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“So the ledger didn’t vanish from the cemetery first,” I say. “It moved through the festival system, then back to the groundskeeper.”

“And someone knew enough to look for it at Theo’s,” Scarlet says.

The room feels colder.

Marcy closes the lid carefully. “I can keep searching here, but the local bakeries may know where the old catering files ended up.”

Scarlet glances toward the front windows, then back at me. “Come on. Let’s go get coffee and bother our friends with historical paperwork.”

I look back at the Vines handwriting. J.V.

Jessamine Vines was here before us, sorting flowers like evidence while the town called them pretty.

My phone buzzes with a text from Theo.

Got supplies. Also cheese because Ezra said we’d forget.

A second text appears.

He said to tell Scarlet not to let you lick old paper.

I laugh before I can stop myself, then send him a text to let him know we’re heading to Sweet Tooth.

Scarlet raises a brow. “Do I want to know?”

“No.” I take a photo of the tab, then another of the crossed-out decoration note. “But apparently I’m loved and supervised.”

Scarlet smiles. “Good. You need both.”

I look at the box again.

For the first time, the old language doesn’t feel like a ghost story. It feels like instructions, and now we have a new place to look.

Chapter 30

Pepper Vines

Sweet Tooth Café isn’t built for quiet emergencies. It’s built for powdered sugar, heart-shaped waffles, and gossip dressed up as concern. The bell over the door rings as Scarlet and I step inside, and half the café looks up. Then half the café smells me.

I stop so fast Scarlet bumps my shoulder. A beta at the counter lowers her coffee. Two alphas near the window go very still. Mrs. Delaney turns in her chair, knitting needles paused mid-row, her eyes softening with the kind of sympathy that makes my spine want to flee my body.

My scent is still changing, and it broadcasts my dating status like a headline: schoolteacher smells like sex and a forming pack. Peppermint, rosemary, vanilla, Theo’s leather and bourbon under my skin, Ezra’s linen and apple in my hair. I’m new enough at controlling my scent that I have no idea how to tell my body to be subtle.

Scarlet steps closer. “You good?”

“Physically, yes. Socially, I would like to crawl into the pastry case.”

Honey appears behind the counter with a tray in one hand and murder in her eyes. Not at me. At everyone else.

“Unless somebody wants to take it up with me, we’re not making faces at Pepper’s scent today,” she says brightly.

Every head in the café turns away at once.

Scarlet smiles at Honey. “That was gentle for you.”

“I’ll work on being meaner.” Honey sets the tray down, rounds the counter, and pulls me into a hug that smells like sugar, butter, orange zest, and home. “Pepper, my sweet friend.”

“Hi.”