I stare at her.
"Word travels fast," Dotty says, with the satisfaction of someone who lit the match and is enjoying the warmth. "That's two weeks in and people are already requesting things by name. Do you know how long it takes most people to build that kind of interest?"
"I've made them exactly once," I say. "As a panic pivot. Because Lucifer cremated my would-be croissants."
"And yet." She pours herself a cup from the thermos she brought — she always brings her own, which I've come to understand is less about the coffee and more about having something to do with her hands while she delivers information. "You've achieved a certain mystique."
"A mystique based on a lucky accident," I say weakly.
"Honey, that's how most good things start." She sets the thermos down on the prep counter and looks at the cooling racks with the frank assessment of someone who has been feeding this town for years. "Edna's scones were an accident too. She told me once she'd been aiming for a biscuit."
My chest tightens. Not the bad way. Something unexpected landed and I don’t know what to do with it. The part of my brain that’s been quietly waiting for everything here to fall apart is recalculating, because apparently the thing I made in desperation is the thing people want.
Before she goes, I pull one of the test croissants off the rack — still warm, slightly imperfect, the one I've been eyeing since it came out. "Here," I say. "Tell me if this is insane."
Dotty breaks it open. Steam curls out. She takes a bite, and her expression does the same thing Jace's did with the scone — not reacting, just tasting, absorbing. She chews. She swallows.
"That's not insane," she says.
"That's it? That's all I get?"
"That'severything." She wraps the rest of it in a napkin and tucks it into her jacket pocket like it's something worth keeping. "I have a café to open. Make more of those."
She leaves, and I'm alone with Lucifer and twenty-two croissants and the specific, terrifying feeling of someone believing in something before I've had time to talk myself out of it.
I throw myself into the salmon scones next — six for Marnie, a dozen for Tessa, and a few extra because my hands need something to do with the information that people are asking for things I made. The technique is automatic now. Flour, butter, buttermilk, the salmon folded in at the last possible moment so it stays in distinct flakes rather than disappearing into the dough. I've done this enough times that my body knows thesteps before my brain catches up. That part is new. That part is something I didn't have two weeks ago.
Piper Lockwood arrives at half past nine with a bag from Marnie's and the energy of someone who has already had three conversations before most people are awake.
"I come bearing supplies," she announces, setting the bag on the counter and peering at the cooling racks with open curiosity. "And also opinions. The opinions are free."
"That tracks," I say. I've known Piper for exactly two weeks and already understand that the opinions are always free and always specific and almost always right, which is its own kind of exhausting.
She's examining the croissants with the focus of someone doing actual research when it happens.
A crash against the side window. The specific, rattling, every-dish-in-the-kitchen rumble together that I now recognize the way some people recognize a car alarm — the sound of Morris announcing himself.
His face fills the glass. Enormous. Damp. Deeply self-satisfied.
I set the tray I'm holding down on the counter. Carefully. Deliberately. "Morris," I say, the way you'd say the name of someone who keeps showing up uninvited to events they weren't invited to in the first place.
"He does this to everyone," Piper says, completely unbothered, stealing a croissant off the cooling rack.
"Every time I'm holding something," I say.
Morris presses his nose to the glass. A fog circle blooms. He blinks at me with the patient authority of an animal who has never once been told no and doesn't intend to start.
"He wants apple scraps," Piper says. "Edna used to leave them on the sill. He hasn't figured out the management has changed."
"The management has nothing for him." I point at Morris. He stares back. "Nothing. There are no apples. Go eat bark."
Morris blinks. Resumes fogging the window.
Piper takes another croissant. "He's going to stand there until he gets bored or until you give him something."
"Then he's going to stand there a long time," I say, and I turn back to the prep counter because I have eighteen scones to box and Morris has never once respected my schedule and I've accepted this about him.
He stays for twenty minutes. Piper stays longer, perched on the stool by the window like she's watching a nature documentary and finds it deeply entertaining. She eats two more croissants and declares them "aggressively good," which I've decided to take as a compliment. By the time Morris finally loses interest and lumbers back into the brush, I've filled both orders of scones and started a third batch just because the rhythm of it feels good.