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Memory manipulation was a tricky thing to pull off, anyway. It was hugely useful, of course, so her father had made sure she learned how to do it at a very young age, but she'd never liked using it, even in her more reckless days.

It felt wrong, in a lot of ways. She was taking something that didn't belong to her. Sure, they wouldn't miss it as long as she did it correctly, but that didn't change the essential nature of the act. Thievery.

She much preferred just remaining invisible. No mess to clean up afterward. Or guilt to deal with.

Of course, a Sparrow's "invisibility" was not truly so. That, too, was a mental trick. They weren't manipulating light or altering the physical composition of their bodies. Instead, it was simply a matter of tweaking the "perception" of their presence.

That was why it worked even on reapers. It didn't rely on fooling anyone's eyesight. It was about fooling their mind. And reapers--even if they didn't have physical bodies--still had minds.

It wasn't that hard, either, especially with all the practice she had. It didn't matter how many people were looking at her. As long as she could touch their naked minds, the simple desire to conceal herself was all she required to make it so. As easy as flipping a switch that controlled a thousand light bulbs.

Cameras, however, could still be a problem. She wouldn't be able to block the perception of someone watching television five hundred miles away, and she couldn't alter a camera's perception of her, either.

She could, however, simply avoid them.

A Sparrow's eyesight was certainly remarkable, but it was more than just that. When she concentrated, she could see through eyes that were not her own. She could listen with ears that did not belong to her. She could touch with fingers she'd never had.