her.

She'd been watching him long enough, long to know his habits, the way he touched his pouch without thinking, more instinct than caution, and the way his face straightened at the fig seller whenever the bargain picked up. People always thought that caution meant using your eyes, but never knew the true danger hiding in the crowd.

She let herself edge nearer, squeezing between a fishseller cart stacked with silver scaled fish and a boy hawking bundles of dry twigs twice his size. The noise of the market rose behind her, voices bargaining , dog barking behind the leather craftsman's stall and the wet slap of boots on the stone road. She used it all, it swallowed her own footsteps as she closed distance.

She was close enough to smell his soap, something expensive and floral under the market stink of wet stones, fish and overflowing gutters. Still arguing, he was insisting on an unbelievable market price that almost made Jade laugh. Amateur. Not because he's foolish, rather because he thinks manners matter here. He thought that fair price was owed to him for asking politely.

Her fingers found the pouch string,they were quick and smooth, the way it had found others with less skill but more patience.  She learned earlier that quick hands got caught, patience is a virtue and what mattered most. Slow hands move with confidence and patience, at the end they always come out clean and uncaught.

The knot loosened without protest. She had gone three steps away before he could notice the weight was gone from his hip.  She melted back into the crowd, already halfway to being a normal stranger he had never seen. 

The rain hasn't stopped a bit, and she took advantage of it too, ducking her head like every other person thereby letting the weather give her an excuse for her rush without looking like she was running from anything at all. She sets rules for herself, five streets before she feels relief and drops her shoulders tensed with fear.

The coins were heavier than she expected. The weight was more than what a merchant makes daily, heavier than copper and the silver coins she occasionally took from likes of him.  The thought stuck on her for like a second. "Too heavy, that's wrong, that's more than the fig and coat could cost".  She put it down to where the weight won't slow her feet. She would count whatever is in the pouch, only when she is in a closed door, where there would be no witnesses or prying eyes.

She didn't open it, not here. Opening a stolen purse in the open space was how careless thieves lost their hands in the market square, held up to the crowd and used as a warning to anyone  who would ever think of trying it.  She had seen it happen once, during winter, a boy about twelve screaming and crying, and the crowd did nothing but watch. The sight still haunted her late at nights, in the cold and quiet room above Vivian's, it was too quiet to drown the memory.

She was already two streets away when the rain poured harder, plastering her hood to her head, blurring people's faces into shapes she didn't need to know. She passed a woman roasting chestnuts in a covered stall, passed a man muttering curses over his cart stuck in mud, and also passed a girl at the temple ringing a bell for a coin that no one gave, the usual noise and chaos of noon no one would think twice about. 

She looked back at once, the kind of quick, hurried glance one throws over the shoulder out of habit or fear. The gentleman was still at the stall, giving gestures and his voice were high pitched enough that she caught the word 'robbery' though he meant the price of the fruit, not the missing pouch on his belt. He hadn't noticed yet, and might not even notice for several minutes, he was busy arguing over two coppers to notice the missing pouch.

She almost smiled, almost letting herself enjoy the satisfaction of a clean take, the one that  would keep her and Vivian fed for weeks, only if the weight in her sleeve promised what she thought it did. 

Something about that weight kept bothering her, she knew something was wrong. Coins don't weigh this much, coins shake, they are thin and spread loose. But on the contrary, this one was stacked and counted.She was still lost in her thoughts, when she suddenly ran into someone.