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Cass showed up at the café a couple days later, a big cardboard box in her arms.

“Hey,” she sang as she walked in and set the box down on one of the wrought-iron tables. “I come bearing gifts.”

“Ooh, I love gifts,” I said, walking around the counter to check out what she’d brought.

“Horst mentioned something about a bedazzled apron?” She shot me a questioning glance before continuing. “Anyway, my daughter Margot is getting into catering, so she has a bunch of nice aprons. I grabbed one for you to borrow.”

“That’s so sweet of you. Thank you.” I had completely forgotten about picking up a more professional apron, so it was a relief to know I could check that off my list.

“And we had some crystal vases that I thought you might be able to use, plus some fancy forks with fairies on the ends that seemed perfect for a princess party.”

She held out one of the forks for me. It felt like real silver, with a cherubic fairy face forming the blunt end. “These are amazing,” I said.

Cass leaned back over the box, digging around. “There are few other things in here. Some tablecloths that you might be able to use, that sort of thing.” She straightened up, gesturing at the box like she was Vanna White and I had just asked to buy the letter “E.”

“Cass, this is incredible. Thank you for thinking of me.” I put the fork back into the box with the rest of the stuff. “Let me get you a coffee. On the house. And anything you’d like to eat.”

“I’m not sure if you’re just being polite, but I don’t care. I will absolutely take you up on that. Can I get a cappuccino and...” She walked over to the glass display case and studied the contents. “And one of those Almond Joy cupcakes.”

“Absolutely.”

While I made her cappuccino, she meandered over to the window, where a fluffy orange tabby named Cheddar Murphy was perched, nose pressed to the glass.

“This guy’s adorable,” Cass said.

“I imagine he’ll get snapped up soon. The really pretty ones seem to move through here quickly.” I thought of Jojo, who was cursed with being unremarkable looks-wise but definitely remarkable gas-wise. He was going to be with me for awhile.

I was still thinking about how I might make cats like Jojo more attractive to adopters when there was a loud crashing sound. “What the—” Cass said, turning to face the window that looked out onto the parking lot.

Or rather, what had been a window. Now it was a hole surrounded by a few remaining bits of glass, the rest of the glass scattered across the floor under the windowsill.

“Are you okay?” I asked, hurrying over to make sure she hadn’t been hit by any bits of flying glass.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” She shook her feet, dislodging a couple pieces of stray glass from her shoes, but she didn’t seem to be hurt at all. Moving closer, she bent down and scooped up a rock. “Looks like this is what did it.”

It wasn’t just a rock. Wrapped around it was a piece of paper, tied with a bit of twine. Wordlessly, Cass handed the whole thing to me, then watched as I undid the string and pulled the paper off the rock.

“It’s blank,” I said, turning it over and then back again as I scanned it for any hint as to why someone would throw a rock through my café window.

“Blank?” she asked. “Can I see it?”

I passed her the sheet of paper. She did the same thing I had, flipping it over to check the back before shaking her head. “I don’t get it,” she said.

“Me neither.”

“Cass Lindstrom! You’re here!”

We both looked up to see Horst emerging from the kitchen, his face alight. But that light dimmed considerably when he saw the shattered window.

“What happened?” he asked, vaulting neatly over the display case in a move I was sure I’d still be thinking about when I was an elderly woman.

“Glory,” Cass said, jogging me out of a brief fantasy in which Horst vaulted over every piece of furniture in my apartment. “Show him.”

Oh. Right. The paper. I offered it to him, even though I didn’t know what he was supposed to get out of it.

Unlike Cass and me, Horst didn’t bother flipping the paper over. He held it up, his eyes darting back and forth as though he were reading something written there. Then he crumpled the paper into a ball with one hand. “Well,” he said. “I suppose we should get this cleaned up.”

“What did it say?” I asked.

“It said—” He caught himself. “You saw it. There was nothing there.”

There had definitely been something there, something Cass and I couldn’t see but that Horst could. Some sort of fae magic, I imagined.

And he still wouldn’t tell me what was going on.

“You know what,” he began, one hand lightly patting the pocket of his shirt. “Maybe you should go visit your hometown for a week or so. Take a trip. Get away from all this humidity for a bit.”

I palmed the rock that had broken my window. It was roughly the size of my fist, and it occurred to me how lucky I’d been that neither Cass nor I was standing in its path when it came through the window. “I have a business to run. And a party to throw. I can’t leave town right now.”

“I can handle things for you while you’re gone,” he said. “I’m a pretty decent baker, believe it or not. Tell her, Cass.”

“He actually is,” Cass agreed.

“And I can take care of the cats. And the”—he winced—“rats. Only...the cats don’t use the litter box every day, do they? I really don’t do litter boxes.”

He was teasing me, but I wasn’t in the mood to be teased. Someone had just thrown a rock into my place of business, and Horst knew who it was and why.

And he wouldn’t tell me.

“What’s going on, Horst?” I asked him, my voice deliberately soft and controlled.

“Why would you think something’s going on?” he asked. Then he started moving toward the kitchen. “Do you keep your broom and dustpan back here?”

“I’m not an idiot,” I snapped. “You know why this happened.”

He froze halfway to the kitchen. When he turned around, his mask was so firmly in place that I could barely see the real him in there. “I don’t think you’re an idiot. But I do wish you would leave town for a little while.”

“You could come stay at the Enchanted Forest,” Cass offered.

“Thanks, Cass, but I’m not leaving unless I know why. Horst, are you going to tell me?”

A muscle in one of his cheeks twitched as he met my gaze. “There are things you are better off not knowing,” he said finally.

“Then I’m staying.” I crossed my arms over my chest and lifted my chin. If he couldn’t trust me enough to tell me why he was worried, why should I trust him enough to listen to him?

Horst’s shoulders sagged. “Fine. I’ll get someone to fix your window tomorrow,” he said.

“That would be helpful. Thank you.”

With a nod, he turned and went to get the broom.