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“It was great to see you again,” Horst called after Dirchan. “All the best to your family.” Then he bent at the waist, hands on his knees while he breathed deeply for several beats before straightening up.

“Quill,” he said. “Thank you. Truly.”

“I don’t understand,” I said, my hands—and voice—still shaky from the oxygen deprivation. “That was just a regular brooch. Why did he believe it was his mother?”

“Quill did...something.” Horst looked to the Unseelie queen, one eyebrow raised. “Some kind of masking spell, right?”

“Foolish of you both to assume I don’t always have the ashes of powerful dead fae on my person for just such an emergency,” Quill said tartly.

Then she turned with a flounce of her skirts.

“Now, as enjoyable as this has been, I am done with you. But I very much look forward to collecting on what you both owe me. This is, as you mortals would say, quite a dear diary moment.”

Honestly, at that point, I was relieved to see the back of her. Knowing Quill, if she’d been eager to stick around, it would have meant even more disaster was headed our way.

And I really, really could not take one more disaster that day.

“Come on,” Horst said, leading me to the café section and guiding me to a chair. “You should drink something. It’ll help your throat.”

He loaded a glass with ice, then filled it with pink lemonade before setting it on the table in front of me.

I took a long sip, the cold lemonade easing the burn in my throat. “You asked Quill for a favor.”

Horst got one of the unused saucers and put a couple cookies on it. He carried it over, sat down across from me, and slid the plate over. “Yes,” he said. “I did.”

“You said we should never ask Quill for favors,” I pointed out. “You said you would rather die than owe her.”

“And I would rather owe her than let anything happen to you.” He reached across the table and took my hand in his. “I am so sorry. I never meant for you to get caught up in all that.”

“Who was that guy?”

“Dirchan is a mortician in a small town in Oklahoma. He mostly caters to magical families.” Oomy climbed out of his pocket and chittered at him encouragingly.

“You might think I’m a terrible person for stealing from him, but quite a few magical objects passed through his funeral home and he helped himself to anything that struck his fancy.

He isn’t such a great guy himself. I don’t think he would have cared about me stealing from him if I hadn’t accidentally stolen the brooch he’d made using his mother’s ashes. ”

“Accidentally?”

He waved his free hand. “Fine—I purposefully stole the brooch. I just hadn’t realized it was so powerful because his mother’s power was trapped in it.”

“But the brooch you gave him wasn’t the actual brooch. Won’t he look at it later and realize it’s not the same?”

“Oh, come on.” He smiled fondly at me. “You know how men are. You think he ever actually looked at it? As long as he felt his mother’s presence—and whatever spell Quill did on it made sure he did—then he’s satisfied.”

I considered trying a cookie, but opted for another sip of lemonade instead. “Why’d you break into the pawn shop instead of just going during business hours? And why did you take me along?”

He turned his face away, rubbing his hand over the back of his neck. “I’m not actually allowed inside Clyde’s anymore. His wife is a big fan of my lotions, and Clyde may have misunderstood the meaning of some of her social media hashtags.”

“Like #ILikeBigPipes?”

“Something like that.” He had the decency to look a teeny bit ashamed. But only for a moment. Brightening, he added, “And I took you along partly because I was trying to keep you safe, but mostly because I thought it was a pretty damn romantic date night.”

Well, he was right about that. Still, I wished he’d just been open with me. “Why didn’t you just tell me what was going on?”

He sighed. “Because I though the less you knew, the safer you would be. Obviously, I was very wrong. I’m sorry he targeted you.

I never thought he would stoop to breaking windows and opening rat cages, let alone try to hurt you.

” He was quiet for a moment, and then his eyes lit up.

“But even without me talking about it, you still managed to figure out how to help me by finding a suitable replacement brooch. You know why that is, Glory O’Bryan? ”

I squinted at him. “Because I overheard you talking at the antique store?”

“I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that. The correct answer is because we’re BFFs.” He brought my hand to his lips, kissing my fingertips. “I noticed you haven’t been wearing the necklace I got you.”

“I—” My voice caught in my throat. I had no idea how to finish that sentence.

I wasn’t sure whether it was just a gag gift.

I didn’t know if you would think I take our relationship more seriously than you do.

I don’t know what the term BFF means to you.

I couldn’t say any of that to him, and not just because my throat still felt too raw for a “where is this going” conversation about a relationship that, had I been updating my Facebook status, would have absolutely been classified as “It’s complicated.”

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I think I figured out why.”

I opened my mouth to say something, but he put his thumb on my bottom lip to stop me. “It’s because you don’t want just a BFF necklace. You want something more.”

Getting to his feet, he reached into the pocket of his jeans. “I got you something,” he whispered. “Something a lot more significant than a BFF necklace.”

Something more significant than a BFF necklace?

OMG. Was he about to...was he going to propose ?

My mind whirled. How could this be happening? We barely knew each other. Although, really, we’d been through some pretty major crises together. If marriage was for better or worse, we’d already run that gamut in just the first few weeks we’d known each other.

“Glory O’Bryan,” he said, his face very serious. “I would be honored if you would wear this.”

With that he held up his hand and opened his fingers, from which dangled a very sparkly, very big...

Heart-shaped necklace.

When I say it was sparkly and big, I mean this thing was the size of a golf ball, and the deep, full red of a ruby, edged in tiny diamonds. As I watched, the two halves of the heart separated.

I stared at it, both mesmerized and confused. “Is that another BFF necklace?” I asked.

“No.”

“Because it looks like another BFF necklace.”

“It’s not a BFF necklace.” He held it closer. “See? It’s a VBFF necklace.”

“VBFF?”

“ Very Best Friends Forever.” He held one half of the heart out to me. It dangled from a thick, bright gold chain that looked like it would absolutely turn my neck green in hours. “I think we’ve gone beyond BFFs.”

“Did you steal this too?”

“Glory O’Bryan! Of course not. You were so concerned about the fact that I might have.

..let’s go with lifted the last one that I knew better than to steal anything nice for you.

” He flashed me a knowing grin. “I got this out of one of those little machines at the grocery store. For a quarter, if you can believe it.”

I could. I could very much believe it.

But when he clasped the necklace around my neck, the cheap half heart glowed with a brilliant light and I felt the tingle of magic.

For a man who stole pretty much everything he wanted, the fact that he’d bought this for me meant something.

Maybe it had just been a quarter, but it was something.

And it meant even more when he dropped the other half of the heart into his shirt pocket, patting it gently. “There,” he said. “It’s safe with the other one.”

The other one.

“You keep the other BFF necklace in your pocket?” I asked.

“Of course. It’s where I keep everything that matters to me—my pipes, Oomy, and now you.”

I blinked, trying to hide the tears that threatened to well up. Maybe Roger was right that my complicated relationship with my sister had made me need extra reassurance from friends and romantic partners, and I was sure that was something I would keep working on with him in the future.

But maybe I also needed to work on recognizing that reassurance when I received it.

Horst had made a deal with the devil—well, Quill—in order to save me.

He’d figured out how to lead my rats out of danger and back into their cage.

And he’d purchased the world’s tackiest—and somehow most beautiful—necklace for me because I hadn’t worn the first one he’d given me.

Something to keep in mind. If I didn’t wear this necklace, he was likely to find something even worse.

He reached out his hands for mine. When he had hold of both of them, he pulled me to my feet. Carefully tucking my hair behind my ears, he scanned my face and whispered, “I’m so glad you’re okay.”

And then he kissed me, the kind of kiss that had us awkwardly fumbling our way through the door to the cat section, headed for my apartment.

We’d made it halfway through the cat area when we heard it: the scratch-scratch of a cat in a litter box.

Followed—of course—by the unmistakable sound of a cat in intestinal distress.

The treats had finally done their damage.

Horst lifted his head, out of breath from our mobile make-out session. “Is that...?”

“Cat diarrhea? Yeah.”

He rested his brow against mine, still breathing hard. “How incredibly romantic.”

“I mean, it’s no princess bouncy castle,” I said, loving the way I could feel his chuckle rumble through his chest when I was pressed against him. “I’m going to have to take care of that.”

He groaned but released me. “I’ll help you.”

“You’re going to help me deal with a dirty litter box?” I asked.

He fiddled with the sparkling heart around my neck. “I’m just as surprised as you are. But I’m not going to let you deal with the hard stuff by yourself.”

The tears threatened again, and I would have pulled him down for another kiss had the room not smelled like I’d let a bunch of six-year-olds give unlimited lickable treats to ten cats.

Another terrible decision.

But having someone to help me clean up the consequences of my bad decisions sure did make it feel less terrible.