There are two ways of stealing the things from the shelves and chests in the presence of the merchants and other NPC.
As everyone knows, the simplest way is as follows: you can simply take a thing from the shelf and drop it on the ground, and eventually, picking it up and dropping again, move it outside the vision of the NPC in question, and only then get it into your inventory. This way works equally well for all characters.
A more elegant way is for mages only, and I think it's not so commonly known.
Stand at the spot, from which you cannot see the shelf with the things you need, but from which you can see the NPC who is watching you. And then -- use the special move for mages on the NPC! Voila! You have changed places with the NPC! Now from his new spot s/he cannot see the shelf with the goods, and you can go directly to the shelf and comfortably pick up whatever things you want. The reaction of the NPC towards you remains the same (evidently, they do not regard this as an attack). If you are playing a mage, you may find this little lovely trick useful. It especially comes in handy if you see a couple of spell books in someone's private library and want to acquire them not being caught for theft. (I found it out when I was trying to get a couple of books from Sir Patrick's library).
Not sure that this method was mentioned before; if it has been published earlier and I missed it, please kindly refer me to the relevant link.
