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“Polo!” I called out once I was inside. I immediately heard the clicking if nails on the floor as my good boy got up from his bed in the kitchen and scampered into the hall to greet me. “There you are, sweetheart,” I said, the image of Bastian forming in my mind as I said those words. “Are you ready to get dressed and go to a party?” I asked, scratching and rubbing Polo’s head and neck as he wagged his tail and tried to lick me. “Of course you are!”

I headed into the kitchen to feed Polo, and while he ate his dinner, I ran upstairs to change into my costume. My thoughts were already swirling around what people were going to say to my medieval Italian merchant get-up when I spotted something in the front bedroom that had me skidding to a halt and backing up to look.

The front window was fogged up again, and the heart was back. There wasn’t just one now, though. There were two, and they were intertwined.

“Okay,” I said slowly and breathlessly, gaping into the room. “I think you’re trying to tell me something, Josaiah.”

The house was silent in return, but I swore I could feel a presence of some sort. Or maybe that was my overactive imagination.

I looked around the front bedroom one more time, then stared at the hearts, which were already fading. “I get it,” I said, raising my hands like I needed to appease the spirits. “I’m working on it, I swear.”

Everything remained silent around me, but for the distant sounds of Polo downstairs. I took a step back, then continued on to my bedroom, the hair on the back of my neck standing up. I definitely had to tell Bastian about this. He’d said the heart might have been remnants of an old sticker that had been on the window, but that didn’t explain the second heart. I was beginning to think that poor, sad, jilted Josaiah was a romantic.

I changed as quickly as I could, unsure whether I wanted to stay in the house talking to Josaiah to make sure I knew what he wanted or whether I wanted to get out of there as fast as possible. Fortunately, I had a party to attend, and I needed to rush to make it there on time.

Polo was happy to get out of the house. We went for walks every day and he loved the neighborhood, but he loved people and hadn’t met nearly enough of them yet. Common Grounds was already busy by the time we got there. It was lit up with the pumpkin-shaped string lights Diccon had sourced, and the window display was one of the most inviting things I’d ever seen.

“Who do you have there?” Brian asked, zeroing in on Polo right away as soon as we walked through the door. Brian was dressed in a truly terrible nineteen-eighties spandex workout costume. He’d nailed the theme of spooky historical.

“This is the best boy in the entire world,” I said, crouching to give Polo a quick pat, then to put the little medieval hat with an ostrich feather that I’d made for him on over his ears.

“Hi, boy,” Brian moved in to pet him as well.

Polo was in heaven.

“Hey, Marco,” Sam came over to join us, also dressed in a ridiculous eighties spandex costume. “This must be the good boy we’ve heard so much about.” He reached down to pat Polo as I stood. He nodded to my costume and asked, “Who are you supposed to be?”

I held my arms out with a wide grin. “Can you guess?”

Brian shifted to stand by Sam’s side. The two of them were adorable together, especially in their shiny spandex. “Henry the Eighth?” he guessed.

“Nope,” I said, then gave them a hint by standing with my hand on Polo.

Sam’s eyes went wide, and he barked a laugh. “Oh my god,” he said. “Marco Polo.”

“You got it,” I said, laughing with him.

That laughter got caught in my throat as the café’s door opened and Bastian stepped in.

At least, I thought it was Bastian. My brain froze the second I saw him. The red hair was gone. He’d had his hair cut, and instead of being vibrant and expressive, it was an ordinary brown. He wore a suit that fit well, like it had been tailored to suit his proportions. It was a medium grey instead of the black he usually wore. Somehow, his skin even looked like it had more color in it.

My jaw dropped.

“Holy—” Sam began in a hushed voice, staring.

Bastian smiled uneasily, nodding at a few of the locals who gaped at him as he made his way deeper into the café and over to where Polo and I stood. Even Polo tilted his head to the side and stared like he didn’t know what to make of the man approaching us.

“Hey,” Bastian said once he was close.

“Happy Halloween,” Sam greeted him, then said, “I feel like I should shake your hand and ask how my investments are doing.”

Bastian laughed nervously. “I thought I’d try a new look out. What better way to hard launch it than at a Halloween party?”

I wanted to say something, but I couldn’t form a single thought in my head, let alone words. I could only stare, wondering what happened to my Bastian.

“You look great,” he said, tugging at the hem of his suit jacket and shuffling a little. “Marco Polo, right?”

“I—yeah,” I managed to push out hoarsely.