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I’m not saying Quill is bad luck, but she certainly had a knack for showing up just before disaster struck.

Which, as Horst explained to me, was why she came—she really, really loved chaos.

The last time she’d appeared on my doorstep was shortly before Horst tried to steal a locket, one of the few things I had left from my sister Destiny, a misunderstanding that wound up almost getting both of us killed.

So was I a little nervous about what her appearance at the café meant?

Sure.

Did I tell myself it was all in my head?

Of course.

Did I imagine all manner of terrible events going down in my café until I had to ground myself—repeatedly—using Roger’s five senses method?

You bet.

But then...nothing happened. Everything was fine. I mean, sure, Cupcake still seemed sad and listless, and she had pretty much holed up in the litter box I’d supplied them, leaving it only to get food and water. But as Horst pointed out, she was a rat. Perhaps that was what some rats were like.

So, no, disaster didn’t strike.

Immediately.

Nope. It took a few days.

The first sign that something had gone terribly, terribly wrong—or deliciously right, I suppose, if you looked at it from Quill’s perspective—was the squeaking. I’d gotten used to the steady squeak-squeak-squeak of the wheel, and occasionally I’d hear Cookie squeak a bit here and there.

This was much different. This was a crescendo of squeaks. So much squeaking my first thought was that the cats had somehow managed to get the door of the cage open—despite the lock I’d found—and the rats were in mortal danger.

No.

It was worse.

Much, much worse.

Because when I hurried up to the cage, I found the doors closed tight. Cookie was Spiderman-ing her way across the underside of the top of the cage, hanging upside-down as she climbed from one side of the cage to the other. Cupcake was still in the litter box, along with the source of the squeaks.

Because the squeaks weren’t coming from Cookie or Cupcake.

They were coming from the pile of wiggly pink jelly beans beside Cupcake.

It took an embarrassingly long time for my brain to fully comprehend what I was seeing. Because... how ? How was this possible? How had Cupcake managed to produce a literal pile of what even I, with my very limited rat knowledge, understood were baby rats?

I mean, sure, I knew the basics—when a daddy rat and a mommy rat love each other very much and all that—but where had Cupcake met a daddy rat?

Was Cookie...But, no. One of the videos I saw of rat care advice had featured a male rat and his, um, appendages .

Which were large. And very, very obvious.

Cookie wasn’t dragging her two best friends behind her.

Not that the how really mattered. At that moment, what really mattered was finding out what I needed to do about this situation.

A rapidly escalating situation. Because if I wasn’t mistaken, Cupcake was still producing jelly beans right before my eyes like the worst kind of magic trick.

For the second time in less than a week, I headed for the pet store.

***

Luckily, Emma was once again behind the counter as I practically tumbled into the store in a bit of a panic.

“Good afternoon. Welcome to Meow Do You—”

“Do you remember that rat you sold me a few days ago?” I interrupted.

She gave me a once-over. “I think so?”

“You sold me a rat. And a cage. And a whole cartful of stuff?” It had been five days ago. How often could she possibly con someone into taking a pregnant rat off the store’s hands?

“Sure?” She didn’t look convinced that she’d ever seen me before, but I didn’t have time to jog her memory.

I had a rat making a bunch of other rats in my cat café.

“That rat had babies.”

I waited for her to spring into action. Surely this was a shocking piece of news. She’d probably want proof—I had taken photos before I left—and then she would...well, I wasn’t sure what the protocol was, but surely this young woman would know what to do.

But she didn’t look particularly interested. “Cool?”

Cool? That was it? “I didn’t want her to have babies.”

“Oh.” She shrugged. “Then...sorry?”

“How is this possible?”

“Oh. Yeah, they come to the store all mixed together and we separate them by sex. So it happens.”

It. Happens.

“You sell a lot of pregnant rats?”

She tossed her hair—this time in a long ponytail—over one shoulder and began playing with the end of it. “I mean...most of our rats are sold as feeders, so it’s not like it matters.”

Oh. Right. That was why I had them in the first place—so they didn’t end up fed to snakes.

“We can take the babies back if you don’t want them. Just bring them in when they’re about three weeks old.”

“What will you do with them?”

She looked at me like I was an idiot. “We’ll sell them?”

As pets. Or as feeders. Whatever someone wanted rats for.

Yeah. That was not happening.

It looked like Quill was right—I’d bitten off more than I could chew.