Scipio and Perla were seated side-by-side outside, after Perla had read the note. It said that Pheonix was going to meet her outside and she was required to have a witness to their trade, the trade of Perla's precious gold ring for her request. Scipio wanted to know what it was that Perla wanted, so he agreed to come.
Perla suddenly stood up off the bottom step as a boy with his hair streaked back and streaked with reds and oranges and yellows. His mask was a red opera mask, doused in red-dyed feathers. One strand of firey red beads hung down by the left corner of his mouth and a ruby shaped like a flame dangled at it's end. He wore a red trench coat, a red vest, white dress shirt, red tie, red slacks, and his shoes were black. He pulled his hands out of his pockets and his gloves were red cloth. He took a short bow and held out his hand for Perla's gold ring. "You know how the Thief King works."
She slipped him the ring in a silk pouch. "Yes."
"We will retrive the wings of the dead angel and return to you in two days."
"I understand." Perla looked saddened to watch her gold ring vanish into his pocket, but she looked up at him. "Thank you so much, Pheonix. Your a good frined."
Pheonix smiled. "Dove and Raven will return with your wings when the Thief King has retrieved them." He bowed and then launched himself into the tangle of wires and cables high above and vanished over the roof of a building across the nearby canal.
"'The wings of the dead angel'?" Scipio looked down at Perla, who had crouched down and hidden her face in her hands. "What 'wings' are you asking for?"
"They are the wings of a crystal angel that I had been robbed of. I wanted to keep it, but someone took it from the thief and now I want it back. They are the only thing I remember of the man known as my father. After I became a performer, he stopped treating me like a daughter. The crystal angel was his last gift to me as a daughter instead of a tool." She looked up and her blue eyes were welling up with tears. "You understand, don't you?"
Scipio stared down at her and he felt that burning impulse to hold her and let her cry. He simply knelt down next to her and rested her head against his chest. "There are many reasons we steal, but there are more reasons to want. Many things we want we can't have, so we steal them," he whispered in her ear as she clenched a fistful of his jacket and held on tightly, softly crying in his arms.