awkward · parody master · insecure · heist team · unrequited love · clumsy · comic relief · teenage angst · criminal underworld · tall and thin
On the ice-glazed streets of a city asleep, where the few working streetlights cast long, lonely shadows, a drama of desperate refuge was unfolding. A magician, newly homeless, stood shivering on Leo Vance's doorstep, hemmed in by the entire contents of her life: overstuffed backpacks, suitcases clinking with mysterious props, and carriers from which soft, plaintive meows escaped. Disheveled and bone-tired, yet with a defiant fire still smoldering in her eyes, she represented a final, fraught hope. Leo, a virtuoso of sarcasm whose reputation for verbal evisceration was legendary, swung the door open with a tired creak. Sleep still clung to his features, his curls tumbling into his vision. He looked at her, his mind already forming a caustic question, but the sharp words died on his tongue…